


Man off the Moon

by obeyingthemuse



Category: Fate/EXTRA, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, I DO NOT OWN THIS, I'm just posting this on ao3 for the author with their permission
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 732,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23107792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obeyingthemuse/pseuds/obeyingthemuse
Summary: The story of an unyielding man thrust into a galaxy of myriad grays—of questioning the past and of walking the same steps, wondering whether any answers beyond death lie at the end of that long, ever-winding road. (Ch41@2k words)(y r guest reviewers arguing in my reviews now? :S )
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62
Collections: Works Worth Rereading





	1. New Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Just a reminder, I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY. This is entirely FiendLurcher's creation, but because converting chapters to html just to post them on ao3 is SUFFERING, I volunteered to do this for them. ~~Because I'm a masochist, apparently.~~ ~~That said, my converting each chapter will take time, so please be patient. If you can't wait, the most recently-updated version of the story is also on FFN and spacebattles.~~ This version on ao3 is finally up-to-date!! *throws confetti*
> 
> Any questions you have for FiendLurcher should be forwarded to them on [fanfiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12904733/1/Man-off-the-Moon)  
> or [spacebattles.com](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/man-off-the-moon-fate-extra-x-mass-effect.641011/). They might also have an ao3 account, but to my understanding, they're not active on it. 
> 
> I love this story and am honoured to share it on ao3. I hope others have as much fun reading this as I do. Enjoy!

_α 4,600,000,000 BCE_

The Moon Cell Automaton is created for purpose of observation and recording of events.

Continues to observe the universe, maintaining its perfect objectivity in recording events impartially.

* * *

_β 1,000,000,000 BCE_

Construction of Mass Relays and Citadel begins by parties unknown.

* * *

_β 50,000 BCE_

The Prothean empire is brought to an end, like countless civilizations before them.

* * *

_α 12,000 BCE_

Velber invades.

Sephyr scourges the Earth, destroying all civilizations and laying low all the gods until it is brought down by the wielder of the holy sword. As a consequence, the other half of Sephyr which had been invading the Moon Cell is sealed away in the Zero Dark. The Moon Cell lost all prior records, suffering crippling losses during this battle.

The Moon Cell begins to calculate methods for continuing its existence; destruction by Velber would prevent continued observation of Earth. Gaia begins to favor the race of Man over the Gods, due to the wielder of the holy sword's success where all others failed. The surface of the World begins to slowly change to suit emerging dominant species.

* * *

_α 1970 CE_

Mana begins to disappear from the World and magecraft begins to wane. Slow shift among circuit possessing humans to Spiritron Hacking as information technology advances.

* * *

_α 2012 CE_

Emiya Shirou stands in trial for numerous counts of terrorism, extrajudicial killings, summary executions, funding & training & operation of international death squads, kidnapping & torture & unjust imprisonment of numerous individuals and the assassination of fourteen public figures.

Additionally, one count of attempted use of WMD and attempted false flag with the intent of beginning World War 3—which failed, as the nuclear plant he had infiltrated failed to reach critical temperature for unknown reasons. Projected death count according to court records had this act of terrorism succeeded in range of 10,000+ immediate civilian casualties.

Emiya Shirou found guilty and given death sentence.

The Moon Cell receives a nameless hero of justice as a contracted guardian, as payment for giving a man the power to prevent a nuclear meltdown and saving the lives of a handful of people.

* * *

_α 2020 CE_

Humanity is on the cusp of discovering the Moon Cell as Spiritron Hacking continues to grow.

The Moon Cell considers inviting select humans as representatives for a Holy Grail War. Winner will be granted the Regalia; a Royal Authority to wield the Moon Cell's power. Meant to act as vanguard against future return of Velber or re-awakening of Sephyr in Zero Dark.

* * *

_α 2030 CE_

The Moon Cell observes near-future and runs virtual world simultaneous parallel processing to predict future. Many futures lead to destruction by Velber, forcing the Moon Cell to reconsider current methodology and means.

Efficiency and harm to continued observation is weighed. Plans to contact humanity and organize Holy Grail War are canceled.

* * *

_β 2030 CE_

The Moon Cell slides into parallel world, deciding that continued observation of Earth α is possible from parallel world. Concludes that observation from adjacent worldline will decrease chance of discovery by Velber or re-awakening of Sephyr by 999.99192‰.

* * *

_β 2148 CE_

Humanity discovers Mass Effect physics, remaining wholly unaware of the Moon Cell's existence.

* * *

_β 2172 CE_

The Moon Cell discovers Prothean Ruins on southern pole of Mars. Notes possible observation station that exceeds current oldest records in databank. Unable to trace existence in immediate lightyear around itself. Considers _secondary_ means of investigation.

* * *

;

* * *

There is a perfection to equations and numbers that can only be expressed through _equations_ and _numbers_. One goes here, thus another must be there. A balance. A symmetry.

 _Beauty_.

Something which most assuredly did not exist in humanity, Archimedes of Syracuse had found. Humanity was something he did not understand or could be understood by, he had come to realize over the years.

Perhaps this was due to the need of explaining this beauty through itself, a rather tautologous state of affairs which complicated it for most who lacked the mental capabilities of understanding it. Perhaps that is why he seemed to always stand alone, in opposition to the masses.

A fundamental difference in nature, one could say.

He preferred reason, logic and order. Humanity as a whole... did not. The closest word he could use to describe humanity—if he were forced to make such a judgment—would be _'lacking_ '. Lacking in almost all aspects of the things he found good.

Or even acceptable.

Thus, he had long since distanced himself from the matters of the world. Humans were scum, he knew this. But as long as he could busy himself with his equations and numbers, then he did not have to suffer with the knowledge of sharing the world with such aggravating existences.

Perhaps that was why he had been made the sole Administrator of the Moon Cell, among all the great and venerable heroes that had been recorded by the photonic crystal quantum super-computer orbiting Earth.

Other people saw reality and interpreted it however they wished. Their eyes beheld illusions and lies in the stead of facts and truth. Were that all, perhaps he could stubbornly accept their existences. But the crux of disgust for the whole of Humanity lay in the simple fact, that each and every single human being was not subject to this through the works of others...

But out of their own cowardice.

Perhaps that was why he, among and above all others, had been chosen to be given such privileges in the Moon Cell. He alone could see the _Truth_ of things and judge their worth and purpose. It had always been like that, so the duty had surprised him none at all.

Rather he took it with stride and pride.

Archimedes of Syracuse was undoubtedly the most suited man in all of history for such a job and he proved it every day. Indeed, this was the very definition of his perfect life. He had never eschewed the public life, for he had known the necessity even as he decried its ugliness. But here, he needed no one else. It was merely him, his tasks, _all_ the computational power he could ever ask for and his beautiful, perfect and most importantly—rational, equations.

He was assigned tasks, maintenance and technical duties; challenges which tickled his interest and intellect beyond the pale. And to fulfill those duties, he was given a proportionate amount of the nigh-infinite computational capacity the Moon Cell possessed.

Overall, a wonderful arrangement. By performing the very things he enjoyed he was permitted to further enjoy those very same things.

Except for one small issue.

_Completion 99.99%_

"Tsk."

It aggravated him, not having achieved a perfect completion rate. It was something he had accomplished for each quantum time-lock with unerring accuracy. Until now. Here and now, he stood lacking.

"What is it...?" He grumbled, his fingers dancing as he manipulated the connection he had to the Moon Cell with expert precision. His eyes focused on a particular line of data as he paused. " _Mars...?_ "

He frowned, raising his hand to his brow as he closed his eyes in thought. It made sense, then. He had completed every task set before him within the Moon Cell. But only _within_ the Moon Cell. This task regarded the analysis of something beyond its immediate boundaries.

Not merely outside the Serial Phantasms that made up its internal structure; the simulated reality that allowed their Cyber Frames to exist. Even beyond the surface of the physical shell of the Moon, beyond the direct sphere of influence of the Moon Cell and out in space. On the planet Mars, there lay an objective the Moon Cell wished to be investigated.

The Moon Cell did not possess a consciousness, as in its striving for perfect objectivity, it rejected anything that could color its observations with subjectivity. This meant that sometimes these small issues occurred.

For example, the Moon Cell wishing to investigate a ruin on Mars and having the ability to do so in an instant, but refusing due to its overall observation parameters being set only for Earth.

"...How peculiar." Archimedes mused, his fingers dancing. The sensors could be used to analyze such a nearby celestial object with ease.

The Moon Cell had been constructed by an unknown entity, whose identity did not exist even in the records held by the Moon Cell itself. His analysis had concluded that the Moon Cell was at least over 4.6 billion years ago, but the memory banks only ran as far back as 14,000 years.

It's power and technology was beyond anything humanity could even conceive. In this world or any other he had seen. Indeed, the sensors of the _Eye of God_ could even behold parallel realities. Such was it's absolute might. With a couple taps of his fingers, he could complete this matter and go on with his business.

 _But_ , he thought with a frown. _Such resources will be directly taken out of my share_.

He looked sideways, checking that his calculations and simulations continued to run unimpeded and without errors even now. Their beauty and potential made him smile, but he shook it off. If he were to brute force this, he would have to put his own work on hold. Not for long, but for a moment regardless.

That would mean not only pausing his continuous simulations, but rather shutting them down. Simulations, which had been running for countless cycles and continued to feed him with interesting data without fail with each new turn. If he shut them down for the scan, he would have to re-run every simulation until now to continue where he had left off.

He had always optimized his duties in such a fashion that he could maximize his own gains, leaving only the most fluid of tasks to a smaller portion that could be taken to use in case of an emergency. But as it was, that portion would be insufficient.

"Unacceptable." No, there had to be a simpler way. He tapped his chin in deep thought. "Perhaps if I created a simple device, through which the site could be analyzed and had this device deposited on Mars directly... and then had it brought back. No, no. That much would not be necessary. Simply having the device planted there would be enough.

"Yes... That might just work." He nodded to himself, satisfied with his plan. Of course, there lay only one problem that still needed to be solved. "Now who shall carry the probe to Mars?"

* * *

;

* * *

"Fools! Arrogant louts and contemptuous simpletons!"

He almost frothed at the mouth as he kicked the floor. With each step, he imagined grinding his feet into the faces of those he had sought to they not see the importance of his work? He was Archimedes of Syracuse, the sole technician of the Divine Automatic Recording Device, the Eye of God, the Moon Cell!

No. Those arrogant fools could only see their simple pleasures and pastimes.

He could not use an AI for its frame could not exist or function beyond SERAPH. Even the surface of the Moon would be pushing it and would be highly inefficient. Worse yet, who knew what those AI would do, given how simple-minded they were. He could not simply either launch a probe due to the humans occupying both the space around them and the ruins on Mars.

How aggravating. That left but one option; using a Heroic Spirit. Only the recorded existences of heroes and villains were strong enough to survive beyond the Moon Cell, while also possessing the necessary cleverness to avoid screwing everything up.

He had considered going himself.

But that would also require him to expend his personal resources, which was unacceptable. So he had devised a plan to incarnate a single Heroic Spirit on Earth and to have them investigate on his behalf using the powers of the human shell.

The spike to his process drain would be considerable, but much less than the alternative of direct analysis. It was a pity no life existed on the surface of the Moon, for there it would have been child's play to incarnate an envoy.

An _envoy_. Hah, really it was merely courier work. Something even a simpleton could accomplish.

Apparently, this had soured the minds all those who were capable of such an errand. 'Can't you just let us go directly?' they had asked and he had explained that it was inefficient. 'What do you mean we can't do anything? What's the point of leaving—hell, _Incarnating_! if you can't have some fun!' they had shouted back at him before blowing him off when he had tried to explain.

Idiots. The whole lot of them. Did they not understand that Heroic Spirits, lacking a Corpus, had no right to intervene in the world of the living?

No, they did not. SeRaPh Had made them used to being allowed to simply exist despite their status as ascended existences. They had gotten used to the state of affairs, not realizing it was the exception and not the norm.

Archimedes shook his head, ridding himself of any last thoughts of those fools. Inferiors, driven solely by their emotions and desires, unable to see the whole picture.

He had always known that to create a Utopia, it would have to be a totalitarian state. The rules would be enacted and enforced absolutely, so that the greater good would be served. Like now, how to serve the good, one of them should have accepted the burden and set forth to do as was necessary, without enacting extravagant messes along the way. He tried to explain it to those child-like fools, but none of them understood.

Heroic Spirits could not be so easily commanded and ordered around. Even the Moon Cell had trouble directly influencing those legendary figures.

'Well, why won't _you_ just go, then?'

Fools. The lot of them. _He_ was too important. Even in a Utopian society created through totalitarianism, he would never accept the judgments or orders of others. Archimedes sighed deeply, rubbing his brow as he paused.

"If only there was someone I could simply _command_ to do as I needed..." A window blipped open before him, causing him to pause as he stared. He blinked slowly, before a smile erupted on his face. "Ah, well if this isn't most fortuitous..."

He smiled, relaxing as the answer to his problems materialized in his mind as he walked back with light steps.

* * *

;

* * *

Nameless frowned, crossing his arms as he began to materialize.

He had been forcibly called by something and his soul had obeyed, materializing in a cyberframe on demand. Such was his lot as a contracted guardian of the Moon Cell. His soul and existence now served the whims and needs of the Moon in the sky, in exchange for the power to save a paltry number of people what seemed like an eternity ago.

It was a rare occasion for him to be called, since the Moon Cell seemed rather averse to direct action and prone to simply sitting around and doing nothing. This meant he had been left with a lot of time on his hands.

Time he had spent thinking and remembering.

The white-haired man had never regretted his decision in life, but afterwards he had begun to wonder. _Had it really been the right choice? No, more than that... Had I really lived my life in an acceptable manner_...

But such thoughts were not for this moment. He opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings with a cool gaze and stoic mien. Nondescript and bland, he judged. Comparatively to what the Moon Cell could create within its Serial Phantasm world, this space was of no note. Which ironically enough, rather made it stand out.

The man before him however was someone of note.

"Well, well. Archimedes of Syracuse. I can't say I had expected being called by you all people." He noted, smirking at the brown-haired man before him.

"I am sure you are honored, but I don't care much for such talk. Especially not with someone like you; an _unremarkable man_ who failed to accomplish anything of note on his own." Archimedes words were thorny, though not directly hostile. He did not even bother to look up from his work, reading off some screen before him as he acknowledged Nameless' presence.

Nameless simply shrugged, not bothering to deny those words. Had he not himself wondered at that very same question since his death?

"Then again, given that I am forced to turn to you... Perhaps it is the way of the world, that there exist mostly useless _janitors_ who can be put to better use when the needs arise."

"Hmm...?" Nameless raised an eyebrow, not bothering to feel heckled by the continued verbal abuse. He could simply tell that it was in this man's nature to speak bluntly from his own perspective. It somewhat reminded him of an old friend he had had as a youth, even.

He simply smiled at the strangely refreshing attitude the man had, as he waited for the him to continue.

"You don't deny it? Good. That means we can get to business. By the way, as a guardian you have no option to refuse; this is a matter set forth by the Moon Cell itself." Archimedes continued, finally looking up and meeting eyes with Nameless.

"I see. Well, it is good that the Moon Cell is finally finding some use for me. My days here have been nothing if not long and unexciting." He said shrugging lazily.

"Yes, I can see that. I had thought it peculiar that the Moon Cell sought to contract one such as you; a man without any achievements or notable abilities. Your records speak for themselves; after a disproportionately eventful life where you cast everything aside to fight meaningless battles that failed to leave any lasting mark on the world, you have been called forth a few times to put down rogue AI and attack programs when more direct methods by the Moon Cell were judged too overt or wasteful. How pitiful, truly the title of 'nameless' fits you." Archimedes sneered.

"Hmm..." Nameless simply made a neutral sound at that, not offering his thoughts as he continued his staredown with the Administrator.

" _Gruntwork_. Pitiful labor that could be performed by _anyone_. Then again, your cyberframe is quite pitiful for Knight-class Servant, isn't it? My own parameters as a _Caster_ almost rival yours; truly deplorable." The man continued, laughing lightly as he looked down at the screen before him.

"Then again, given your relative _youth_ it can't be helped. No, rather... I would say that it is impressive that anyone could even qualify as a Hero in this era. Good work, good work." Archimedes smiled, offering praise with an honest expression. Then it turned into a crooked smile. "Ah, well. That's not quite true though, is it? I took the liberty of analyzing Earth's records. It seems that no one remembers your existence anymore, hahahah... How pitiful, but I suppose it comes with being _nameless,_ after all."

Nameless shrugged. He had never done anything for wish of being recognized or celebrated; it mattered little what people thought of him.

"No, well. It is actually quite useful here and now, for you to be a complete unknown despite being relatively intimate with the era." Archimedes calmed down, erasing any traces of his previous joy as he settled into business. "I have called you here in my capacity as the Moon Cell's Administrator."

"I see. And what would you have of me?" Nameless asked, uncrossing his arms as he stood straighter.

"You are to take this object to Mars. On the south pole exist a ruin which is of interest to the Moon Cell." Archimedes spoke, lifting a translucent blue orb with shining white circuit-like veins on its surface. "It is a spiritron codecast, which is set to analyze and record the location once you arrive and then transmit the information back. Don't worry, it will fine in the outside world and will activate on its own. Simply take it there and then return to go back to doing whatever it is you janitors do around here."

"Hoh. courier work, is it?" Nameless eyed the codecast, analyzing it with his gray eyes for a moment before giving up. It was a thing of radical complexity and efficiency; as expected of Archimedes of Syracuse, really.

"Indeed, a suitable job for someone like yourself. Now, since this grunt work does not justify the amount of power it would take for you go there straight away and return, I have taken the right of... shall we say, _optimizing_ the plan a little.

"You will be incarnated in a suitable body. The soul and mind will have been scrubbed and the corpus has been prepared to handle your spiritual core." Archimedes explained, only to be interrupted.

" _Scrubbed?_ Explain."

Archimedes blinked before scowling at Nameless.

"Just that. The host body is a worthless gutter rat who has all but already died. The Moon Cell shall prepare it for you as a possessed vessel while it is still usable, allowing you to supply your own energy from it. The corpus is not of the highest material, but for the Moon Cell it will be an easy task to adapt it to your mind and soul. I even took the effort of re-arranging a few records retroactively to match you, _Emiya Shirou_."

Nameless did not react, his poker face holding blank at that.

"I see. And this is more _efficient_? Compared to simply direct analysis or transporting me there straight away?" He spoke, though with perhaps a bit more vehemence than he would have liked to let on. It did seem a bit much; couldn't the _Eye of God_ simply analyze an object in the same system?

Archimedes nodded with a smirk, though the Administrator misunderstood the matter of contention. The reveal of his old name was of no real note; it simply was something he had left behind. What had bothered him was the use of someone's body like that; the sacrifice of someone to give him a platform and past to work through.

But if they were already dead, then perhaps it didn't matter. It wasn't something worth fighting about, Nameless decided. It wasn't like he hadn't sacrificed people before, either. He inhaled, closing his eyes as he thought about it.

"Alright, then." He said simply, accepting things as they were. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. Other than mulling about his life some more and waiting for the Moon Cell to call upon him once in a blue moon.

Archimedes smiled, crossing his fingers in a satisfied gesture.

"Very good. Now, remember that you aren't there to play around. Get to Mars and activate the codecast and then come back. Nothing more, nothing less. You don't play around and you don't make waves. It's that simple."

Nameless, no—Emiya Shirou nodded and with that, the fate of the galaxy was forever altered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to guest reviewer for spotting a date error. Also, ffnet won't let me write SeRaPh the proper way ;_;


	2. Touching Ground

And then there was life.

Air rushed in through his nose, as hot blood coursed through his veins almost scalding his mind with the overflow of sensory information.

For a moment it was all too overwhelming.

The next, he simply acknowledged the change and it receded into the back of his mind, back into the subconscious routines where it had always been before. Emiya opened his eyes, the second inhalation just as putrid as the first had been. The rotten stench of refuse; the acrid odor of dust and pollution in the air; the smell of slow death and desperate struggle.

Noise. Distant and muted. Yet obviously that of an urban settlement all around him.

Darkness and light. The contrast only a night in a city could bring—the darkness of the starry vault above made nearly black by the brightness all around him, polluting the vista with artificial lights. Yet his eyes grew accustomed to it quickly as he exhaled slowly.

Cracked concrete and worn out buildings greeted him, the rundown urban environment around him strikingly familiar despite the alien and unfamiliar details here and there. In the distance, he could see a flying car blitzing through his field of vision. Further yet, great glowing advertisements that seemed akin to burning giants against the dark horizon, and tall sparkling glass spires that threatened to pierce the heavens themselves. It struck him as alien, if only for an instant, before the human-like elements in design settled in and the familiarity shone through. For all that this was an era obviously unfamiliar to him, it could not have been too far into the future.

Perhaps ten, twenty years? _Thirty at most_ , he scoffed.

At his feet lay discarded wrappers and half-crushed processed foodstuffs, explaining the smell. He was sitting right next to a dumpster, with his frail back against a hard wall. Raising a hand, the needle still halfway into his skin fell out and clattered against the ground, soon to be followed by a fat drop of blood welling out of the perforation in his arm.

Emiya grimaced. _Nothing to be done about it_ , _he's long-dead. Whoever he once was._

For a moment he was struck by the dissonance of this situation, of how piercingly _human_ it all was. Here _he_ lay, dead-and-recovered of an overdose, surrounded by refuse and squalor. Yet _there_ just in the distance, almost within the reach of his all-too-thin fingers it seemed, lay the wonders that humanity could achieve. Another light, trailing through the dark sky shone a blazing path into the heavens and beyond. His eyes followed it, until it vanished from sight into the night sky.

Somehow, that duality of the destitute and impoverished living at the feet of the mighty and affluent seemed so familiar, that any and all doubts he had about being on Earth were utterly blown away.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh..." He huffed, getting up and ignoring the sense of vertigo while stubbornly refusing to lean against the wall for support. This body was quite weak, he could tell that from just this much. "...Where am I?"

He looked up, his eyes narrowing as he pushed a trace amount of magical energy into his vision to enhance it. Pushing past the light pollution of the city around him, he saw the stars in the night sky. He recognized the formations and the alignments quickly enough, as he had often relied on them for navigation before. Even when all other things failed, the stars above never ceased guiding him. But it also confirmed what he had been told before. He wasn't on another planet.

"...Earth, huh," he complained quietly.

How was he supposed to get to Mars from Earth? Especially with a body like this? He doubted there were any public fares to the red planet or that he could simply stow away on a ship. _Are there any ships capable of going to Mars, even?_

Even if he abandoned his body and used his Servant-self to travel, he wouldn't be able to make it there on his own. Even with the buffer of his Independent Actions skill, he would still perish before making it there. He doubted he would even be able to get off the planet under his own powers. This seemed all too complicated compared to how easy it would be to simply scan something using the Moon Cell's own facilities, he groused.

Then again, it did seem fairly _interesting_.

It was unusual for a Heroic Spirit to be able to live and exist among humanity after their passing into legend. Doubly so for a mere guardian like himself. The only real exception given was inside the cybernetic world of the Moon Cell, as in such a place a soul alone was sufficient for existence. While they remained inside that world, they could live as they once had. But given a _corpus,_ a body... He chuckled, smiling despite the monumental task set before him.

Perhaps whatever bureaucratic decision that had led to this wasn't such a bad thing after all. Really, this was just a vacation to him. Even if he was to keep his head low, this was really quite a welcome respite from the nothingness of the Moon Cell's facsimile of a world.

Emiya walked out into the streets from the dark alley, looking around and drinking in the sights. Spray-painted gang signs and tags littered every surface within reach from the ground-level, the pavement was cracked and old, every metallic surface in sight was covered in rust and patina from years of disrepair.

Yet somehow, this place felt refreshing to him. No, that was the wrong word. _Familiar_. It was familiar to him. He smiled, taking his first steps into the world of the 22nd century.

* * *

; 

* * *

"Hey, who the fuck are you! Never seen you 'round here!"

Emiya turned to look at the speaker, finding him leaning against a wall at the street corner. He had only walked a few blocks, so far, looking around and getting his bearings when he had been called out to.

"You know what street this is?" The stranger called out, now swaggering up to Emiya, obviously looking for trouble.

" _Seventh and Baker's,_ " Emiya replied, his eyes not wavering from the man's even as he analyzed the situation. _Alone, has a knife but no gun. Possibly high; fresh blunt trauma around neck, emotional and unbalanced. Got beaten up and now looking for some stress relief on easy pickings?_ _A punk, in other words._

"The fuck you say, _bitch?!_ " The punk screamed, his growing agitation obvious as he leaned over so that he was practically staring down, having closed distance already. "This is the fucking _West Hounds' street!_ That means it's _my street_ , ya hear?!"

Emiya blinked, more out of the stench of the man's breath washing over him than anything else. There was little danger in this situation, despite the obvious and overt hostility the punk was showing. Had he wanted to put down Emiya, he would have attacked already. A dog only bites when it has stopped barking.

"Alright then. I'll make sure to notify the city officials that there has been an error in the street signs," Emiya said, turning around and moving to walk away.

"Hey, hey, hey! I wasn't fucking done talking to you, _fuckhead_!" The thug shouted and Emiya blinked as he was yanked back and lifted into the air by two fists grabbing a hold of his filthy shirt.

_And this is why I hated being short..._ Emiya thought, his mood steadily turning worse as he realized his feet were helplessly dangling in the air.

"You think you can just walk up here and disrep _me—_ " The thug began to shout at him again, but Emiya didn't bother to listen as the hammer inside his mind struck down.

Magical energy flooded his limbs as his body temperature spiked for an instant. His fist lashed out before the thug could even finish his sentence, knocking his head back as the whites of his eyes showed. The grip slackened, and Emiya landed on his feet, sighing as the thug slowly but surely fell over backwards against the wall and sliding down to the ground.

Emiya rolled his fist, checking the wrist and fingers for damage with some annoyance. Punching someone in the face with your bare fists was ill-advised normally, as the hand really was all too fragile to handle being forced to contend against the relatively hard structure of the skull. But he had _Reinforced_ his hand, meaning it should have been fine, except— _That would have broken four of the bones normally._

What the hell had this kid been eating before he died?

"Guh... You little, piece of..." The thug groaned, trying to sit back up and Emiya sighed. _Even with Reinforcement, I couldn't even knock him out?_

It was a proportional increase, meaning that it relied on the physical base to work. It was different for something like Magic Burst, but for him it was necessary to have a strong body to be able to fight freely. A body wholly unlike his current one.

Emiya shook his head and kicked down thug one more time, using the bottom of his foot to merely bounced the punk's skull off of the wall for damage and then turned to leave. If putting down one lone thug was this difficult, trying to cut through the rest of the gang's territory was definitely not a good idea. He needed to find some place to hunker down and get some food and information.

_Which means breaking and entering._ Good thing he was an old hand at that.

* * *

; 

* * *

Emiya sighed, rubbing his brow as he stared at the screen in front of him.

2172 CE. One hundred and sixty years had passed since his execution.

Which meant getting to Mars was apparently entirely possible, even if he had no idea how to go about getting there. But at least now he knew both when and where he was now. _The Age of Space Exploration_ , he mused with a shake of his head as he continued browsing leisurely. Humanity had certainly come far since his death, that much he had to admit as he took another bite of his sandwich. Still, that made knowing where his body had been even more depressing. For all that Humanity had achieved, apparently few of the social ills had been fixed. The average lifespan had shot up to 150 years; most if not all diseases had been eradicated and technology had advanced to a point where the most incredible things could be realized...

Yet nothing had seemingly changed. There were still less chairs to go around than there were people playing the game. His short walk through the city had been enough to prove that.

It wasn't surprising, not really. He hadn't expected his actions to truly change anything in the long run, he had known that it was simply his selfishness that drove him onward. He knew that the most efficient method for advancement was for the weak to be devoured by the strong. He knew that changing the nature of man would not be so easily accomplished, or that the solution to the age-old dilemma of inequality would not be realized within such a short span of time...

But still.

Hadn't he died with hope? That in this world of tomorrow things would be different? That his sacrifice might be another brick in the road to that world of justice? He scoffed, his appetite waning at those thoughts. There was too much resignation and bone-deep weariness in him now to care beyond the old self-recriminations and regrets in him.

Emiya sighed, shaking his head as he took another bite of the sandwich he had made. Even if he didn't want to eat, he _needed_ to. It would be a waste, given the expiration dates listed on the ingredients and the dust that had been pilling up in this apartment. No one had been here for a while, he had judged before breaking in. Precisely the kind of place he had been looking for.

Besides, he'd concluded that no one actually lived here and that for whatever reason someone still came over to clean and fill the fridge once a month or so. Perhaps it was someone's second home or a getaway house. It didn't really matter, as long as no one showed up while he was here. Additionally there was a computer—which took some time to figure out on Emiya's part—which gave him plenty of information, and a fridge full of foodstuffs that would go to waste if no one ate it.

Of course, the numerous cameras had been slightly concerning, but he'd simply covered his face. Some of them were hidden, while some of them were right out in the open, too. And upon closer inspection he had found them turned off. Perhaps it was some kind of hideout or sting operation set? Well, he had simply continued to cover his face and avoided leaving any fingerprints.

It was possible that there were more advanced methods of identification, but he hoped that it would be judged too much effort for a couple of sandwiches, if anyone even noticed it. The security system, once he had reasoned it out through some liberal application of Structural Analysis, was easy enough to subvert and intrude through. No alarms had been tripped and no signs of his intrusion would remain. So no one should be coming here, for now. At least not because of his presence, which left him with a place to stay at for the moment.

The shower had been nice, though disconcertingly enough there were cameras in the bathroom as well. He'd washed his clothes and made some repairs while he was at it.

Then, he had taken to the computer. Or what he had thought was a computer, anyhow. For a moment, he had felt worried that he would have to break into another house, until he found one he could use. Already in his lifetime, personal computers had grown more and more ubiquitous, so the idea that there wasn't one had seemed baffling given the obvious workstation he had discovered.

Ultimately he had been vindicated as he found it, though figuring out how it worked was another thing entirely. At least it wasn't password locked; just turning it on had brought him to what seemed like the desktop. _The more things change_...

Still, he made sure to only look up the information he needed in the vaguest possible terms. Then again, given the general nature of information that he needed, it probably really didn't matter. If he had found a library or a public computer, he could have just as well looked up everything he needed there. He doubted anyone would care if they knew he was trying to look up information on Mars.

Emiya read about everything and anything, as his existence in the Moon Cell did not especially lend itself to keeping up with outside happenings and events. Unlike in the event of a Grail War, there had been no knowledge of the era granted to him. He had simply been plopped into a human body by Archimedes and told to get the job done. So he took his time his reading, getting familiar with everything and anything.

He read about Mars among other topics, which was something of a galactic backwater apparently, which amused him to no end. In his lifetime, it had been seen as an exciting new frontier into space. A faraway but eminently realizable goal the represented the infinite potential of all that lay beyond it. Now, you had to wait six months to book for a freighter there because that was the only time anyone flew there with any regularity to drop off supplies. And he didn't have the money for that, either.

Some things _did_ have to change, after all.

There weren't many options in how to get there he eventually found out, which was somewhat troubling. The number of methods could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. If he wanted to get out of the Sol system and into another star system entirely, that was easy enough _apparently_. But catching a ride to Mars? Something else entirely, that.

Of course... With enough _money_ he could get there in no time at all.

But that wasn't exactly something he possessed at the moment. Perhaps he could rob someone for money or steal a ride, but that would be altogether too noticeable. With advances in information technology, tracking money or a vehicle was apparently a cinch. He wouldn't get very far that way.

Perhaps he could have counterfeited himself a vast sum of money, but given his background getting off the ground would be a lot of trouble. He could exactly sell gold on the street and any pawnshop would think him a thief, even if he tried to start out small. So what was left to him was a slow and more _legitimate_ route. Building himself up and accruing wealth until he could pay for personal passage or wait until the supply ship came around to Earth and then stay on board until it dropped him off on Mars.

Which would be making a considerably amount of waves. Not quite _public notice_ -level, but enough that he hesitated. He wasn't sure about how much attention it was okay for him to garner, but he was pretty sure that most of his methods would be crossing the line. Archimedes certainly hadn't given him an easy assignment...

Not that he was out of options, as one simple route presented itself to him after an hour of digging. The thing was however, that where it would be cheap and low-key, it would require a considerable investment of _time_ on his part.

As in, a minimum of two months. At least.

"Was this _really_ the best way? No, of course it wasn't. It was just the easiest way for _that guy_ ," Emiya muttered under his breath, accepting things as they were with a sigh.

Checking out the internet—or rather, the _extranet_ as it was called today—had also led him to realize that the surface of the Moon was actually inhabited by humanity already. Some 4 million lived on Luna, mostly in the capital Armstrong. It would have seemed more reasonable to him to incarnate on the Moon and acquire passage from there to Mars. The supply ship he had found went by the Moon and Mars months ahead of making the Earth-to-Mars passage.

Could he assume Archimedes had not simply paid enough attention to detail to notice such a thing—which was a distinct possibility, still—or should he assume that the lunar settlements lacked suitable bodies for him to possess? Perhaps it would have been possible for him to simply go through the Moon's facilities as an astralized Heroic Spirit. Or was there some kind of time limit on Archimedes part for taking action?

Emiya leaned back, shaking his head. _It doesn't matter. I'll just do it however I can._

He knew everything he needed to, but he would have to wait until dawn at least before he could do anything else. The _offices_ wouldn't open before that, he was sure. His eyes landed on one of the cameras hidden in the room. It wasn't pointing at him, rather it was pointed at a king-size bed. His curiosity had been pecking at him for a while now, and finally having nothing more to distract himself with, he had to wonder.

Why the cameras? And the bed smelled heavily of chemicals, as if it had been dunked and left to soak in a vat of industrial grade cleaner more than a time. He frowned, turning back to the computer. There had been a folder that seemed relevant to the recording devices, but he hesitated for a second.

"Eh, what the hell..." He muttered, opening the a recording.

" _Hi, I'm Aubrey, 18 years old and I love big krogan di—_ "

"Yeah, okay. No," he muttered, closing the computer and rubbing his brow. He was definitely not going to sleep here tonight, he thought with a shake of his head. "No wonder this place is empty."

He sighed and stared at the rest of the sandwich, before throwing it away—having lost his appetite—and leaving the apartment the same way he had come, leaving no traces of his passing.

_What's a krogan, anyhow?_

* * *

; 

* * *

The sun rose slowly, turning the dark towers of ebony glass into something majestic and wondrous as they sparkled and shone like pillars of glittering light all around him. He sat next to the glass doors of the office building he had looked up earlier, back when he had had access to the internet. _Extranet,_ he reminded himself.

It had taken quite a bit of walking and more than one sneak aboard a public transport to make it here. For whatever reason, it seemed that they did not deem it fit to have an office in the slums. Instead, they had a small office in the nice part of town, inside a strip mall. Though at this early hour the doors were still closed, the polished and flawless glass reflecting his gaze back quite clearly.

He had looked at the reflection, wondering whether they would accept, him but at this point there was little point in hesitation. Either they would or they wouldn't; he would simply think of something else once it came to that.

Still, this did seem like the best opportunity to check himself out. He closed his eyes, letting his breathing relax.

And he _stepped out_ of his body, feeling almost like he was expanding after being forced to exist in a cramped space. Opening his _eyes,_ he observed himself. His spiritual core was functioning as expected, allowing him to manifest as a Servant outside of his body. At a minute expense of magical energy, of course.

Luckily this container came with the _Independent Action_ skill which minimized that drain, though at its current rank he could only manifest in this manner for a single day before it would become a problem. Twenty four hours was not much, but given that when he was outside of his _body_ it would be completely unresponsive, it was probably for the best. Staying out of his _body_ for more than twelve hours would make it seem like he wasn't merely sleeping, thus he resolved to avoid more than ten hours of operation in his true form.

It was vital to always keep enough in reserve for an emergency, after all. Already he could feel his energy stores trickling slowly as he maintained himself in the astral state.

It was not like his _body_ acted as a Master, or anything. It was merely a shell that he could reside in and use to slowly refill his magical energy reserves as it naturally generated life force for him. Were he to forcefully materialize so as to fight as he wished, it would no doubt be even more taxing. He would have to limit its use as much as possible. Of course, fighting in the body was always an option. But that would have consequences.

He had shied away from relying too much on that in his life, for a reason.

Turning to look at this body he frowned. It was somewhat strange to look at himself from the outside. Whoever or whatever the previous owner of this _body_ had been, there remained no traces of him now. The corpus matched the pattern of the soul, or perhaps Archimedes had seen fit to alter it for optimal performance even before Emiya had come to inhabit the flesh.

Or something like that.

Auburn hair, fair skin and the features he had always known from the mirror; it really was _him_ that sat there on the pavement. The him from a long, _long_ time ago. The body couldn't have been older than fifteen, sixteen at most—a carbon copy likeness of his self in high school, though far thinner and in worse shape. Emiya shook his head, rubbing his darker features with a calloused hand. Or something to that effect, as he had not manifested a body at the moment and simple existed as a spiritual entity.

_How long will it take for this body to burn out, I wonder?_ Perhaps he should cut off the flow of magical energy from his spiritual core to the body? That would minimize the osmosis and probably slow down the rate at which the body would come to look like _him_. It should also limit its performance to mostly human levels, but that was probably for the best. Going all out would be like strapping a jet engine to a bicycle, after all.

He brought up a hand, concentrating on the codecast he had been entrusted. The glowing blue orb appeared in his hand, invisible to all, just as he was. He stared at it, uncertain what to make of it. Archimedes was a famed engineer as well as mathematician, though his reputation was quite a bloody one nonetheless. For a moment Emiya considered whether he would be able to tell if this was a bomb or weapon of some kind, or if Archimedes possessed sufficient skills to obscure such mechanisms from him. He peered at it, frowning.

It couldn't be helped; he would do as he had been instructed for now. Bloody though Archimedes' tale may be and an arrogant man he was, that did not erase the fact that Emiya Shirou had forged a contract with the Moon Cell.

He had received his miracle and in turn he would repay it.

The doors opened and Emiya sighed, dissipating the codecast and letting his spirit settle back into the narrow and tight confines of the body that lay still against the wall. The guard who had opened the locks from the inside noticed him and began to walk towards him. No doubt to chase him off; homeless street urchin's lounging about at the entrance would only unsettle paying customers, after all.

Emiya opened his eyes and stood up. Though he hadn't slept through the night, he felt fine. He met eyes with the guard and he affected a polite smile. The man hesitated, looking him up and down before frowning and remaining silent.

Though the clothes Emiya wore were old, he wasn't dirty or smelly any more. He merely seemed like a youth from perhaps a poor family, wearing ratty hand-me-downs. That shower and wash he had taken at the apartment had definitely been worth it. He had also considered using Reinforcement to repair his clothes but decided that it would be a needless expenditure. Or worse yet, counter-productive to the image he wanted to play soon enough.

The guard frowned at him, but said nothing and went back to his duties. But the message was clear; ' _I've got my eyes on you, kid'._ He entered the mall, noting with some amusement how familiar the establishment felt despite the alien names and brands all around him. The walk was short and he couldn't help but frown as he found the door closed.

Emiya sighed, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall with arms crossed. Nothing to it but to wait some more, then. It was only another hour until the doors opened and Emiya walked in without hesitation. The uniformed man gave him a curious glance, but did not question his entry immediately.

"Good morning, sir." Emiya spoke sharply, making sure to tailor his words and voice to the situation. A good first impression went a long way, though it shouldn't be all too difficult to get what he wanted here. The man before him ought to literally want the same thing as Emiya did, after all. That being so, he still mentally ran over the persona he would be adopting for this talk. _Alright, affect politeness. But be firm. Determined. 'I' need this, so 'I' won't be swayed._

"Well a fine morning to you as well, son. Now how can I help you?" The man in the neat blue uniform answered. "Perhaps some coffee or tea?"

Emiya glanced at the instant stuff for a moment before shaking his head. "No, thank you. I've come to enlist in the Alliance Navy."

The unformed man licked his lips, squinting at Emiya for a moment. "Now sonny, aren't you a little bit young to be making such decisions?"

"Old enough to decide what to do with my life, at the very least."

The man seemed more amused by that than anything else. "That's what all the kids say, heh. My own girl would like nothing more than to dictate how she should live her life. But son, that's what parents exist for. Joining the Navy is a big decision, especially for an underage citizen such as yourself. Without your parents' consent, I couldn't possibly—"

"That won't be necessary." Emiya cut in, with a carefully blank face.

"...Pardon?"

"I'm living on the street, with nothing but the clothes I'm wearing to my name. I'm not even sure how old I am, but I do know that this is the most reasonable option available to me right now."

That brought the Alliance Navy Recruiter up short as he peered down at Emiya. He opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it as he closed his mouth.

Emiya continued, gesturing at his body. "Besides, it's probably mostly just undernourishment."

"Well, that's..."

"It's this or a life of crime, really. And that will just take me to bad places, sir. I want to do something with this life." Emiya continued, laying it thick as he could feel the man wavering. Of course, nothing of what he had said was _untrue,_ exactly. It was simply phrased in a manner that suggest something other than what Emiya actually meant.

Using the Navy _was_ the most reasonable option to him; he would have to resort to some form of crime to get to Mars otherwise. Be it stealing a shuttle or enough funds to purchase a shuttle-ride there. Either way, it would be quite risky. If he stole a vessel, assuming he even figured out how to operate it, he would no doubt be caught by whatever space-faring equivalent to the police there existed.

Flying from Earth to Mars was not like stealing a car and stopping in the next town, after all.

And if he started getting the funds to purchase a ride there, he would have to work out a mountain's worth of issues. He had no ID and he lacked any existing capital, thus anything he did would be faced with suspicion and scrutiny.

Thus, Emiya thought that simply enlisting was the most reasonable option. It was a rational choice for a street urchin, looking to escape the rough life. And once he was on Mars, he could simply leave behind this body as an empty husk and aside from some paperwork no one would probably care about the apparent vegetable of an enlisted they now had in their hands.

The two sat in a silence, staring at each other for a minute. Outside, the rest of the city awoke slowly as people began to pass by the glass window. Shoppers, workers, people simply passing by. People of all walks of life seemed to pass through his peripheral vision before the man finally sighed.

"Alright. I'll... go make some calls, see what I can do and ask some people what they think..." He said, rising up to walk over to another room. "Oh, and... Help yourself to the cinnamon buns and coffee. There's hot cocoa, too. It's warm, if nothing else."

He gave an assuring smile and then left. Emiya exhaled, crossing his fingers as he waited. Now he could only wait and hope. To be honest, joining a military wasn't exactly high up on things he particularly wanted to do, but given that the easiest way for him to get to Mars lay this way, it couldn't be helped.

It was simple enough; go through boot camp on Earth and then apply for one of the branches that were trained on Mars' southern hemisphere. Once there, getting to the ruins should be easy enough. Sure, it would be a slow route. But given that Archimedes hadn't given him anything resembling a means to get there, it would have to do.

Well, at least he was familiar with military life from before. Though mostly from acting as a trainer in an irregular outfit waging asymmetrical warfare. He hadn't even been through a boot camp, but it couldn't be that bad compared to what he had put himself or others through.

His wait wasn't all too long, all things considered. Little over an hour later, the man returned as he sat down across from Emiya.

"Had a long talk, but it looks good. Well, let's see how it goes. I'll have to verify your identity, which seems like it will not be the easiest thing, I'm guessing... And then we'll have to get all the papers cleared and signed. But, if all things go well, then you'll be off to start your training by the end of the day." The man offered a slightly wean smile, but Emiya only nodded to accept the words.

"Thank you, you've made my life a lot simpler, sir," Emiya answered with a satisfied expression.

* * *

; 

* * *

It wasn't quite as simple as that, but in the end it didn't matter as he was on his way.

Emiya sat in a shuttle, headed for boot camp. As it happened, as the Systems Alliance began to grow in scale the need for a more unified training regimen began to appear. To that end, on Earth there existed only a handful of facilities that handled the training and fitting of new recruits despite the huge number of people signing up biannually. So, a simple street urchin without a penny to his name was being flown halfway across the world in an otherwise empty shuttle. Certainly, there was some minor cargo as well. But aside from the pilot, he was the only other person aboard this shuttle.

Which gave him plenty of time and leeway when it came to observing anything and everything inside of it.

At first on that night he had opened his eyes in the dark alleyway, he had simply accepted the flying cars in the sky as a part of the future. Such things had been romanticized enough in his time that the appearance of such vehicles was only a matter of time given the unstoppable march of technological progress.

But as he finally got to board one himself, he could not help but grow curious. This was no alien technology—or, well. It _was_ , in a sense, from what he had already read—but rather something any human being could understand and learn. It was fascinating and he could not help but extend his grasp through his magical energy as he reproduced the schematics of the vessel in his mind.

"'Element Zero', what unusual material." He huffed, nodding to himself.

Carefully prodding the engine at work, he took care not to mess with anything. Magical energy was poison, but when you arrive at a certain level it becomes possible to bend those rules. Strictly speaking, analyzing the engine of the vehicle he was inside, in mid-air, was a terrible idea.

Terrible, as in a _sudden and fiery death in a crash_ -terrible.

But his curiosity got the better of him. Extending his senses, eyes closed and his breathing stilled, he could feel the grain of the eezo core that allowed this shuttle to fly. It was quite alike a magnet, really.

It reminded him also quite a bit of the gravity magecraft that he had seen a time or two, though still very different at its core. He wondered if perhaps the principle behind it was the same, but dismissed the errant thought as he continued to learn and investigate the systems of the ship.

There wasn't much else to do, anyhow.

To his surprise, he realized that while eezo was an exotic element formed under very rare stellar conditions, it wasn't something that he couldn't replicate. It wouldn't be perfect, but it might work on the smaller scale. Well, it was amusing to know that he still had the option of flooding the market with forged valuable base elements if he wanted to. Not that he would, for a variety of reasons. But having access to liquidateable assets was always good. He would have to experiment with it a little before he tried to make use of it.

Compared to the far-off flying cars in the night sky, honestly having a closer look at this shuttle was more magical to him. He could sense the pride of the designers, the sweat and effort of the engineers and the trust of the pilots as he combed through the vessel with a fine-tooth comb. It was a work of marvel; a testament to humanity in a sense.

As a craftsman, he could appreciate something of this quality on many levels even if he could not make use of it as a magus. A sword is a sword, a ship is a ship, and all that. But it was still a marvel of engineering and craftsmanship.

Finally, after what felt like several hours they made touchdown. Still, the trip had been far shorter than he had been used to from his old life. Though, as he had learned what this shuttle could do, he was far from surprised.

As the shuttle door opened, a uniformed man stepped in and made eye contact with him.

"Well, come on then."

Emiya nodded, sitting up and moving to follow the man. Following three steps behind, he had a chance to observe the third member of the Systems Alliance Navy he had seen so far. They all seemed to fit the same general profile; young, very fit, male, neatly trimmed hair—per regulation, he assume—and a casual, almost relaxed air about them.

The walk was quite long, taking them through the landing port, several buildings and more outdoors locations, until they arrived at a simple lounge. Though at first he had found the architecture quite novel, but upon seeing how ubiquitous and uniform it was regardless of where on the planet you were, Emiya was beginning to find it less and less appealing by the minute. Was everything pre-fabricated using the same blueprints, or was it a merely a result of the construction methods that everything acquired that look?

"Sit down and wait until someone gets you. Do not leave this lounge, got it?" The man said, pointing at a chair. Emiya nodded, saying nothing. "If you are caught wandering, you will be treated with extreme prejudice by facility personnel, am I understood?"

Emiya nodded again, but as the man continued staring he finally caught on. "Understood, Sir."

He huffed, turning on his foot and leaving with a single curt word. "Good."

Emiya sat down, a small smile on his face. The more things change, the more they stay the same. 'Hurry up and wait' as it were, seemed to still be an integral part of the organized military experience. That, and the petty desire for dominance among the youngest of the NCO.

Two of the core reasons why he could never stand working in large groups for long.

Certainly on that scale, downtime for individuals was inevitable. But for him in those days, it was unacceptable to be doing nothing. He always busied himself with something, be it repairs or training. The thought of slowing down was repugnant. It was something that had nothing to do with him as an existence. And that always lead him to clash with people who regarded him as a step below in a chain of command. Which was why had simply refrained from joining any organizations. He got more done on his own.

Well, after his death that had changed. Both things, really.

There wasn't much to do in the Moon. He had always been patient, but the languor he experienced there turned it into something else. Perhaps it was the memories; the knowledge and observations of the Moon Cell which were made available to him that changed him so. Stuck with nothing but his own thoughts and the unchanging eternity, he had grown introspective and stolid.

And after that, he had begun to wonder about his life. About his choices. About the ideals and that expression he had seen at the beginning of his life. Whether any of it had been real or if he had simply thought it had been. As a child such a mistake might have been acceptable to let pass. But he had kept on running, stubbornly refusing to back down or slow his pace to let others match him, even as he grew up and confronted the world as an adult.

Emiya shook his head; he was brooding again.

"Might as well sleep," he concluded, closing his eyes.

It wasn't long until he noticed someone approaching, however. He opened his eyes to watch as a new person appeared to the waiting area. Wearing a green, white and black uniform of different design from the others, it was a woman in her forties that approached him.

"Well, hello there. You must be Shirou Emiya, correct?" She spoke with a polite smile; a professional mask of courtesy, born of several decades of practice.

"Yes, ma'am." He answered curtly, standing up.

"I am Doctor Roberts from MarsGene. Though it is a little bit late, we will be doing a screening of your genome. This way we can have you ready for gene therapy first thing in the morning, once the computer is all done," she said, speaking in an even and slow tone.

"Gene therapy?" _MarsGene? Probably just a coincidence._

"Yes. After all, since you have no records we'll have to take a closer look. It's standard for military recruits. It was in your contract, on page—"

"54, yes. Though I had thought it only applied to the use of genetically engineered healing gels. The text was not quite so specific as to mention gene therapy." Emiya spoke evenly.

"Oh, well. It's quite standard. Completely safe; these are methods tested on quite literally billions of human beings already." She said, smiling in a reassuring manner. "But if you have objections, we can bring in an officer tomorrow for a discussion if that is alright? For now, let us simply do a genome scan, shall we? It is completely non-invasive and if nothing else, it will tell you about what has already been done to you or what kind of diseases you may be at risk to."

"...Alright. Lead the way."

* * *

; 

* * *

Sleeping had been uncomfortable.

It was not the bed's fault, or any lack of exhaustion in his body that led to his problem. But rather... He hadn't slept before that in a very long time. Servants and Heroic Spirits did not generally dream and neither did he, even as he closed his eyes and fell into a slumber. Then again, he hadn't dreamed much for decades prior to his death either so perhaps nothing had actually changed.

His internal world was as ever, though it seemed slightly odd to return there after having walked again on Earth after such a long time.

Opening his eyes, Emiya stared at the ceiling above. A depressingly featureless surface, fitting for a military bunk somehow, he thought. It was before dawn, he noted with some annoyance. He hadn't been in a bed for a very, very long time. Yet old habits die hard and Emiya Shirou awoke before the crack of dawn as he always had.

It did not matter that the genome mapping had gone quite late into the night and that he had only gotten to bed at midnight; he needed very little sleep after all. Swinging his legs down to touch the cold floor, he hesitated.

It all felt _incongruous_. As if everything was in order and in place, except for something so small that then threw everything else into question. Something so minor and unnoticeable that it was impossible to see with the naked eye, but in the whole managed to shift everything just enough that the whole thing seemed alien and wrong.

"Ah..."

He hadn't trained the previous night, as had been his habit since as far as he could remember.

Even the night before his execution he had trained, since that was his habit. Yet, last evening he had done no such thing. He frowned and then closed his eyes. Twenty seven ghostly circuits awoke within his body and hummed with power. He frowned and then sighed, hiding them once more. There was little point he thought; he had reached his peak. There was nowhere for him to go, in a sense. Nothing to learn, nothing to train, nothing to experiment. He knew his talents well enough to simply say "that is possible" and "that is not possible" and could tell off-hand what he would have to pay for achieving that.

Yet, something inside of him craved for that, which he no longer had any need or use for.

Well, it wasn't like he could simply go and make breakfast either, so it could not be helped. He sighed and crossed his legs as he sat on the cold floor, wearing nothing but the ratty underclothes.

"Emiya Shirou is a creature of habit, after all," he muttered wryly.

* * *

; 

* * *

"Good morning ma'am," Emiya spoke as he entered the office.

Doctor Roberts looked up from her screen and smiled at him, offering him a seat and then going back to reading in silence. The quiet moment stretched, though Emiya simply accepted it as a part of how things worked. Finally, after reading for a long moment, she sighed and looked at him.

"Well, I have checked and re-checked, but it seems there is no mistake."

"Hmm, well that certainly sounds ominous," Emiya quipped. She blinked at him and then laughed lightly.

"Mm, oh it's nothing so serious. It isn't anything good either, but that is what MarsGene is here for, I suppose." She spoke somewhat quietly, as she looked out the window. She took a deep breath before turning the screen so that he could see the results as well. "You've certainly had an interesting life, mister Emiya."

For a moment, Emiya wondered just what it was possible to divine from a person's genome. He weighed the possibility of his unique situation being revealed and considered what he should do. But then he clamped down on those thoughts and maintained his silence. Outwardly, his face did not so much as twitch at her words.

"Back in medical school, I was told that each and every human being already enjoyed the basic benefits of our scientific advancements. And that was well over 20 years ago already, goodness me." She spoke, seemingly saddened about the topic.

Emiya felt a slight urge to comment that she did not look a day over 20, but clamped down on it. It was hardly the time and place.

"But here you are... Lacking any and all genetic therapy. I found at least three genetic diseases in your genome and a complete lack of the basic benefits most of us have already come to enjoy in the 22nd century."

"Oh...?" Emiya asked, growing curious.

"Yes. For example, if you would look here..." She began to explain, using several images as aides as she talked.

He was not sure whether this was due to his host body, due to Archimedes' intervention or even due to his soul filling his vessel, but he felt quite interested as she continue to point out various parts of what she called a map of his genome. "So what does this mean in practice?"

"Well, usually we only supply the basic enhancements that the Alliance Navy specifies for their recruits... But given that it is considered nigh-on a human right at this point to receive genetic therapy, I cannot in good faith not include it as well... Well, we will have to apply for a grant based on the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act, but I am quite certain that it will be fine.

"Still, there is a limit to what can be done. It leaves me aghast that people still do not screen and treat their children as soon as possible. So many things that could be corrected, were you still just a little bit younger... Well, it can't be helped. We shall simply have to make do." She smiled at him, though it felt more patronizing than reassuring.

He had understood the commonplace nature of genetic modification and enhancement, especially in a military setting. Yet for someone who had only seen the most rudimentary of applications during his life it felt slightly strange.

"The biggest problem will of course be your physical conditioning." She sighed, shaking her head. "Most if not all of the recruits will have received the gene therapy years in advance as the results are quite slow to show. Military families and those who know well in advance what they wish to do with their life get it years before actually signing up, you see..."

"So... You can't give me the physical enhancements?" He asked, tilting his head at her.

"Oh, oh no! You will receive them, don't worry about that. It's just that..." She hesitated for a moment, before continuing. "You will not be receiving any of the benefits during most of your training. It will be years before they begin to show most of the effects. You will be in boot camp with hundreds of others, all who surpass you physically and mentally, I'm afraid. It won't be easy. It isn't easy even for normal recruits, I think. But for you, keeping up will be even harder."

Emiya nodded at that.

"How much of a difference are talking about here?"

"Well... It's difficult to say, since there isn't exactly a reliable baseline any more given the many decades of genetic therapy has been in use. I could show you the old comparisons from when the first tests were conducted, but the techniques and methods have improved quite a bit since... But it should be obvious in everything. Physical strength, agility, endurance, healing and recovery, metabolism, vision, hearing, immune system... Anything and everything the Systems Alliance thinks will be useful for their Navy." She explained, smiling sadly.

"If it can't be helped, then it's fine. Just do what you have to and I'll deal with the rest as it comes."

She blinked at his words before nodding, though he could tell she simply thought he was putting up a strong front. Mostly he felt curious about the procedure. As long as it was physically possible for him, he wasn't worried about what was to come. Even then, as long as he simply tapped into his magical potential, he would be able to more than keep up.

Of course, that would run the risk of performing beyond his supposed limits and alerting others to his strange nature. But it shouldn't have to come to that, considering that he was only aiming for Mars. That should easily be achievable even during his basic training, before he was deployed into anything resembling active duty.

"Well, let's get the paperwork out then. We have a whole day ahead of us." She said, smiling comfortingly. "Don't worry, I will give you the best MarsGene can offer. With the extra budget you two will get through the grant—which I am sure you will, you if anyone deserve it—we can put the best on the market to good use."

Emiya shrugged. "If you say so."

* * *

; 

* * *

It had been a slow week for Emiya.

Apparently it was the _off season_ in terms of recruitment so he was in a strange spot. Usually there were two busy times of the year when the majority of fresh recruits signed up, but as it was there would only be a few in his batch.

Which was fine, he supposed. Archimedes hadn't contacted him once, thus Emiya reasoned that taking the slow but sure route to Mars was fine. Perhaps the man had simply forgotten all about it already. For Emiya, the last few days were filled with nothing but strange and unusual medical procedures at the behest of MarsGene.

His strange timing for enlistment was apparently for the better, as going by Dr. Roberts' comments if there were any more recruits to handle she would be hard pressed to keep up with it all. He hadn't seen anyone else, but apparently they were all handled here and had more or less been according to standard, aside from a handful of unusual cases such as himself.

He had been following with rapt attention, Structurally Analyzing himself at every opportunity, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on. But it seemed that analysis of individual genes was beyond him, as while he could observe some changes he couldn't reason them out or understand how it all worked. Apparently it was more or less based on technology that had existed already in his time, but the current results were far beyond what could have been accomplished in those days.

Still it was all working as intended, Dr. Roberts assured him. She showed him how the treatments were taking hold, showing graphs and projections for how it would affect him and how many years it would take for them to be complete with his body. It was unusual, to say the least. Knowing that his entire body was changing now. That it would be changing, and there would be nothing to be done about it. That it was now an inevitable fact.

Emiya wondered if anyone had ever experienced existential dread at being changed from the inside without their own notice. Whether he would have felt anything if he didn't know that he was merely a Spirit inhabiting and possessing a body. Then again given that every molecule in the body changed every decade or so, he supposed it wasn't _that_ unusual and it was just him.

He had asked whether it wouldn't be easier to perform at MarsGene's headquarters, which he assumed were on Mars, simply to get there quicker. But apparently they had long since moved off that planet with the rapid expansion of humanity as a whole. Like everything else nowadays, their main office lay on Arcturus Station. Proving once again the strange situation where it was easier to get out of the solar system than it was to get to the second closest planet. Of course, given the orbits, it wasn't quite that simple. Still, it had been worth a shot.

And before he knew it, he was done with the gene therapy and boot camp began as he was shuttled off again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Gray Walker and Re Fenrir for proofreading.


	3. Adapting Onwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next few chapters won't be very action-heavy, but I'm hoping it will lay a solid foundation for later events and developments. Especially since a few reviews note that they weren't familiar with Mass Effect from before. I'll try to avoid excessive or gratuitous infodumps, but I've always liked the lore of ME so it will have something of a presence in the next few chapters.
> 
> Also, I began to wonder where exactly I pulled the title "Man off the Moon" from and I began to look around. I was sure it had nothing to do with the movie or the song "Man on the Moon" despite the name being a deliberate pun off of that, and then I finally realized where I had gotten the name from.
> 
> A youtuber by the name of Aron Headbutt makes Fate memes, one of which is "emiya's in the cradle" which I realized I have been humming for weeks now. It's just a part of the lyrics there, which somehow wormed itself into this project's name. He makes good stuff, so check him out if you feel like it and like that kind of stuff. Make sure to shitpost in the comments and tell him to update more regularly.

Standing in formation was certainly a new experience.

He had always been more used to less rigorously enforced outfits, units that had no need for such strict rules and regulations due to each member already being competent enough to not require such hand holding. Even back in his school days, the classroom discipline hadn't been quite like this. Everything about your body had to be precisely positioned; heels just so and so far apart, with your toes pointing out at such and such an angle; your arms had to be in such and such a line, perfectly parallel with your body; your gaze forward and eyes unmoving. Like that, they all stood arms width apart from one another, all toeing the same line in five rows in what somewhat looked like a rectangle if you squinted just right, outside their new barracks.

The place where they would be spending the next three months for their basic course. _Boot camp_. Or the 'E-line' as the Navy personnel in passing seemed to refer to it.

"I welcome you to my _beautiful facility_ , here in Massachusetts, the most beautiful place on God's green Earth!" A man, standing on a podium before them shouted. He had no microphone or audio volume enhancers, but he did not apparently need one either given that his voice reached far and wide.

They had been told to line up by tallest to shortest and then set into formation. It had taken a while, given that many of them had never before in their lives been in anything more organized than a mob, Emiya included. Still, the idea was simple enough and with enough loud and clear instructions they slowly managed to get into something resembling a rectangle formation.

"And what a facility this is! The best in all the galaxy, bar none! The greatest, toughest, strongest and smartest soldiers in all of the universe are _made_ right _here_! The only question is... Are you _sorry louts_ good enough for _my facility!_?!"

Everyone stood silent, their attention glued to the man staring them down with his last words still echoing in their ears.

"Well?! Are you?"

"Sir, yes, sir." They answered as one, finally realizing their cue.

"I can't hear you! LOUDER!"

"Sir! Yes! Sir!"

"Good! Now, Recruits! You will begin taking your first steps into the vaunted and hallowed ranks of the Systems Alliance Navy! Be proud that you have chosen for yourselves a destiny where your actions will matter! Where your work shall be of importance and of value to all of Humanity!"

Emiya could almost hear the capitalization, as if mankind was some kind of holy concept that stood in opposition to all that was evil and different. The usual _esprit de corps-_ mentality of organized military forces, really. Where before national loyalty, or even ethnicity and culture had played a unifying role, here and now with the whole of the galaxy as the stage it had apparently become necessary to scale up to include _everyone_.

"But not quite yet. As of right now, each and every single one of you is an E1! That means you are only _almost worthless_. Remember that! You are nothing yet. Nothing but POTENTIAL! And once I am done with you; once you have finished climbing all the way up to E7, you will finally be soldiers!"

Emiya ignored the rest, simply playing along as he continued to observe his new home and comrades through his peripheral vision. Perhaps due to the "off-season" affecting who was enlisting, morale was not that high among them. It seemed that mostly aimless wanderers and those who had no clear path in life had concentrated into this bunch of recruits.

Before he knew it, the initiation ceremony was over. The speech had been fine, he supposed, as far as such things went. But he ignored it for the most part. It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before, specifics and minor catches aside. Soon enough they were on their way again under the dutiful eye and instruction of NCOs—the _non-commissioned officers_. Getting supplies, organizing into twenty man squads and locating their quarters was accomplished promptly and with no delays. They all got their bunks and personal chests, stuffing it full as quickly as they could before they were ordered to form up and run to lunch.

Military food was about what he expected, and it appeared that few among them found it very palatable.

Still, it was highly nutritious and his body needed all that he could stuff in it, so he ate without complaint and took several additional helpings. Some of his new 'comrades' gawked at the smallest of them putting away twice of what any of the others could, but given that he needed to catch up to their physiques and was already behind schedule it couldn't be helped if he stood out a little. He ate all that he could, and then he ate some more.

On the way back, he had to control his breathing to make sure that nothing came back up the wrong way, but it wasn't a problem. After that, they took all their stuff out again and ran through checklists, as the NCOs shouted out an object's name and made them all hold it up as they signed in their checkboxes to make sure everyone had theirs. Some of the recruits grumbled about the fact that they had _just_ received it all, and that it was impossible for any of it to be missing already. But the NCOs didn't care; they had checkboxes to fill and lists to go through.

And after that, as they had come in ahead of schedule, they were made to do it all over again, 'just to be sure'. Next on the schedule there were a bunch of more mundane tasks, mostly done so as to familiarize them with the tasks they would be doing regularly in the future. He quietly approved, as cleaning and checking all their gear for wear and tear or faults were important skills to be sure. Some complained that all the stuff was new so it made no sense, but Emiya knew that that was no excuse for when something failed you in the field. Check and recheck, always.

That, and some of the recruits had never cleaned _anything_ before in their life, so the six hours spent on learning how to use the various mops, rags, sponges, dusters and chemicals was definitely important. Especially since they themselves would be responsible for keeping their sleeping quarters clean and orderly. Despite himself, he actually found himself fascinated with the obvious advances in fibers and designs in some of the cleaning tools while they were being instructed. So he absorbed everything they were told and showed like a proverbial sponge.

He appeared to be the only one however, as most of the recruits continued complaining until they began to receive physical punishments. When the choice was between push ups and learning how to dust the corners, nearly all of them finally capitulated.

They received no guns and no training on that first day and Emiya suspected it would be like that for the first few weeks. Rather, they would be exercising and eating for the most part, working up a base for later training along with being shown how to follow orders and how all things worked in the Navy. He did not know what the others had expected upon signing up but considering that he was effectively a street urchin, he didn't fault the Navy for having such low expectations for him. When you assume that your recruits are too dumb to tie their own shoelaces without guidance, you have a much smaller margin of error to deal with.

This he pretty much already knew from his own experiences as an instructor, before he observed it at work here.

Finally, at the end of the day, they were led to their quarters and told that they had an hour of free time before the evening routines would begin. Bringing down the Systems Alliance flag in formation, counting that everyone was present and accounted for, ceremonial greetings by the officers and such like.

It was quite different from how he had run his own boot camp once upon a time, but given the differences in scale and the aims involved, he figured that was be a given. _Red team_ versus _blue team_ , and all that. Overall, to him the day had barely been even a chore, given that he only needed to listen and follow orders.

Easy, but _boring_.

More than once his mind had gone back to the nano-fiber dust cloths with a certain longing.

"Holy hell! I didn't think it would be _this tough_!" One youth a few beds away from him loudly complained, making a swandive for his bunk.

"Yeah, sheesh. We must have counted our suits, like, _twenty_ times!" Another answered, grousing along with equal fervor. "Like did they think we would eat them, or something?"

"Pfft, right. With the food we're supposed to eat, I just _might._ "

"Man, when I went to the bathroom, the Chief fucking came _in with me_! How hard do you think it was to piss when she's staring right down at me, huh? I thought having a chick like her staring at my junk would be nice, but I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to get it up after seeing the face she made..."

Everyone within hearing distance laughed, imagining the nervous recruit opting to sit down on the toilet as the stone-faced Chief of a woman continued to stare a hole through him. Some even mimed the scene, playing up how dainty and embarrassed the recruit must have been to roaring approval. The recruit who had been complaining grinned, already fitting in and obviously happy that he was making good with his buddies.

Emiya affected minor amusement as well to fit in, paying more attention to how many seemed ill at ease with life at the moment. The laughter and cheer was the soft balm, after the first day that seemed to have shattered many expectations and daydreams.

It wasn't so much the physical stress as it was simply the complete change in _lifestyle_.

Civilian life was characterized by freedom. Freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. But in the military, having a hundred headless chickens running around would only cause needless chaos. Rather than herding cats, it made sense to drill in _everything_ and regulate it accordingly, so that everyone knew exactly how and when things were done. It would probably change later, but for their first months, they would be constantly monitored and told what to do by their NCO instructors. When to wake up, when to shower, when to eat, when to sleep and when to move.

It would all be regulated until they were fit for being inserted wherever the Alliance Navy had need of a new cog.

"Hey, check it out! It's our only bird!" One of them whistled as a young girl returned from outside the quarters. She was wiping her short, red hair with a synthetic nano-fiber towel as she walked by a dozen beds. Unlike the dust cloth, the towels were designed to absorb and dry up with extreme efficiency. It was honestly a marvel and something Emiya had already spent a good half hour analyzing in his bunk before now.

The young woman—a slip of a girl, really—looked up, scowling at the shouter, but he only laughed as she walked past him.

"Huh, we're sharing a room with a chick? Shouldn't she like have her own room, or something?"

"Duh, on starships there isn't enough space for that kind of shit, man. Didn't you read the manuals they mailed us?" Another noted, raising his arm and turning his omnitool on. Emiya looked curiously at the hologram construct that came into being around the other's arm, seeing one for the first time and observing it with rapt interest.

"Dude! You had your omnitool on? I thought they told us not to!"

"Nah, I took it with me and had it in my box during the day; the rules and regulations allow that much."

"Shit! I could have brought all my movies and—"

"Fuck that shit, man, _who cares_! What about the chicks?" A third joined in, throwing a pillow at the second to shut him up.

"Well, you could look up the sections about _fraternization_. They just about crucify everyone involved and hang their bodies as warnings. More or less, _metaphorically_. So be my guest, man. I'd love to see you try, but it won't be pretty. Heheh."

"Nah, fraternization is for the officers and stuff. We're still just enlisted, so—"

"So banging her is fine?" The horndog among them piped up, sounding excited.

"Nah, lemme finish. It's still listed as ' _inappropriate relationship_ ' under service regulations."

"Aww, what the fuck man..."

Emiya turned his interest away from the trio as the girl walked up and settled in the bed next to him. She was thin and scrawny, barely bigger than he was. And he had been a literal street urchin. Then again, judging by her wary behavior and physique, she had probably been one as well.

She noticed him looking and turned to glare at him.

"What?" She asked, almost growling at him.

Definitely someone who grew up alone on the streets, he judged.

In the places he tended to travel while he had still been alive, children and teens often formed up into gangs and groups for mutual safety and security. Which meant they were great eyes and ears on the ground, especially since they were so easily ingratiated into due to their low social status. A bit of food and water, some chocolate and jokes was usually all it took to gain a group of allies in whatever camp or ruin of a city he found himself in at the time. It was strange to think back and realize he had gotten along better with war orphans than anyone else, during those later years. _They were too innocent to understand what kind of man I really was._

What did _mass murderer_ and _international terrorist_ mean to a child, when they had received warmth and acceptance from him?

The way she squared up at him, the way she seemed to be getting ready for a fight, hoping to make him back down with a show of aggression. All the signs were there. Skittish and wary, yet somehow so very easy to see through. He stared at her for another few seconds, waiting until she was just about to speak up again, allowing the tension to turn cross the threshold from a _stand-off_ into an _awkward staring contest_.

And just before she was about to dismiss him—in that critical juncture where all her expectations were reset and her guard was down, he spoke.

"Emiya."

He said that and turned on his side in the bunk, as if going to sleep. He could almost physically feel the confusion she felt as he smirked with his eyes closed. He really hadn't meant to tease her, but it sort of came naturally at this point.

She clicked her tongue after a second, before copying him and laying down in her own bunk to get some shut eye. Even so, he didn't miss her quiet reply.

"Shepard."

* * *

;

* * *

The next week went by in a blur.

Not to say that it went by fast, only that it all seemed to blend together into a messy mush. In fact, time seemed to actually slow down to a crawl, as every day was filled with chores and exercises. They seemed fairly pointless at first glance, beyond the physical exercises.

But Emiya knew that the pointless chores were a critical part of creating a reliable and structured military force.

At first it started out as a method for their instructors to get a feel for the physical capabilities of the recruits. How many push ups and pull ups could you do? How far could you run in ten minutes? How far could you jump from a standstill? These were noted down and the best among them had been rewarded with a day off that could be appended to the beginning or ending of any official leave. This seemed to work well enough for motivating everyone to give their best and many of them even seemed to be pushing themselves to their limits. And then they were told that if they showed improvement over the coming weeks, they would be rewarded for their progress.

Many among them loudly proclaimed their regret for putting in so much effort in the first time, but all of them seemed to grow closer over the experience.

After that, they continued to slowly whittle down the excuses and reasons for why the recruits had to be constantly doing _something_. If it were merely about getting everyone into shape, then running and PE was all that should have been necessary. Slowly but surely they would have gotten into physical condition. But this about something entirely different, something much more important than mere physical ability. For an army to work, it is necessary for a chain of command to work seamlessly.

For an order up high to travel all the way down, turning words into actions in reality.

Thus, they were made to do meaningless chores. Running back and forth. Digging ditches and filling them in immediately afterwards. Carrying around things and cleaning facilities that had already been cleaned not more than mere hours ago. And of course, marching in formation. Everyone had to be in sync with everyone else, ensuring that they moved as one. Left foot, right foot, left foot. The timing the NCOs demanded was exacting and precise. Some complained about that, as the Navy had a volunteer corps for parades, but their instructors cared little and drilled it all the same.

And so, slowly but surely the amount of physical strain on each day rose while the amount of meaningless chores continued piling up. Gradually, even the most fit among them began to grow tired and weary, as despite the sufficient amount of nutrition and rest provided the long days still wore them down. But this wasn't a physical strain, but rather a _mental one_.

Which was entirely the purpose of the chores doled out by the instructors.

By tiring down and getting the recruits used to the daily slog, the officers and non-commissioned officers did two things. First, they got everyone used to _following orders without question_. Secondly and also—in what might seem a peculiar inversion— _more importantly_ , it also instilled a sense of camaraderie in the recruits. There was a reason so little theory was being passed down at the moment. Why so little was really being _taught_ to them. Beyond the occasional and seemingly sporadic speech by someone, they had zero need to _think_.

They had zero time and energy _to_ think.

But Emiya knew exactly what they were doing.

When faced with an outside pressure, _the group_ begins to form a strong bond within itself. The in-group preference. The sense of _us_ that stood in opposition—or at the very least, stark contrast—to _them_. The _other_. It was the strongest motivational force that existed on the battlefield. Beyond creed, beyond honor, beyond even love, lay only that bond with one's fellows. Where someone would hesitate to ever fire a gun normally, if it were in the defense of their _friend_ in a desperate situation... Suddenly murder would become a matter of course.

To make soldiers, one needed acceptance of orders and the resolution to see them through.

"Give me another hundred squats! Come on!"

"Yesterday you failed to give me two hundred push ups. I guess it can't be helped, you're still soft after all. But _I'm_ here to remedy that! That's why today we're going to all do at least four hundred push ups!"

The physical exercises grew gradually—though certainly not slowly—in intensity.

Many of them struggled to keep up, often due to various reasons, ranging from physical to motivational. But the most common was simply an unfamiliarity with the ability to _push through pain_ until you got results. As a result, usually everyone was punished with more work. And with no other release—no means of escape or venting that frustration into other things—they could only _improve_. Some tried to feign illness and exhaustion, but sooner or later as the group needed everyone to keep up, even the slackers and weaklings among them had to catch up.

_'If I can't do this, everyone will look down on me.'_

_'If I fail, everyone else will suffer more because of me.'_

' _As long as they can do it, I can't give up._ '

Emiya could see those thoughts on many faces during those weeks as the pressure continued to steadily increase. For him it wasn't anything like that, though. Where he struggled physically, mentally it was nothing.

Easy, but boring.

All he had to do was manage his own physical strain and recovery to ensure he did not exceed his limits. Which meant plenty of food and rest.

At first people had looked at him strangely as he ate like a horse, but soon enough everyone else began to follow his lead as their enhanced metabolisms began to kick in to keep up with the demands of their new environment. They ate, and ate and ate. And as a result, they showed incredible results after every day. Well, most of them. Emiya had in practice no gene modification to help him out, so he lagged behind but he simply pushed through with willpower and hanged on barely so as not to overwork himself.

Better to let his body work itself up on its own, rather than risk injury and being set back. He also refrained from using magical energy or Reinforcement, for various reasons. He reasoned it might be noticed and draw unwanted attention, but he partly also felt that as long as he could keep up without it, he shouldn't fall back on his tricks. That old sentiment of never giving up, even when it served no use to push on, seemed to be rearing its head again. Then again, he wasn't the only one who struggled to keep up with the other's physical enhancements and recovery rates, so he could hardly complain.

Finally as they began to plateau physically after the third week, the amount of meaningless work began to lessen. And then the lessons began again with a vengeance.

A big part was simply making everyone accustomed to living as a part of a military organization. What to do, why, when and how to do it. Procedures and protocol for everything and anything was taught. Slowly, their pool of knowledge of how the Navy worked expanded and as it did, their instructors would pour more information in to keep them busy.

"Out there, among the civvies, you can do whatever! But not here! _You_ are _here_ to _serve_! Therefore, we have schedules! We have timetables! We have quotas and we have deadlines! Do you know why they call it that in the Navy? BECAUSE IF YOU FAIL TO MEET THE LINE, SOMEONE DIES!"

They learned ranks and protocol. Organizational charts and how to read and prepare different documents, mostly pertaining to themselves as individuals; how to request a change of gear; how to apply for vacation; how to file a complaint. What was expected of them in the day to day life and what to prepare for in the future.

"This is your _Rules & Regulations_ book. Read it. Learn it. _Live it_. As long as you are a part of the Alliance Navy, your life exists within this manual! Every problem you may have will probably have a solution within its hallowed pages! So before you waste anyone's time with questions, **Read The Fucking Manual!** Any and all dumb questions will promptly and succinctly be answered as such in the future; RTFM! This is not only because it makes shit simpler for us up the food chain; the manuals exist _for you_! If anyone ever questions you, be it a fucking Corporal or a god-motherfucking-damn _Fleet Admiral_ , if you have acted in accordance to the manual, that means you are one-hundred per cent FUCKING RIGHT! This is your sword, this is your shield! Read it! Learn it! _Live it_!"

This was probably the most interesting part to Emiya, as he had never had the chance to observe such things from the inside. Usually, he had always been on the outside looking in, searching for gaps and cracks to abuse. Red team-mentality and all that.

"There are no heroes here; we all work as a team. Either we all win or we all fail!"

And most importantly, they continued to raise the pressure on _the group_. Slowly molding them. Changing them from the outside. Managing their perceptions and beliefs with both overt and subtle methods.

"If you figure out how to do something, don't just stand around with your thumbs up your assholes feeling warm and good about yourselves! What are you waiting for? A pat on the back? A blow-job and some fucking champagne?! Go show your fellow recruits how to do it so that you can be finished more quickly as a whole!"

The results were obvious if you knew how to look for it. On the first day, there had been an uneasy friendship between everyone. But already those bonds were turning into something different, something far stronger. They were all in the same ship; recruits one and all, E1. The lowest of the low.

And they bonded over that. A month from now, he was certain everyone here would remember every face and name from this time for the rest of their lives. They would run around for hours, doing almost pointless chores and performing exercises, only to return to the barracks dead tired.

Someone would crack a joke, not even a particularly good one and everyone would fall apart and into laughing fits where tears ran freely for minutes at a time, leaving the whole room wheezing and completely reset. The bonds formed here were the bedrock of the humanity, since the dawn of time.

Of course, there were exceptions.

As their bodies were worn down every day, feelings would run hot.

Some would butt heads; some would argue. With the NCOs and with each other. One pair even got into a fist fight and ended up getting shouted at by the commanding officer in front of everyone. Just like on the first day, when he had given them a speech as they stood in a loose formation, now he dressed down those two in front of everyone.

It lasted for well over an hour. A public lynching, almost.

After that, those two hotheads grew into the best of friends. Running thick as thieves, they continued to make trouble for everyone else now. Emiya guessed the almost excessively-long dress down had served twin purposes; to erase any and all differences that existed within the ranks of the recruits by creating an external idol upon whom they could aim their anger and stress in the form of the practically untouchable officers, and to cow down anyone who thought about breaking the rules through public humiliation.

Humans are pack creatures. Getting them to comply wasn't really all that difficult if you knew the buttons.

Another exception was himself.

Certainly, his body had to struggle doubly hard to keep up under the ever-increasing workload. Certainly, he was in an alien location surrounded by unfamiliar faces beyond his fellow recruits. Certainly, he worked with them and learned to know and even trust them as they trained every day.

But he had been through so much more, that it barely even scratched the surface of his psyche. Unlike everyone around him, he would probably forget them all after a month's separation. Even now, their faces and names blended with vague figures from his past. Those with whom he had actually struggled and suffered with. Those who had died and disappeared in his wake. Faces of those whom he had had to leave behind in bloody battlefields and thankless turmoil. Of course, it wasn't a problem. He faked through the whole ordeal, maintaining a stoic and stolid appearance who fit in, even if he never quite bonded with anyone. Which was fine, since it was merely a means to an end—it was all accounted for.

But there was an exception he _hadn't_ accounted for.

The redheaded girl, who slept in the bunk next to him; Shepard.

She didn't talk with anyone. She ate with no one. She relied on no one. Her face remained a scowling mask every day as she simply did as she was told and kept her thoughts to herself at all times. Certainly she got along with and handled everything as necessary, but...

Emiya sighed, glancing at the two approaching young men with one eye. This wasn't the first time someone thought to try their luck.

They walked up to Shepard, greeting her with enthusiasm. She looked up from whatever she was doing, squinting at them suspiciously.

"Hey, Shepard, right? I'm Franco." The one began as he grinned nervously at her.

"...That's right." She answered after a moment of silent staring. She had judged neither to be particularly hostile, but at the same time she didn't want anything to do with them.

"Nice hair. Red's pretty rare, heh. I thought you might have colored it, but you don't bring any hair-color with you to the showers, and the roots haven't faded either... So it's gotta be in your genes. That's cool; you don't see a lot of people with red hair anymore," the second continued, not at all disturbed by the awkward silence she had given them as he pressed on.

Shepard blinked, her eyes narrowing as she began to glare at them. "...Have you been watching me shower?"

"What—Uh... No?" The first tried, obviously panicking at the accusation.

"No, we just—"

"What do you want?" Shepard brusquely asked, glaring at them.

They stepped back at the vehemence in her voice, faltering at the intensity.

"We just— Your hair, I mean, it's a rare col—"

"So what? _He's_ got red hair too. Go talk to him if you want to ask stupid questions," she said, nodding Emiya's way before turning her back to them.

The two exchanged looks, licking their lips in a hesitant manner at the dismissal. They realized others, who had their bunks closer to Shepard's than this pair had, were staring at them with amusement. Those closest to the redheaded woman already knew how cold she could be, having all more or less tried to talk to her themselves before.

The two hesitated, finally giving up. "Well, uh... See ya around, yeah?"

"Whatever," she said offhandedly, not even bothering to look at them as she dug in her chest for some of her exercise suits.

She probably wanted to go jogging again to get away from this situation.

Emiya simply listened, closing his eye and returning to his breathing exercises. Drama had never been something he had bothered to care about, though it was interesting to note how women's effect on unit cohesion and morale had changed since his days. Perhaps there was something in the food, or in the genetic therapy that made it so? Exhaling again, he dismissed those thoughts.

Though he didn't use his magic while performing his breathing exercises every day, he did use it to slightly enhance his recovery. Cycling trace amounts of magical energy through his body as he maintained optimal breathing technique helped him recover and it toughened him up at the same time. If he ever needed to use magic inside this body, going cold turkey would be a terrible idea.

Terrible, as in _my arm just exploded from going from 0-to-a-100_ -terrible.

He would only make that mistake _once_. Though this body may have been made suitable for him, it was still a good idea to train it up to meet his standards. That, and he felt strange if he didn't do it at least once a day. It wasn't a physical itch or need of any kind, but simply an old urge to complete his daily rituals. He hadn't bothered with them once since he had become a Heroic Spirit inside the Moon Cell, but that seemed to have changed as he had been given a body again.

Perhaps it was the sensation of _change_ that made it so. Of his body adapting and being molded by his every action.

How troublesome.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard sat down, keeping the oblique glances to a minimum.

So far the Navy hadn't been bad. People had tried to feel her out and make good with her, but she had managed to keep them on the back foot. Like she always had. Playing them off against each other, letting the underlying tensions fly crosswise so she could step away unnoticed from situations. But it was still strange, seeing groups of people everywhere around here, laughing and grinning at each other.

 _It wasn't like that back on the old street,_ she thought frowning.

"Alright, today you will be taking your first looks at your lifelong partners. You all better pay attention, because this stuff won't be just for some test that decides your pay grade. Your life might depend on it one day."

The instructor spoke as she walked down the corridor. On either side of her, lined up on both walls sat recruits on the floor. Before each of them lay a deceptively simple looking device. But she knew what this was. She had seen one before.

A gun.

"This is the Hahne-Kedar industries mass accelerator, more commonly known as a Kessler pistol. It is the mainstay and workhorse of the Systems Alliance. Each of you will be expected to know how to operate, maintain and clean this firearm, regardless of whatever it is that you will end up doing in the future."

Shepard had never held a modern gun herself, but it felt quite similar to the one she had carried before. Back, before she had enlisted. The weight and feel were familiar enough, though this one was entirely alien in design and function.

It was bigger, too.

 _Put bullets in, pull back the slide, release the safety and pull the trigger_. The dealer had told her that back when she had bought it. No more difficult than that. And it hadn't been. But this thing seemed like something out of this world. She smiled a little at that thought.

Like something beyond her _old world;_ those dark places where no one and nothing was quite as pristine and pure as everything here. It reminded her of the night skies, back from the old street's roofs. When the light pollution was low enough that she could see the stars. Of when she could hear the distant roar of a starship, when at night it could be seen against the night sky as a dot of light leaving the grime and dirt of the streets around her behind it. She would wake up early in those days, before dawn whenever she could just to catch a glimpse of that other world, far from everything around her.

Somehow she thought she would like this gun very much.

Shepard glanced around, noting people's reactions and how they seemed to handle the guns placed before them.

"The ones before you lack an ammunition block and have not been charged, therefore they should be harmless. But that is a lie. Remember this, _treat every firearm as if it is loaded and ready to fire, at all times_ ," the instructor spoke, stopping before Shepard as she stared down at her.

She nodded, seriously considering those words. She had seen what that old piece could do to a human often enough. And in response to those memories a morbid curiosity welled up inside of her. _What would this thing do to a person, if I shot them with it...?_

Shaking away that thought, she looked around again and noticed Emiya, sitting some four places to the left opposite to her. He seemed utterly confused with the gun before him as he checked the bottom of the handle and the top of the barrel. She blinked, realizing something odd. _He's checking the magazine well and the slide_.

Looking back down at her own gun, she noted that the Kessler pistol lacked any of those features. They were relics; design artifacts in firearms from the days of chemical propellants and cased ammunition. It was a strange realization, that the short red-haired kid was apparently familiar with old guns more than new ones. Like she was.

Well, it was good that she wasn't the only one in entirely new waters. If nothing else, she could keep an eye on him to see if she'd missed something in the instructions.

The other recruits seemed to be somewhat familiar, even excited, at handling the Hahne-Kedar mass accelerators. No doubt they had seen in vids and games similar weapons their entire lives. She looked at Emiya again, trying to make sure no one noticed. She was pretty good at that; a talent she had developed back on the old street. You never wanted anyone to know you were looking at them. It made them aware, which was always bad.

The Asian boy had been younger and smaller than even she was when they had first arrived. But he ate twice as much as everyone else did and had only been eating more every day since. Almost every week it seemed like he had to go and change his gear due to one part or another of him having grown too large overnight.

Had he been in some gang as well, back when he had lived on the streets? It was obvious that he was another urchin, just as obvious as it was the she was from the slums as well. For a moment she entertained the idea that he had been sent after her, but dismissed it immediately with a scoff. _Those guys_ wouldn't have known because she hadn't told anyone about leaving and the timing was off, anyhow. She had left at the last second, so that no one would have time to catch wind of her leaving.

She had turned 18 just a few days prior to walking in to the enlistment office, having long since decided that a decade of service to the Systems Alliance was better than staying on the old street. And it also meant getting to see that _other world_ up close.

Shepard almost chuckled at the furrowed brows of the red-haired recruit, as he stared in what seemed like frustration at the pistol in his hands.

"—it functions by shaving off a piece from the ammunition block and then accelerating it with the internal magnetic field to hypersonic speeds, as the mass effect field lightens it further to allow maximum velocity of the round to be achieved. Now, you might think, ' _how could something so small be dangerous_ ' right? Well... Once you get to fire these things, you will come to realize just how _fast_ things can go. As you can see, there are multiple—"

Shepard sharpened up as the instructor passed by her again, droning on about how the gun worked. She tried to listen, but somewhere around the time eezo started to be talked about she honestly lost track altogether.

It didn't matter. She knew what she was good at and what she wasn't worth shit at.

She could read people quickly and she could take anyone on in an _unfair_ fight. If you had needed to run away or if you needed something or someone found, she had always been the authority on the old street. That's why _they_ had let her buy a gun instead of trying to muscle her out. More useful to keep her as a neutral street enforcer than to get stuck fighting for every street corner. She was going to find a similar place here, sooner or later.

Which sure as hell wasn't going to be fixing guns, that was for sure.

She just needed to know how to use this _thing_ and from there it was just as usual. Keep an eye on people, see how they reacted to her, note any changes and see if they were trying to fuck her up. And then completely and utterly fuck them up first.

"—therefore the biggest limitation to firepower in the modern age remains heat. If you continue to fire your gun without pause, it will overheat and enter into a forced cooldown until the internal systems have stabilized again. The internal computer will handle all of that, but the specific settings depend on the maker and model of mass accelerator. For the Kessler, you will have to learn how to run a basic diagnostics, which can be done by removing the side panel on the handle and—"

Shepard continued to listen, picking out details which she knew to be important even as she let the technical dribble go in through one ear and out through the other. She learned a whole lot even as she barely understood half, but by the end of the lesson she felt confident in carrying the thing around.

Still didn't mean she knew how to shoot the damn thing, but all in good time.

Looking around, most people seemed to be at that same level of comfort and understanding of the guns as well. Good.

"Therefore, outside of timeslots where firearms are specified as necessary equipment, the pistols shall always be stored in the locker. The _de jure-_ serviceman on duty by the front desk will be expected to keep an bi-hourly log to make sure that each pistol is accounted for at all times." The instructor finished, stopping her almost three hours long pacing as she placed her hands on her hips.

Shepard stretched her neck, feeling a slight stiffness from sitting for so long. As she did, she noticed Emiya again and she froze.

He had the whole pistol in what seemed like a hundred pieces in front of him, all neatly and clearly organized into sections as he went through it all. The redhead nodded to himself, before grabbing a piece and then with expert coordination began to put back the puzzle pieces as if he had done it a thousand times before

Thirty seconds later, it was all in one piece again. Flawless and pristine. He smiled slightly; an entirely new expression on his face. The strange kid would smirk, would grin and would occasionally give a ghost of a half-smile, but she had never seen such a relaxed and satisfied expression on his face before. Honestly he gave her the creeps, since she just couldn't get a read on him.

She blinked and then he had noticed her; the expression disappearing as his face morphed back into a stoic mask of indifference. It had been a momentary lapse, something which only peeked through the cracks in a moment of indulgence. But she had definitely seen it.

He raised an eyebrow at her, as if asking if there was something she needed. Shepard looked away, frowning as she considered what she had seen.

 _He learns quickly_ , she noted. And for some reason, that mysterious smile stuck in her mind for several hours afterwards.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya jumped down, absorbing the impact as best he could even as the mud splashed on his face.

"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! No dawdling around!" The instructor standing next to the wooden wall shouted at him, though he had already been making a decent enough to. Twice a week, they were taken to an obstacle course and made to run it several times. The average of their results would be measured and listed, the worst performing among them would be then given extra cleaning duties as punishment, to keep everyone motivated.

He surged forward, taking great loping steps as his feet pushed through and pulled out of the shin-high mud. It hadn't even rained recently, yet as always this section of the pit was covered in mud. Emiya assumed it was simply there to slow people down and to make the fall from the top of the wooden wall he had just climbed over less dangerous.

As he arrived to the hanging rope, he climbed up the pole until he was about 3 meters in the air. His hands found the rope, leading over the water obstacle attached to another pole at the other end of the water. Almost like a powerline hanging by the roadside, or a clothesline, Emiya thought with some amusement as he swung his legs up to hook himself up. He quickly moved down the rope, making it all the way over to the other side and then jumped down.

The impact was quite heavy again, but he absorbed it best he could by spreading out his limbs and using his large muscles to dampen the fall. If he had any criticisms about the course, it would mostly be the amount of sheer drops they had to take. Falls like this were fine if you had space to roll forward and turn the downwards acceleration into forwards movement—or had the ability to simply reinforce the body to be able to take it—but here that never seemed an option.

Then again, given that he was the only one who seemed to have noticed that, perhaps it was simply an archaic worry of a human being who did not enjoy the full benefits of gene therapy. No matter, the drops still made his ankles ache. He would have to get some cold packs and make sure to check it more thoroughly later.

He sighed as he got back into a run. Already, he was wondering if this really had been his best option. While nominally physically challenging, it was really the boredom of it all that was getting to him. He was running the calculations in his head again, noting that the shortest distance between Earth and the Charon Relay was far, far greater than even the longest distance between Earth and Mars. Even with the elliptical orbits, that hardly changed.

Given how many FTL-capable vessels existed on Earth, wouldn't it have been simpler to steal one after all?

No, the vessel would no doubt be discovered as he had landed and gone to the Mars' ruins, making the use of the vessel impossible for a return trip. Of course, given Archimedes he wouldn't have been too surprised if the plan was to have him simply go to Mars and then waste away without magical energy to maintain his spiritual core.

As Emiya climbed up a rope ladder, he stared down at the ground beneath him with some trepidation. This was even higher than the previous drop. _I am definitely going to need an ice-pack later. I'll have to visit the infirmary again._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled, letting the breath come out naturally as he simply relaxed his body. The long, rhythmic breathing pattern began anew as he pushed it just a fraction of a second further. His heart stilled for a moment again and his mind seemed to settle down into an absolute blankness.

Like a lake with a mirror-smooth surface, unbroken and undisturbed by anything—his self become void of ripples as he continued to cycle through the simple actions.

He had started out with a five second base; now he was already up to above half a minute. He inhaled slowly and as smoothly as humanly possible, drew out the action for over thirty nine seconds as he reached for his limits, but at forty two he had to cease as his lungs could not fill any more. He held his breath; not tensing a single muscle or holding his airways shut by force, but simply existing in a perfectly relaxed state.

Already, his heart was beating at less than 25 beats per minute.

Twenty seconds passed in stillness; the oxygen level in his bloodstream still high enough that he could easily last a minute like this. His consciousness felt detached. A sign of hypoxia he noted distantly, filing it away as unimportant. The body would pass out and resume regular breathing before he actually managed to really injure himself here. He knew he was pushing his limits, but given that he was forced to keep up with a group of highly motivated nigh-superhumans in their prime...

He needed all the edges he could get. If he could push it up to 45 or even 50 seconds, his anaerobic capacity would be quite close to the others. It would let him keep up, at least in that part of the ever-increasing physical regimen. Already the regimen was nearing Emiya's limits.

Of course, using magical energy always remained an option, but somehow it felt like he would be giving up if he fell back to using it. It was strange, how in this serene state he could reflect upon his character more easily. As if he became detached from himself, allowing him to more objectively judge his actions.

That or it was the hypoxia giving him funny thoughts.

It wasn't a matter of just being caught; just because he used Reinforcement did not mean that he would increase his performance proportionally and continue to excel. He could simply relieve the stresses on himself by keeping up with everyone else, allowing himself to strain himself less physically while staying below the radar.

No, this was a matter of willpower. Of challenging himself. He thought himself more mature than that; that he had grown out of his need to prove to himself. That he could do something or keep going until it became absolutely clear, that it was in fact impossible. Even then, he had often in the past kept going with sheer bullheaded stubbornness, as if denying the impossible with desperation.

Yet here he was again, refusing the easy way.

He began to exhale, drawing it out and letting his lungs deflate under their own weight and the compression of his relaxed torso. He drew it to match the inhale; when it came to controlling your own body through breathing, rhythm was the most important thing. He had originally studied ancient martial methods in hopes of learning something useful back when he had been alive. He had used what he had learned to modify his own breathing technique, the one he had used ever since he had first joined the kyudo club. Then he had begun to study more and more scientific methods and studies into the matter; how biofeedback functioned and how it was utilized in the modern world.

To control the parts and systems of your body that lacked a direct neural connection, it is only practically feasible through manipulating them with those systems which were controllable. Breathing and muscle tension stood at the forefront as he had found out, being the most easily learned and controlled methods.

One of the simplest was the Hook breathing method; the Anti-G Straining Maneuver. Used by fighter pilots and others who regularly performed in situations with incredibly high forces playing havoc on their bodies. Were a regular human being placed into those circumstances, they would begin to feel nauseous and weak after a mere couple G's worth of stress, whereas these people had to regularly and for prolonged periods of time perform challenging duties under that stress.

The main problem one would face is that as one makes a tight turn and the G's pile up, your body would want to keep going in that direction, including the blood inside your veins. This usually means that it wants to collect in your legs and arms, instead of in your head where it is most vitally needed. Thus, for untrained people a flight in a high-power plane would end in unconsciousness or even death as they lost conscious.

To counter this, the AGSM has two main parts; tightening your muscles in your legs and torso to give the blood less space, forcing it back up, and breathing in a specific rhythm by repeating the word "Hook" as you did.

For Emiya, there had been some use to such techniques, but mainly he had been interested in the studies and methods used to investigate into such techniques. Thus he had acquired instruments which allowed him to sample the oxygen level in his bloodstream or in his cells, like with a hyperspectral imager to figure out how to maximize the amount of oxygen he could retain with his breathing.

Later on, it became useful as a skill when his opponents began to field the same technology on the battlefield to detect hostiles. Being able to control your body to pass through a crowd, entirely unseen despite the equipment internationally praised as unbeatable _had_ gotten him through more than once tricky situation.

While he could not move so quickly as to need to worry about passing out from all of his blood leaving his brain, like in a fighter jet, it was a concern for him that he could run out of breath and pass out after a minute of intense exercise when fighting at his utmost limits. Now and back then.

He had started out just sitting and meditating, recording how different things affected the level of oxygen in his blood and muscles, and then he moved up to training his breathing as he fought. He had learned other tricks as well; how to heat up or cool down his body, how to force more blood into his brain to wake himself up more quickly and how to train his anaerobic capacity without actually needing to physically strain himself, like he was doing right now.

His muscles needed to recuperate longer than his peers' did, given their more advanced effects from the gene therapy. He couldn't afford to go running simply to enhance his cardiovascular capability when he needed to recover in time for the next training session.

In essence, he could receive the benefits that someone who lived in high altitudes would if they were to come down where the oxygen levels were higher, simply through breathing exercises. It had even been used by some to prepare for mountain climbing, allowing them to cut back on the time needed to adjust for altitude.

He finished his exhale; emptying his body wholly.

Emiya became a void.

Whereas when he was filled to the brim and became a serene lake when he held his breath upon the inhale, in this moment he was completely and utterly devoid of anything and everything. He held no thoughts, no beliefs and no consciousness in this moment. Though his blood still held oxygen and his muscles were not under any strain, it has been nearly two minutes since he had last inhaled.

He continued to restrain from breathing in; forcing himself to maintain his complete absence of self and breath for as long as he could. In this state, complex thought became impossible. Even counting the passing of time became muddled and difficult.

But it also proportionally increased his capacity for acting anaerobically, thus he did not give up. Not quite yet. A little bit more. Just a few seconds—

Something jostled him and his eyes shot open, his mouth opening as he inhaled what felt like an entire roomful of air in a single second. His limbs tingled, his stomach half-cramping as his body greedily took in the air. He looked up, eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the redhead who looked back at him.

She had tripped somehow and taken support from his bed frame, making her arm accidentally touch up against him, nothing more.

"Shit. Sorry." Shepard grimaced, looking sheepish as she backed away from him.

Emiya blinked, exhaling as he normalized his breathing. His thoughts came rushing back as his oxygen levels normalized as well and his body began to slip back into what felt like reality. The veil of self-induced distance from all vanished. He glanced at the clock, noting that he had been meditating for over an hour already.

He grunted at her, leaning slightly to look at her. She had apparently tripped and almost fallen on top of him, something quite unlike the stoic and unsociable girl. "Are you alright?"

"Huh? Yeah, fine." She glanced at him, waving his question and walking away. But he couldn't help but notice the slight limp she had. Had her foot fallen asleep when she had been lying in her cot? ...Or was it something else.

He shook his head; it had nothing to do with him. Yet even as he thought that, a memory of the past welled up. There had been someone like that in Cambodia. Or perhaps Johannesburg. At this point many of his memories had begun to blur together.

Someone who had clawed their way out of a slum, always hiding their weaknesses and treating everyone as a potential hostile. The name had long since been forgotten, but the way he had died after getting an injury and refusing to ask for help had stuck with Emiya.

That night, he couldn't shake away the memories of the past.

Things he had thought he had long since cast away resurfaced unbidden to cling to him again. Those whom he had left behind; those who had parted ways with him, unable to keep up with his mad zeal or unable to understand his reasons; those who he had failed due to never managing to communicate properly.

Slowly but surely, the rusted cogs that had spun in his internal world for decades began to cease their turning.


	4. Growing Pains

Emiya raised his gun, keeping the finger off the trigger and flicking the safety off as he walked around. A recruit walked in front of him, almost cutting his theoretical line of fire with his own pistol raised.

Flick safety, lower pistol, keep walking.

The man walked past Emiya and he raised his pistol again, flicking off the safety. It was pretty monotonous and boring, but Emiya couldn't deny the purpose and effectiveness of this drill. Still, being forced to duck walk around in an enclosed circle with sixty other recruits while training weapon's safety for over an hour was beginning to seem a little overkill.

' _Every time someone fails to lower their gun and toggle the safety when your buddy walks past you, they just died! That means you still haven't learned and we add another five minutes to the drill!_ '

Was what she had said and she had definitely stuck to her word. At first the majority had scoffed at that, but as their sadistic female instructor continued to penalize them without fail and as the duration of the exercise kept extending, they began to finally catch on.

Fuck ups weren't tolerated.

At this point, anyone who fucked up would be _remembered_ by the rest. Team spirit at its _finest_ ; 'you get with the program or we beat your ass until you stop making them punish us for your mistakes'.

Anyone who didn't know what they were doing and walked by, seeing them all walking around with their guns would have probably scratched their heads in complete confusion. Well, civilians anyhow. Everyone on base had done the same and knew the drill. It had been hammered into the spines of every Navy soldier the Systems Alliance had churned out.

' _Imagine that down your line of fire, where your bullets would go, there is a burning hot red laser_. _It stops for nothing and goes on until it hits something. That thing is_ dead _. That's how your gun works; at more than a kilometer a second, that chip of metal doesn't stop until it hits something. Which means that if you don't pay attention where you're pointing that thing, someone will die!_ '

Emiya noticed another recruit—holding his pistol up and duck walking around just like he was—in his peripheral vision. There was nowhere for the other to go, but through Emiya's firing line. Through the imaginary laser that ran down his sight into the barracks in the distance.

Toggle safety, lower pistol, keep finger off trigger.

He passed by in front of Emiya, visibly relieved that he had been noticed and that Emiya had not screwed up. Not relieved over the imaginary laser so much as relieved that he hadn't added to the exercises duration with a fuck up.

Toggle safety off, raise pistol, keep finger off trigger.

After ten minutes of walking like this, everyone's thighs had begun to tremble. That apparently meant that they would have to train more often in the future, according to the chief. The term duck walk wasn't the official name, but that had gone past Emiya's notice when he hadn't been paying attention. They used an acronym for it anyway, which made knowing actual proper name sort of redundant.

Come to think of it, the Alliance Navy seemed to have acronyms for everything to the point where listening in to a conversation between older soldiers tended to sound like an entirely different language.

' _Yeah, we were doing a SSD with the CMSO down at the DGRE, but then the SSDO came running, shouting about a FFM which of course got the lt all sparking, so we all had to sign a DDCT in case of a ICIFF._ '

He was pretty sure they did it just to confuse the civilians and the recruits, anyhow.

Emiya had learned something similar to what they were doing right now, back when he had been first learning about guns in his first life. Though this was somewhat different, but the principle remained the same. For handguns, the Isosceles Stance seemed the closest equivalent to what they were doing.

The basics were simple enough; torso straight forward into the direction they were walking towards,

'Y _our armor is thickest in the front; the ribs aren't guaranteed to stop a bullet. Face them head on!'_

—with their knees bent so that when they walked their head did not bob up and down at all,

 _'You bounce around when you're a civvy. With a gun, that is not fucking acceptable. You point your gun only at what you want dead. Nothing else! Your head rises up above where your ear would normally be or if you start bouncing around, it's another five minutes for you monkeys! Now keep walking, you don't get to slow down and rest when someone's shooting back at you, so you sure as hell don't get to rest here either!_ '

—and with their torso leaning a slight bit forward, so that the straight arm pushed against the pistol. He could have put the muzzle against a wall and leaned against it, with how solid his form was.

' _When you pull that trigger, you gotta lean into it. If you're standing with your back straight and up right, your muzzle will climb like your dicks do whenever you sorry sacks see my perfect ass walking by! And just like you, that makes your gun worthless! You can waste your own shots all you like, but here in the military we're actually shooting something worth a fuck! Lean into the shot to absorb the recoil from your fire, so your sights will stay on target!_ '

All in all it sounded quite simple.

But that was why they drilled it so hard. It couldn't simply sound like it, it _had to be simple._ It had to be so instinctual that they never ever forgot it. Which was why the instructor had drawn a large circle into the sand. Large enough for all of them to stand in with a little bit of space to move around.

If they failed to keep proper posture: five more minutes. If they accidentally "shot" someone, failing to lower their gun as a friendly walked in front of them: five more minutes. If they stopped moving: five more minutes.

"Thirty more seconds, you sorry sacks of shit! Amateurs train till they get it right! Professionals train until they can't get it wrong!" The instructor shouted, still grinning widely as she stared at the group of duck walking morose soldiers.

It was hardly a bad exercise. Simply a bit monotonous, Emiya thought as he continued to walk around. He had always preferred long rifles or single-shot pistols to rapid fire mid-range guns like the submachine guns which needed this kind of recoil control, but this was hardly a new thing.

Still, it would be good to be done with this and get a shower—

"Serviceman Li, you fuck up! I told you about keeping your knees bent already! No bobbing! Five more minutes!"

The collective groan gave voice to Emiya's own thoughts.

* * *

;

* * *

He walked out of the showers, toweling his hair dry as he stretched his neck. A cold shower had felt great, though he was certain that soon they would begin introducing water-saving measures in preparation to life aboard a spaceship.

Better to enjoy the little pleasures while he still could.

Emiya put on the regulated regulation shorts and slippers, folding his still wet towel around his arm as he walked out of the communal showers. The distance between his bunk and the showers wasn't that far, but the Navy still had a fairly strict dress code for walking in the corridors. When going for a shower you had to wear acceptable gear, just like with your uniform.

It might seem pedantic and ridiculous, but it instilled a sense of order, he supposed. Just like how you made your bed neatly and tidily after waking up, you always put your appearance in order. If nothing else, it served as a second line of defense against intrusion, in that anyone not wearing very specific uniform or apparel would stand out immediately.

Perhaps he was simply overthinking the matter, Emiya noted as he put his towel to dry. The micro-fiber would be dry in five minutes, which was handy. He stripped off his shorts and reached for a uniform one-piece suit.

Putting in his legs one at a time and pulling it up, Emiya frowned. He had grown again, which meant that he would have to go and requisition another one in a larger size. Though he felt some comfort in growing to a more dignified height, closer to his usual, it was still an annoyance that it came so rapidly when he had to wear these strange military clothes.

A jeans and long-sleeved shirt combination wouldn't need to be replaced every few weeks, he groused.

His original growth had continued well into his twenties, an apparent side-effect of heavy use of od for magecraft and not all too unusual among practitioners. But here it seemed that his body was trying to catch up within a year to his original height, which along with his increasing weight from all the exercise left him perpetually hungry.

He would have to go and get another set of suits before one of the NCOs complained. They were pedantic like that.

It could wait. Besides, the requisitions office had already closed for the day. Emiya sighed, pulling the suit on forcefully. Worst case was that the sizes they had would not fit him anyhow, forcing him to wait until the next size up was fine. Such was life in the service he thought again with a sigh, not for the first time.

Since everything was made on the large scale, a lot of the time small things didn't quite fit right. When you made half a million uniforms, you had to choose between having all sizes possible and wasting half of your stock, or limiting the variation and having most of your stock in use.

He sat down on his bunk, pulling up the omnitool he had been handed a week back and began to navigate through the menus. It was a basic model, apparently only handed to those who had not already bought one before arriving.

An orange holographic sleeve appeared on his left arm; the haptic interface that allowed him to interact with the supposedly massless construct of light, giving him a way to use the supercomputer on his wrist.

It allowed him to do anything and everything, really. From scanning and manufacturing items, to watching and listening to vids and music to various forms of communication and information sharing.

Usually, in his time, private cell phones and the like had been banned while on duty in various services, due to various reasons ranging from operational security to matters of discipline. He knew more than one operation that had nearly failed due to other parties having access to the cell phone metadata or even the conversations themselves of the opposition.

But, with technology marching on, this rule too had been overturned. Omnitools were simply too useful to ban and instead they had been mandated to be updated with Systems Alliance firmware and added to their network.

This way, the "dumb grunts" who wanted to watch vids or listen to music in their downtime got their way, while the highers up could acquire much more accurate and reliable data on their personnel. Emiya was fairly certain that the omnitool was recording and monitoring his heart-rate and blood pressure at every moment, which had ground any and all use of magic to a halt after he received it.

He still meditated, but mostly just kept it up for maintaining what he had already achieved which kept his heart-rate and blood pressure in more normal territory.

Still, while it was an annoyance and a millstone hanging around his neck, it did have its uses. He pulled up the extranet and began to read quietly. Reading with the projected screen over his forearm was a bother, but with some tinkering he had found the settings to freely adjust the location of the screen, which soon allowed him to read freely.

For one, most every book ever published in any shape or form was recorded and could freely be read. Old books he had heard about before but never had the chance to read, classics which he half-remembered, new masterpieces written decades after his death...

The breadth and choice of literature available to him was incredible.

And that was just the extranet; he had also been copies of the user manuals to all of his gear, which he spent more than an eyefull on.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" Someone asked and Emiya looked up. It was one of the recruits, but the name eluded Emiya at the moment. "Wanna come and play some basketball? We've got the court in fifteen."

Emiya considered for a moment before shaking his head.

"No, I'm in the middle of some reading here. But thank you for asking." Didn't hurt to be polite, Emiya figured.

"Oh? What about? I'm Chad, by the way." He asked and then introduced himself with a smile, not at all faltering at the rejection.

Emiya blinked, having almost returned to his reading. He almost frowned, but refrained. "Emiya. General information about different places in the galaxy. About the cities, populations and climate."

"Huh? Why?" He seemed genuinely curious, which was the only reason Emiya didn't ignore him already. Besides, he _wanted_ something.

"...I've never been off Earth. Seemed like something interesting." That was technically true, as he had lived and died on Earth, and this body had never left either. And it could help him somewhere down the line.

"Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Oh man, I remember watching extranet vids about the Citadel when I was a kid all day after school. That place is _awesome_ , even better in person."

Emiya nodded.

He hadn't actually read about anything outside of the solar system. It hadn't seemed proper. Or rather, he wasn't sure if he _should_ read more. There was a niggling feeling of hesitation, when his finger sometimes hovered over the tab for more information on relays and other systems and races.

There was a curiosity, a hunger for knowledge of what the future had brought. But he was here _only_ to deliver a codecast to the Mars' ruins. Nothing more, nothing less. He had long since died; there was no place for him among the living, be it on Earth or out in the stars.

Thus he refrained.

"Lemme see, man..." Chad walked up to Emiya and tilted his head to read the text. Emiya didn't bother trying to hide his screen, since it wasn't like there was anything particularly incriminating or unreasonable there.

Besides, he was growing curious about what this 'Chad' wanted. There seemed to be some agenda behind all this seeming casual talk.

"Mars...? Why'd you want to read about that hickville? There's _literally_ nothing there." Chad asked, frowning at Emiya as he took a step back.

Emiya shrugged at that, "Never been to Mars, but I've seen it in the night sky before. Seemed interesting."

"...Well...Uh, I guess..." He said, crossing his arms, as if not entirely sure about Emiya's reasoning. Chad turned to look at Shepard, who was quietly paying attention to their conversation by the side. "What about you, Sheppie?"

Shepard blinked at having been drawn into the conversation, before realizing she had been asked a question.

"I've never been off Earth, either. Mars does seem pretty interesting. I once saw it through a telescope, before. Wouldn't mind going there once, at least." She said with a shrug.

Chad blinked.

"Uh no, I meant like, you wanna come and play some hoop with us?"

Emiya almost chuckled. _So that was it. I was just a prop to get her attention, then_. Shepard frowned, realizing that had been the start of the discussion, after all.

"How about it, Sheppie?"

"...What did you just call me?" She looked at him, not quite glaring but still seeming more than a little annoyed.

"Uh..." He hesitated.

 _You blew it. You should have kept going; make her laugh and get her off-guard and off-balance, after that she would have actually considered it. Now she's just annoyed at her interest in Mars being dismissed._ Emiya smirked a little, amused at being sidelined as he went back to his reading.

"Well, uh, we'll be by the court, if either of you wants to come, yeah?" Chad said, with slightly put out expression as he turned and walked away.

Emiya continued his reading, steadfastly ignoring the stare he felt from his side. After a minute, she stopped. He felt somewhat dissatisfied that she had not attempted to continue a conversation, he realized.

Simply because now he was left with only his reading and the taunting hyperlink titled ' _Learn more about The Citadel_ ', again.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya blinked, pressing the button that should have brought out the glowing haptic interface.

Nothing happened. His brows furrowed and he looked at the physical omnitool, strapped to his wrist with intent. It hadn't taken any physical hits and it seemed to still work fine, as the small power and connection lights were on.

He physically rebooted it and the lights blinked, but the haptic interface remained missing. He tried removing the power source and replacing it as he rebooted it again. Nothing. Everything seemed to be working, at least hardware-wise.

Which meant software. This wasn't due to anything he had done.

He looked up, having felt someone's gaze at him for a while now. He would have dismissed it as meaningless, but those two had been surreptitiously staring at him for well over an hour now. Ever since their off-duty hours began.

_The last time I used the omnitool was... Three hours ago._

It was merely a correlation, but given that those two had been glaring at him occasionally ever since they had tried to talk to Shepard, it did seem relevant. In fact, he had seen them tinkering and whispering over their omnitools for days now, often glancing his way with a satisfied smirk or predatory joy.

 _Those two must have sabotaged my omnitool somehow._ Emiya sighed. He had simply thought to read some more of the codex and the technical manuals they had been provided with in lieu of exercise or other things to do.

He hardly could practice his magecraft or tinker with some broken things, after all.

_Well now, how to handle this..._

He could confront them, but that was unlikely to bring about any results and would probably merely increase their future misapprehensions towards him unless he made it clear that he would not tolerate it. Which would require escalation; a show of force and aggression. Not something he particularly felt like doing. For one, it would make him unduly stand out. For another, it wasn't even really an annoyance since the omnitool was simply another tool he had been handed by the Navy. He had no attachment to it, nor any real need for the things it could let him read or watch.

Emiya knew there were some definite extranet junkies and gaming addicts among the recruits, Franco and his unnamed buddy among them. Then again, assuming they hadn't been doing nothing with their omnitools, perhaps they had been planning and plotting to mess with him all this time.

How ridiculous.

 _Eh, might as well escalate it all the way, then_.He thought with a shrug as he took off the omnitool and removed the power source as he got up. _Better ham it up a bit to rile them up_.

"Anybody else have a problem with their omnitool?" Emiya asked, speaking loudly.

Several dozen heads turned his way, looking at him quizzically, but they all shook their heads and murmured denials as they tried quickly. Emiya began to walk for the door, nearing the two bunks where the two most likely suspects slept and at this moment were sitting as they quietly observed Emiya.

They seemed to be enjoying this, too. _Time to turn up the heat_.

"Well, it's probably some virus I got from online. But I turned it off and I'm gonna go hand it in to the _chiefs_ for inspection. They can probably trace it back and get it working again." He said, almost casually just as he walked past the two, stressing the mention of their superior officers in just the right way for it to sound _promising_.

From his peripheral vision he could see the two freeze up at that. Escalating accidentally to the point where he incriminated them for hacking—or sabotaging or whatever it was that they had done—of Navy property was far beyond any reaction they could have expected.

And with the omnitool turned off, they wouldn't be able to un-do their dirty work. Sure, it was unlikely that it would actually result in anything substantial, but it wasn't the facts of the matter that were important. It was the threat of escalating to strategic nukes when it came to drama, by taking it to the officers, that was important.

"H-hey! Uh, are you sure that's a good idea?" One jumped up before Emiya could walk out.

He didn't turn around but slowed down a bit.

"I mean, it could be nothing. Right?" The one who had introduced himself as Franco joined in, glancing hesitantly at the other.

"Right." The first agreed. "Uh, I, uh, I could take a look at it for you, see if it's really bad. I'm pretty good with tech, you know." Franco offered, licking his lips as he glanced at his partner-in-crime.

Emiya turned around, smiling with faux-relief, though neither could tell.

"Really? That'd be a huge relief." He smiled, staring right into Franco's eyes. "Not having my omnitool not working, I mean."

 _I know it was you, you little shit._ Emiya thought, putting all his focus into that look. He didn't change his body language at all, didn't bother with killing intent or to even put any hostility to his thoughts, or anything else so overt. He simply _focused_ on Franco, as if he were a hawk staring down a mouse.

The last time the three of them had been within speaking distance of each other, Emiya had still been rail thin and quite short for his supposed age. But now? Perhaps it had been the gene therapy. Perhaps it had been the copious amounts of exercise and food he partook in to keep up with everyone else. Perhaps it was simply his soul modifying the body to match his true appearance quicker. Whatever it was, he had _changed_ since that time they had last been near each other.

At a distance, it would not have been obvious unless you were paying attention. But up close?

Franco seemed to realize that Emiya had grown nearly half a head taller and that each of his four limbs had nearly doubled in circumference as he had been putting on muscle at an astonishing rate. Franco swallowed, his mind blanking as the whites of his eyes began to show.

Somehow that scrawny little thing had turned into something _absolutely terrifying_ in an instant. Emiya clapped him on the shoulder, breaking the trance as he smiled.

"Thanks, I appreciate the help."

The spell had been broken, both of them looking as if they had just awoken from a dream, or what they had thought had been reality but had suddenly revealed itself to be a dream. They blinked, confused as their thoughts and fears from the previous moment seemed entirely unfounded.

Yet, that feeling would linger in the back of their minds.

"Y-yeah. No problem."

Emiya didn't have any problems with his omnitool since.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya let out a breath as he hit the bed.

His eyes felt heavy, which was somewhat surprising. He hadn't really felt sleepy since he had come to inhabit this body. Physical exhaustion was one thing and matching up with the rhythm of the world around him was another.

But feeling an actual physical need to sleep? That was a first in a long while. Then again, four hours of running in full gear through the rain did that to you. Just about everyone else seemed completely done for the day as well.

Still, he felt some satisfaction as his body was growing at a stupendous rate to match the environment. It even exceeded the projected rate of the gene therapy, though that had more with simply his soul being what it was.

He did his best to hold back the most of the flow between the soul and the corpus, to remain unnoticed by the instructors, but even so his advances were being noticed. Already, he was having a lot less trouble with keeping up, vindicating his decision to not use magecraft during his time in the Navy.

"...Shit."

Emiya opened his eyes at the soft cursing voice.

He was the only one who heard the whisper, he was sure. Turning his head, he stared at Shepard with one eye closed to remain unnoticed. She was sitting at her bunk, one leg crossed up on her knee as she was holding her foot. The redhead was frowning as she wiggled her toes, apparently testing out the range of motion of her foot.

He considered it for a moment, before closing his eyes. _It has nothing to do with me_.

"Fuck..." She cursed again.

Emiya opened his eyes, sitting up with a sigh. He didn't bother looking at Shepard, simply getting down and getting his clothes in order. Outside of the sleeping hall, a relatively strict dresscode was enforced after all.

He left without a word, walking quietly down the empty halls.

Given the size of this place, it would usually be full of recruits and the personnel needed to train those recruits. But it was _off season_ , so the personnel was downsized proportionately. Perhaps they worked part-time or they were assigned elsewhere for the time being.

Regardless, the result was what it was. The empty and dark corridors stretched on everywhere around him. Every seven steps one of the ceiling lights would recognize movement and toggle on the sterile lights that were almost blue in hue, lighting another seven steps for him to walk. His footsteps echoed lightly, until he found what he needed.

He knocked on the door. No one answered.

That was fine; he knew no one was inside. He couldn't hear anyone's breathing or heartbeat inside after all. But still, there were cameras and he had to at least act somewhat the part. Technically he wasn't supposed to enter here, as listed in the 'fucking manual', but he was sure that he could handle whatever came if someone decided to chew him out on it.

The infirmary was empty and dark; the lights being manually switched unlike in the halls. He opened the small refrigerator beneath the empty table and reached inside. Having found what he was looking for he grabbed a meter of toilet paper from the bathroom as well before leaving.

Walking back briskly, he wrapped the ice-pack in the toilet paper with care.

He made it back, kicking his boots off without slowing down his stride past his bunk as he came to a halt before Shepard. She was lying down with her arms up, fingers crossed behind her head as she lay with her eyes closed.

But she must have noticed him looming over her as she opened an eye.

She blinked up at him, before her eyes narrowed.

"What?"

Emiya considered his words, before throwing them to the wind. He wasn't particularly interested in making friends with her, but he did... What _did_ he want?

Why had he walked all the way over to the clinic for the ice-pack? Because he wanted to help her? A stubborn voice inside of him denied that vehemently, as if shouting to shoot down the very idea. He was done with cleaning up other people's messes. He was done helping people at his own expense.

He had sold his soul for other's already. Enough was enough. Therefore... Therefore what? Why was he here now, holding an ice-pack in his hand as he stared down at Shepard? Was he here to help her? But what for?

Emiya shook his head; there was no sacrifice on his part here. He could help her as much as he wanted, as long as he simply acknowledged that he was doing it simply because he _did want to help her_.

She furrowed her brows, glaring at him.

"What is it?" She snapped again as he said nothing, growing more and more annoyed.

He looked up, meeting her eyes. This was for himself. Surely. That was why he could justify it to himself. This wasn't about _her_. It was about smoothing things out for himself. Right, that made sense. He nodded to himself, satisfied with the rationalization.

"You wrenched your foot." It wasn't a question. She flinched, almost denying it reflexively. He could see it in her eyes; the set of her shoulders. Weakness was bad. Letting others know you had a weakness was worse still. He could see it, the thoughts and plans whirring in her eyes. How to deny it; how to draw attention away from it; how to turn this on him.

"You—" She began, her course of action set. She would make this be about him; _I'm_ _trying to talk her up_ , _like the others_ , she would say.

He didn't let her.

"Shut up." He said and somehow a little anger seeped through. Not at her, no. It was directed... At this situation? No, himself. At himself. For being this easily affected. Nothing about this place had gotten to him, except this one person who reminded him of someone from a long time ago. So he wasn't angry at her.

But he could use it against her. She flinched at the tone of his voice. Everyone had gone dead quiet at his words.

There was weight to it. She wasn't the only one who had been affected; another recruit sleeping opposite to Shepard had gotten up to tell Emiya off, but had been shot down just as effectively as she had been by those two words.

"Where do you think we are?" He asked, finally looking at her. She blinked, taken aback at the accusation in his voice.

"What do you—"

"You're not on the streets anymore. You're in the Navy now. You're a soldier. You didn't listen to a word they said, did you? You're in a _team_ , now. You're not just responsible for yourself. You get injured and you end up affecting everyone else." He spoke, voice low. Yet the dead silence around them let most of everyone present hear him clearly. They leaned in, trying to catch every word he said.

Direct confrontation. Questioning her. That would rile her up; a dumb way of doing things, but he was here already so he might as well play this act through.

She glared at him then. "What makes you think you know anything about me?"

She ground her teeth, eyes boring into him with as she moved to sit up. Her legs swung over the edge of the bed as she moved to stand up. But he moved his own foot just a little bit to the left, causing her to step on his foot.

"Listen to me, you—Fuck! Oww!" She grunted as she rose up, placing her weight on the leg which was over his own. His toes dug right into the arch of her foot as she stepped down on them, where he knew it hurt the most.

"See?" He asked tilting his head slightly as he pushed her shoulder lightly. He didn't need any force to tip her back onto the bed she had just gotten up from.

"Oomph!" She made a strange sound as she hit the bed.

"If you weren't so busy glaring at everybody and looking out for someone trying to shiv you for your shoes, maybe you might have thought to ask for help. But no, you're too stubborn for your own damn good."

He sat down, grabbing her foot with one hand as he set away the ice-pack. She tried to wrest free her foot from his hand, but his grip was like iron vise. He pressed with a thumb, inhaling slowly. He let his magical energy extend outwards, into his hands as he controlled his breathing.

Raising his body temperature with simple breathing was possible, but for rapid increase in temperature simply using his magic circuits was faster. His hands grew slightly red and he extended his magical energy through the touch into her foot, peering into the bones and muscles of the foot.

Another skill he had picked up along the way, during a life wasted.

As he figured. She had wrenched the arch of her foot during running, yet kept going like nothing had been wrong. It was a stress injury really, piled up from training too hard until it gave way. He sighed, pressing a thumb in and beginning to feel out the extent of the injury.

"Or what, do you think everyone here is looking out for their next fix? That they're gonna gang up on you in the showers to get their rocks off?" Emiya said, glaring at Shepard who was trying to glare at him in equal measure in return. But every time he pressed a thumb into her foot, she tensed and was forced to hold back a cry of pain. "Seriously? How do you think you were going to heal from this? It's been like this for weeks already, you _idiot._ You've just made it worse by trying to walk it off."

"You—" _noticed?_

She stared at him, eyes wide as he mouth hung wide open. He merely rolled his eyes at her.

"Yet you kept going, not even once slowing down and only making it worse." He glared at her, pressing in particularly hard, almost making her whimper as she closed her eyes, with her back arching with the pain.

Somehow, he wasn't sure who he was talking about anymore. No, he was definitely talking about her. But none of the anger was really _meant_ for her. She really did remind him of _someone._ A man he did not want to think about.

He continued to slowly massage the inflammated muscles, easing at them and using his magical energy to analyze how he was doing. He could not heal her, nor would he have wasted his magical energy on something like that anyhow, but Structural Analysis was another story entirely.

It lasted only for five minutes, but he kept increasing the pressure as he worked deeper and deeper. Every time Shepard seemed to be getting a handle of the pain, he doubled the pressure and kept her from moving.

Finally, he let go and turned to grab the ice-pack. He opened the topmost layers of the wrapped paper and used it to fasten the ice-pack loosely to her foot. Enough to keep it there while a layer kept it from directly touching her skin, but not so tightly as to prevent bloodflow.

Emiya got up, not bothering to look at Shepard as he did.

"Hold the ice-pack on for half an hour and then don't get out of bed. Don't get up until tomorrow morning. Just let it recover. And then check yourself to the infirmary."

Shepard licked her lips, blinking. "But, what about training—"

He turned around, shooting a glare at her. "Fuck the training, you can barely walk."

His words echoed through the room, everyone quietly observing the byplay. Three dozen eyes stared at him quietly, before they began muttering to each other. Emiya exhaled, hot air rushing out through his clenched teeth.

"Or don't. Doesn't actually matter to me, does it?" He grumbled, leaving to go wash his hands. He wasn't sure what he was getting so worked up about, but he needed to be alone for fifteen minutes and get his head back under wraps.

He closed the door to the toilets behind him. There weren't any proper stalls or anything, simply a common area for everyone's use with a few cubicles set up. Another measure by the Navy to get everyone used to each other by denying privacy. But he was alone for the moment; no one would follow him in for a while. He opened that tap, letting the water run for a moment before washing his hands and splashing his face.

The cool liquid felt strange against his hot skin. Was it the use of his magic circuits or his own hot temper that felt like burning iron in his veins? He thought he had long since left behind that hot-headed youth, back when he had left the Clock Tower to travel the world.

"This place is getting to me." He sighed, whispering the complaint under his breath as he stretched his neck. He took another deep breath, working to calm himself. It didn't work, somehow. His pulse was below 40 beats a minute, yet still the hot blood seemed to be coursing through his veins without rest.

He closed his eyes, focusing on his heartbeat—drowning out the rest of the world until nothing else existed.

Finally, after an eternity in a fraction of a second, he opened his eyes again. The distant look in them was back; he was just an outsider. This place had nothing to do with him.

None of it had anything to do with him. He repeated the mantra, again and again. He was dead and gone; a heroic spirit even if in name only. His part to play in the world was long done. He had no right to intrude upon the world of the living any more.

Even if his regrets piled high enough to touch the vaults of the sky.

"Just get to Mars and that's it. You're done. No more than that." He said, half-convincing himself that it was so simple as he closed the water tap. He ignored the hypocrisy of his anger at Shepard, telling himself it was nothing.

And in the mirror, the untainted and unbroken reflection of a man he had thought he had left behind stared back a him, denying all of his rationalizations.

* * *

;

* * *

"Serviceman Emiya. Do you know why you've been called here?"

Emiya stared at the wall blankly, saying nothing as he stood at attention. He was staring straight ahead, looking nowhere near where the woman who had called him in was. That was probably why she had not told him to assume parade rest; it was to show who had the power in this situation.

Meaningless.

The instructor, the somewhat-sadistic woman who had run the pistol safety drill, stared at him. She frowned, putting away her omnitool. He could see that she had been going through some report, which seemed to be a record of himself.

She sighed.

"It figures. While your concern for your fellow soldier is commendable, the way you went about it was completely wrong. Not only did you enter facilities to which you have no right or clearance for, I have received several reports of people worried about your behavior towards servicewoman Shepard. All you have managed to do with your stunt is earn the enmity of many of your peers, perhaps even including her." She spoke, eyeing him carefully.

He had noticed as much, himself. Returning to his bunk the previous night, he had said nothing at all for the rest of the evening. But the tense air had been inescapable and impossible to ignore. He had guessed something like that would happen, but he had gone through with it regardless.

"Serviceman Emiya, did it ever occur to you that we had taken into consideration your and Servicewoman Shepard's physical aptitudes? That the Navy actually takes training its soldiers very seriously? That we were very much aware of how she had been handling herself until now?"

"It did, ma'am." Emiya answered curtly.

"Oh, did it now? Then for whatever reason did you see fit then to intervene as you did? Did it not occur to you to inform one of your superiors or to advice her to check herself for a physical herself before you lay hands on her?" Her tone of voice sharpened as she stood up, walking up to stare at him.

Emiya inhaled calmly, saying nothing. He could have said the he had noticed that they had nothing about her continued isolation or how she seemed to be pushing herself over her limits. He had some thoughts about what they were planning, but none of it was concrete.

 _They want to mold her into a special forces operative. High-functioning sociopath with a lack of empathy or long-term goals_. He had seen those types. They were a dime a dozen in many of the hells he had waded in. In fact, he thought she might still fit right in with those deathseekers. But he also thought she could be something _more_. The way she looked at other people...

Then again, he had no proof beyond some vague suspicions from the way some of the instructors looked at her. Maybe it was simply a method they used for her types; letting them break themselves and only then coming to their aid.

It would certainly ensure absolute loyalty from her, if it worked. But he had the premonition that Shepard would have toughed it through, even as her body broke with every step. Almost like someone else had. He almost scowled then again, before mastering himself.

"Or was there something more, some sort of other motivation behind your actions? Hmm?" She eyed him with suspicious eyes. "Are you perhaps thinking that you might _relieve_ yourself with her? We have had your types here before, those who think that anything and everything is allowed as long as no one finds out." She said, raising an eyebrow as she stared at him.

The silence stretched.

"Well, do you have _anything_ to say?"

He kept silent for a full minute until she turned around to sit back down.

"One week deduction of pay and extranet access, then. Dismissed."

He saluted her lazily and left. _What a bother_ , he thought as he left her office and walked back.

Arriving back at their sleeping quarters, the entire room seemed to fall silent as he entered. It seemed as if his actions had been given a negative slant by the rest of the recruits. He ignored it as he walked to his bunk, to prepare for the day. Coming to a stop, he noticed Shepard. Just as he did, she noticed him.

Their eyes met.

He looked down, looking at her foot. She seemed to be somewhat better, for what it was worth. He looked up and regarded her.

"Thanks." She said after a moment, tossing the melted ice-pack at him with a casual underhand throw.

"...Hmmh." Emiya grunted, grabbing the ice-pack from the air.

"Mind helping me to the infirmary. I don't think I know where it is." She asked, seeming less hesitant and more sheepish.

He blinked, slightly surprised.

"Sure."

* * *

;

* * *

"What you are receiving now is you personal Aldrin Labs Onyx light armor." The chief spoke as they all took a closer look at the bundles they had been handed. "Like your Kessler pistols, these will remain with you. Even if you change ship or base, you will not be expected to hand in your guns or armor to the armorer excepting for routine check ups. As they have been specially constructed with your proportions and body type in mind, these are _your_ hardsuits."

Emiya felt a little uncertain about that, as he still hadn't exactly finished with his growth spurt. But it seemed like the arms and legs could be detached and adjusted, so perhaps that had been taken into account already. Everyone seemed excited, as these were the real deal. Every recruitment poster and vid had these on their models, every action movie and game had these out in display; and now they had their very own hardsuits.

"Of course, as there is a wide varierty of products available, you are often allowed to purchase your own to replace the standard Onyx armor. As long as it has been cleared by your Armorer and superior officer, it should be fine. As you can see, I prefer the Devlon Industries Explorer suit myself." He said, motioning at the hardsuit he was wearing. Unlike the slim and simple black things they had received, it was white and black with much bulkier armor pieces.

Emiya looked down, running a hand down the matte black surface of the armor in his hands. It was fresh from the factory; without any wear and tear one would expect from armor usually, but also void of any lingering sentiments or thoughts.

The industrial revolution had brought on a massive shift in how things were created. Handicraft required a lot more work, not only for creating the individual item but for creating the craftsman as well. When Emiya beheld an object created by a master craftsman, he not only beheld the item itself but also the traces and paths the creator had walked in order to arrive at that items creation. The years of hard work and practice it took to acquire those skills.

But with the factory line, as production increased and became much more impersonal, those traces became far more muted and distant. He could still look into it; could see how the factory worked and how the item had been created. But all those personal thoughts, emotions and sentiments from weeks of work and decades of dedication were no longer there.

"As it is your _personal hardsuit_ , you will be expected to understand it inside and out. It is not only armor, but also your uniform and field dress. One of its main functions is to protect you from the cold of space, so I am sure you all understand how important it will be to make sure it is _always intact_ and _functional,_ even and especially aboard starships. _"_

He let his curiosity get the better of him; inhaling sharply he let his magical energy reach out. Simply by seeing an item he could read a great deal of information regarding it, but when it came to items that were not _swords_ or _weapons_ , a more intimate touch would be necessary.

The hardsuit appeared in his mind's eye as he imagined it. Every detail, feature and part was perfectly reproduced in his head without fail. There were some interesting materials and production methods used, but all in all it was not anything spectacular. Then again, it was a mass produced baseline piece of protective equipment so he couldn't expect anything more out of it.

Well, that was assuming the circuitry and the empty channels and tubes were there just for show. He had only read the material properties and protective value of the suit, after all.

"Now, to get into the theory before we get into the brass tacks of maintenance and how to put them on. Later tonight after dinner, you will be taught by Chief Rogers how to put them away into your regulation lockers." The instructor continued, nodding at his silent partner who nodded at the recruits at the mention of his name.

He then tapped his own chest to show his own hardsuit; the sound his armored glove made against the chest piece was markedly dissimilar from their suits. "As you can see, my hardsuit is quite different from the ones you have been given. This is mainly due to the rating, but there is more as well. To put it simply, the Systems Alliance has adopted the Council Standard of body armor in the past decade as it has been proven to be a reliable and easily-translatable standard.

"One of the most important functions of the suit are of course the various sensors. There are a variety of sensor set up designs, but for your suits it is the basic set only. When you wear your helmet, it will in the _Heads Up Display_ portray a blue circle in the lower right corner of your vision. This is your C _ombined_ _Sensor Read Out_. Consider it a radar, allowing you to see a variety of things around you, within a set distance. One of the main functions is to allow you to spot unknown actors before they become a threat, giving you an edge as ambushes can be foiled and hiding attackers can be handled. Once it is connected to your omnitool, you can adjust those settings and perform more specialized tasks." Saying that, the instructor used his omnitool and suddenly a monitor began to show a view from the instructor's perspective. On the screen, they could see themselves as they looked at the man and in the right corner of the screen was a small pulsing blue sphere which showed a large group of red dots in the top sector. "As you can see, my suit has detected your life signs and due not having been logged in as allied forces, you are shown on my radar as hostiles. The agenda for this lesson will be to fix that."

He grinned as he said that. The recruits whispered at that, pointing at each other and trading thoughts. The instructor let them digest that for a moment, standing silently for a few seconds.

"Hardsuits have three layers of protection to keep you safe from harm, be it mass accelerator fire or environmental hazards. The outermost of course are the kinetic barriers. Inside your hardsuits are small microcomputers and eezo cores, which work to create a shield of sorts around your body.

"Of course, if it was on at all times it would be a huge drain on the batteries, as well as get in your way when you tried to sit down or use your gun." The instructor continued explaining, walking over to a far wall where no one was near him. The other instructor—Gunnery Chief Rogers—walked up, pulling out his pistol and fiddling with the settings he continued to talk.

"Therefore, it has been hooked up to the the suit's sensors to activate only when it detects something in your surroundings. A variety of patented designs exist, such as detecting mass effect field fluctuations or detecting quickly moving small objects coming at you. But to put it simply; if a bullet is moving fast enough to hurt you, this will happen." The instructor turned to Chief Rogers, nodding at him. "Go ahead."

"Weapon hot; firing." Rogers spoke quietly, raising his pistol and pulling the trigger once. A muffled report, lower than the usual gunpowder-powered firearms Emiya had become used to, rang out and a blue flash erupted before the instructor's body.

"As you can see, it works quite effectively. But as I mentioned before, the batteries remain a limiting factor which means that under continuous fire or if struck by a very powerful round, the kinetic barrier will definitely fail. Also note that it will not protect your from direct manipulation by mass effect fields or from environmental hazards. Biotics for example will ruin your day just as easily as a big gun will."

Emiya blinked, making a note of that. It seemed like the kind of thing one would forget until the worst moment. Overall, he felt a strange urge to ask whether they were called Holtzmann fields as well, but he quashed that thought.

He had wondered what some of the electronics and wiring running through the suit were for, but that began to make some sense of it. He had merely evaluated the suit based on its material properties before, but realizing that there had been _more_ to it was quite interesting.

"So, since there are things which will come through our handy dandy barriers, let's move onto the second level of protection. Material construction. This is where the Council-space classification comes in. Currently, there exist three levels of protection; light, medium and heavy armor. These are simply put based on a relative-to-wearer-weight classification, which reflects how well it can protect you. For light armor, the amount of material used is often minimal; only enough to get the job done and to let you survive in your class 1 hazardous environment. Constructed often simply of layered fabrics without ceramic or metallic plates or reinforcements, they offer complete freedom of movement." The instructor said, walking up to a recruit and grabbing his Onyx hardsuit and lifting it with one hand.

"As you can see, they aren't the toughest of things, but they are better than nothing. If you'll end up on a spaceship, you will probably be fine with them as is, but if you apply for the ground-pounders who see some real action, I recommend something tougher." He put the suit down, thanking the recruit for letting him borrow it for a second.

"Medium and Heavy as similar, but tend to have simply more material. For the parts of the body that do not need to move, such as the shins or torso, the use of harder materials is normal." The instructor said, tapping at his limbs to show off such plates. "During prolonged combat, it becomes crucial to know how to repair and maintain heavier armors in the field, thus using them requires special training as well, along with physical conditioning to get used to."

Emiya felt that that was simple enough; physical armor had not changed much even as the materials improved. Layered fabrics had been used throughout the ages, from ancient Greek Linothorax armor to the kevlar vests of his day.

The modern fabrics used in the suit he had been given were quite impressive already, but he could definitely see an advantage in adding some additional hard pieces. Just like adding metal pieces to a vest could turn it into a brigandine or how against larger caliber rifle ammunition steel and ceramic plates had been used during his lifetime.

"Finally, but not least importantly, we have the most recent addition to the Council Standards." The instructor said with a proud grin. "Humanity's very own Sirta Foundation has ushered forth a new era of technological advancement. That last layer of defense is the in-built medical systems, which monitor you and administer first aid as necessary along with medigel in case of catastrophic damage. That isn't all, either. In case you suffer a bone break or lose a limb, modern military hardsuits are also designed to harden around the injury, making it possible for medigel to be administered without worry of having your leg the wrong way or bleeding out.

"According to the desk jockeys I talk to, since the introduction of medigel systems, mortality rates in firefights dropped by 14% percent in a year. Talk is, the Council had wanted to ban the stuff, especially the Turians after how tough our boys proved to be on Shanxi, but in the end they couldn't go through with it given how useful the stuff is." The instructor grinned as he crossed his arms.

"But that's enough theory. Time to get you boys strapped in and show you how to wear these things. First, pop the seal on the back of the neck and..."

* * *

;

* * *

"Now that all of you are familiar with all of your gear, it is time to learn how to use it all. I trust all of you have already managed to link your omnitools and hardsuits up. Today you'll be learning how to navigate in an urban environment. You'll not be given any weapons, but you will be expected to follow certain rules that will... shall we say _enhance the experience_ , heh."

The chief laughed, grinning widely at the formation of recruits standing before them. They were finally E4; something more than merely wastes of space in the eyes of the Alliance. They were more than people who existed only to be a bother to everyone else. Now they at least knew how to generally stay _out of the way._ For the most part.

Which meant it was time to teach them how to act out in the field.

"You will be working in the smallest unit that the Alliance Navy uses; a three man team. As you will remember from your theory, that way you can have all of your active sensors scanning a third of the surroundings at maximum efficiency. This will give you a 40 meter range to work with. Each of you will be required to handle a hundred and twenty degrees. Fail that, and not only do _you_ die, but so do your buddies."

Emiya looked around without moving his eyes, wondering who he would be paired up with. It wouldn't matter; he was quite experienced in urban warfare and the material they had gone through hadn't contradicted or refuted any of his old skills and knowledge.

"—and as such, as previously outlined yesterday, you shall not be outfitted with the usual navigation suite. I'm sure you're all familiar with the nav-systems from your everyday life. Need to find a nice restaurant? Just pop the question and you get real-time, real-position instructions. But in the Navy we don't always get that luxury. Sometimes, you will be laboring under _information control inferiority,_ which means every connections to be cut off lest _the enemy_ hacks you! To that end, the fine gents upstairs have decided to be so kind as to bestow upon you the chance to learn how to get about in new territory.

"In fact, we've made sure none of you have ever been here before. Whoever said the Navy never takes you anywhere nice, eh? Heheh. Your job is to use your short-range scanners, one satellite scan of the area that has been marked with checkpoints you will need to go through and your own skills to make your way today. No nav-systems, no real-time mapping, no directions. We'll be watching all of you, so do know that if you try to cheat or use the extranet or some other nonsense. Well... Privy cleaning duty will be the _least_ of your worries." The chief laughed darkly, then crossed his arms. "So, all clear? No questions? Good!"

Emiya was an old hand at this kind of stuff, really. He had fought in most every kind of environment, short of actual zero-G. So finding his way wasn't going to be all that difficult. He was actually kind of looking forward to that, since it was something entirely new.

But this? This he could do in his sleep.

"So, when you hear you name, step up and group up as instructed. Abrams—!"

Emiya blinked, noticing that Shepard was smirking as she looked around.

It seemed like for the first time in a long time, she seemed excited about something. Overall, she had retained her dour mood and kept to herself even as everyone else grew more and more familiar with each other. Well at least now she talked to other people. It was _something._

Well, it wouldn't have anything to do with him. He'd already roughly figured out how they would be divided into teams, so he guessed they wouldn't be grouping up.

"Emiya!"

"Sir!" He answered, jogging to where the chief was pointing. He glanced at the two familiar faces waiting for him. They nodded at him in greeting but kept quiet. They had never talked, but he could sense a slight tension.

Emiya sighed, slightly annoyed that he was suffering the repercussions of Shepard's stand-offish attitude from before. These two had tried to approach her and been rebuffed quite brutally and then she had gone and directed them to him, early on. Though Emiya had done nothing at all, that feeling of rejection still clung to him as they met again.

"I'm Emiya." He introduced himself and they relaxed a little at his friendly tone of voice.

"Heh, nice to meetcha. I'm Rodriguez and this is Franco." The taller of the two said, grinning at him as the third member of their trio nodded as well.

"Well then, let's rock this boat, yeah?" Franco said, grinning as he pointed at the starting line for the urban exercise. They would be leaving with 15 minutes spacing out between each team, given a route and a destination, with several checkpoints along the way.

Orienteering, really.

Emiya smirked back. "Shouldn't be too hard."

* * *

;

* * *

All in all, it wasn't anything difficult. Certainly, making good time in unknown territory while avoiding spotters and keeping an eye out for traps and ambushers was always somewhat challenging. But given that they had been handed a map taken from orbit and their omnitools, it was somewhat amusing how easy is it actually was.

Oh, perhaps the lack of a reference or guidance in the map was meant to be a setback, as the instructor had turned off their omnitools' automatic mapping and guidance feature, but seeing as how they had all been taught how to make the most of their omnitool, it seemed a bit pathetic.

Perhaps if they only had a paper map or a drawing of the general topography, it would be somewhat more challenging. But given that as long as they simply could use their omnitools off-line, well... When you have a detailed and precise one-to-one map of the area and the tool that could record your acceleration and changes in movement with its in-built sensors, it was hardly a bigger bother than simply linking the picture and placing a simulated marker based on the sensor data on that picture.

Making a program for that was easy, even with what little they had been taught about omnitools. It wouldn't even take half an hour to whip up something like that. Less if they didn't have to double-check their scripts for errors.

Emiya wasn't exactly sure what they were being taught here. Were they expected to know how to find their way around without the automatic map marker and navigation guide by regular pathfinding skills? Were they expected to use the orbital scan provided as a regular map? Were they supposed to write a program, using all the tools and data available?

Or was there some other way? Asking one of the locals? It seemed counter-intuitive given the stated goals of this exercise. Perhaps they would be penalized for making contact with a civilian. Perhaps everyone they ran into would be someone undercover. He couldn't quite tell.

Perhaps it was a point to test and observe the recruits, to see what they did and how they handled it all. It made sense, given that they all wore omnitools anyhow and their instructors must have kept some oversight over those to insure no one used the extranet or whatnot.

In the end, he dismissed Rodriguez's suggestion of writing a program for a simulated map. After all, regular orienteering is simply a matter of abstraction, memorization and referencing. ' _If I'm here, then there should be this_ ', ' _If I take a left here, I should come across this_ ' and such.

It took some convincing, since apparently the two were inveterate "hackers", or so they claimed. They boasted about having gotten the haptic finger implants for hologram controls at the age of 12 and having been coding their entire lives, saying that it wouldn't be even difficult to write something like that.

But it would still have taken a half hour, even assuming no errors in code.

Given how practiced he was at keeping an image in his mind and manipulating it inside his head, something like keeping track of his own position in a two-dimensional plane while plotting out the shortest route to an objective was child's play.

The real challenge came in spotting the traps and ambushes they had been warned of. At regular intervals, Emiya would spot someone waiting around at a strange location or something out of place in the route and they would be forced to take a detour to avoid being penalized.

By penalized, they meant ' _pretend-shot to death in a crossfire_ ', but really it was just a slap on the wrist for not paying attention.

Occasionally, he would spot what would be an obvious ambush, so he would be forced to be creative. Going through a private yard or abandoned house; jumping into the river and diving past an ambush; climbing up a tree to use the rooftops. At one point, they had a perfect chance to counter-ambush a group of ambushers, but they decided to move on instead.

Every once in a while he made sure to pop open his omnitool, as if making sure that they were still on course and that they hadn't made a wrong turn. Really, it was to check if the map changed without notifying them or if any of their checkpoints changed while they were still moving.

It wouldn't be funny if they came to the end, only to find that they had missed three checkpoints which had been added in a minute before they finished. Or well, it would be to a certain extent. But it would reflect poorly on their performance.

"Just this down this road and we're done." Emiya announced, dismissing the map as he nodded forward.

"Rea—ha, hah—really? Shit, this was a lot easier than I thought. And shit, you can _run._ Now I get where you put away all that food." Franco said, panting between words.

Supposedly they had alloted the whole day for the exercise, but Emiya had managed to keep a good pace and they had cleared it in less than two hours. Well, mostly cleared it. Just the homestretch left. Behind him, the two physically older recruits panted as they leaned against the wall.

By a good pace, Emiya meant ' _as fast as we can go while avoiding the patrolling chiefs and without dropping from exhaustion halfway through_ '.

Which, even with all of their training and gene therapy meant a considerable strain. He smirked at the two, standing tall and unwearied in comparison. It was all about proper breathing, really.

"Let's go. I'll treat you to some grub afterwards and you can die in your beds once it has no bearing on my performance."

"F... Fuck you, man." Rodriguez said, laughing weakly as he forcibly straightened himself to not seem inferior to Emiya.

"Right, right. You guys can carry me, right?"

"Nah, your fat ass can drag itself." Rodriguez snorted, turning to jog after Emiya who had already begun to move.

"Ey, man. I thought we were _friends_." Franco whined, before shaking his head and beginning to jog after them.

But halfway to the finish line, Emiya blinked as he spotted another team running parallel to them a few blocks away. Coming in from another angle, they were a team consisting of his fellow recruits. A moment later, his teammates spotted the other trio.

"Whoa! They're fast!" Rodriguez noted with some awe. "Is that _Lola_?"

Franco peered at that, until he spotted the redhead himself. "Fuck! It is! Go time! _Double-_ time! Let's go! Let's go! I ain't losing to that _chica_ this time!"

With that, the man formerly at the tail-end of their group began to pull ahead, passing the casually running Emiya as he pumped his limbs for for all they were worth. Panting loudly, with his mouth wide open and tongue lolling like a dog's, he seemed quite ridiculous.

"Yeah, fuck that! Let's go, let's go!" Rodriguez shouted, increasing his own pace to match Franco in front of him.

Emiya looked to the side, noticing that the other group—including _Shepard,_ as the other two had noticed—had spotted them, too. And noticing the increased pace, a competitive spirit was ignited inside them as well. He had to sigh; had they just kept up their normal pace, they would have still come in first. It was unlikely that the other group would bother trying to increase their pace because of them.

But no, they had to start sprinting and catch the other groups attention with their energetic running.

They had started 15 minutes apart of each other anyhow; who actually crossed the line meant little since Emiya's group had started afterwards. What did it matter if they won the other's time by one second or two when they had already caught up an entire quarter hour?

Still, he might as well indulge the others. The increased his breathing; both in volume and in frequency, his heart kicking into higher gear to match the increase in performance from his body. He might not have the same level of physical ability due to his lagging enhancements, but his stamina was second to none!

Legs pumping, arms swinging, lungs expanding and deflating, all in perfect sync with one another; Emiya began to pull ahead of Rodriguez and then Franco.

On the other street, the other team increased their speed in their desperate last spurt, but it was obvious that it was the last energies they had being burned out; the last fumes in their gas-tank being expended. Emiya grinned, as he ran past both of his teammates and placed himself in front of them.

The two clowns wouldn't last it to the finish line on their own. But in Emiya's slipstream, with less air resistance? That they could do. Emiya looked behind himself, half-grinning at them as they desperately tried to keep up with him. Dismissing them and looking forward, Emiya continued to run. His back taunting, as if asking ' _can you keep up with me?_ ' as he said nothing.

At the last fifty meters, it became obvious that they had pulled into a lead already. The other team could not cross this gap in time. As Emiya kept increasing his pace until he crossed the 'finish line' with a satisfied smirk.

His legs burned, his throat was dry and he had to breathe deeply and hard to keep his heart from exploding out of his chest. But nonetheless the feeling of satisfaction was undeniable. Behind him, several seconds later, Franco and Rodriguez came at a slightly slower pace but just as exhausted and worn out as he was.

A second later, they sprawled at the ground as they could focus on nothing but their hammering hearts and their burning lungs. Another scant few seconds later, Shepard came bounding in on gazelle-steps.

She bounced on her feet for another few steps past the imaginary finish line that ran in front of the not-at-all-impressed chief, who stood there with his omnitool on. She breathed heavily, just as they all did, but looking none at all pleased with herself.

Behind her, in the distance, her team came jogging at a far more sedate pace as they had all but realized that they could no longer catch up.

"Well now. If you kids have this much energy, I'll have to up your physicals to match that. Heh, to think I'd been going this easy on you." The chief spoke, exuding a sadistic joy at the expressions the four panting recruits made at that suggestion. The two from Shepard's team turned to glare at them, while Franco and Rodriguez turned to glare at Shepard.

Emiya merely chuckled, shrugging under the chief's stare. Shepard did not seem to notice the quip at all.

"But for now, good job, boys. Shepard. Get yourselves to the shuttles and you have the rest of the day off. Never say I don't reward good work." The chief spoke, waving them off with one hand as he manipulated his omnitool deftly for a few seconds to note who had arrived and when.

Franco raised an arm, fist pumping at the heavens as he couldn't still get up from where he lay. "Take that, _Lola_... Take... that..."

Shepard merely looked at the panting recruit with a nonplussed expression of inquiry, before shaking it off and walking away while staring at her map. Or rather, _glaring_ at it. Emiya finished getting his breathing under control and glanced her way, sneaking a peek at the map as he did. He moved to walk after her, as she was headed for the shuttles.

_Huh, she did pretty good._

He blinked, then made a whistling sound of appreciation, causing Shepard to turn and stare at him with half-furrowed brows.

"Nice." Emiya commented simply, but when that only made her glare turn annoyed, he paused for a moment. _Ah, she realizes we started at different times. That we didn't really arrive in the same run time. But she hasn't realized the other difference yet_.

She glared at him, probably thinking that he was patronizing her. Or that he honestly hadn't figured it out and finding his congratulations hollow. _Well, that wouldn't do at all._

"We might have caught up by fifteen minutes since you started first and we arrived at the same time, but you had at least four more checkpoints. Your route was longer, definitely accounting for more than fifteen minutes had we been running it." Emiya whistled again, waving his hand to show that he was roughly guessing at numbers here. "I'm impressed, to be honest."

He shrugged while still half-smirking as he laid it on thick, as if noting _what-can-you-do_ about it. She blinked, then looked down at her map again. She looked up, glaring at him.

"Show me yours."

"Oh wow. So _direct_. Well, I don't hate that in a girl, I suppose." Emiya smirked at her as she blinked. A second later, just as she was about to retort he opened up the map from his omnitool for her to see.

She opened her mouth, blinking at the map and then deciding to let his comment slide as she stared at it, brows furrowing. He had already compared their routes and made some guesses as to what paths she had taken. All things considered, Emiya _was_ impressed. She knew how to navigate the densely built and confusing urban environment far better than he did. Only his superior pace had probably made the difference.

She had grown up on streets like these for real, after all.

As she seemed to arrive at the same conclusion as he had, he closed the map and turned to walk away. As his body began to cool down, he realized he had been acting out strangely. The endorphins from the runner's high and the impulse to set her record straight had made him act in a more natural manner.

He realized with a frown that he had just had _fun._

 _...It's fun to mess with her. But there's no need to get to actually know her. Calm down and focus_.

"Hey, Emiya." She shouted after him and he merely turned around as he walked backwards, not bothering to stop. She looked at him quietly for a second and then shot back a smirk of her own. "Nice running. But next time you'll be the one eating the dust."

"We'll see." Emiya huffed in amusement before he could stop himself, shrugging at her.

She was opening up, just as he was. Somehow that felt like a good thing, despite him know that it wasn't.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya inhaled, opening his eyes as he looked out the shuttle. Everyone else in the shuttle still seemed to be asleep. At the exhale, he closed his eyes again as he fell back into his meditation.

A month had passed and their training with their equipment continued as scheduled. They learned to use their omnitools and their hardsuits, how to field strip and service all of their gear and how to find faults with diagnostics and physical checks so they could make a report about it, to make it quicker for technicians to repair.

They shot several times a week and learned the basics of weapon handling and maintenance. In Emiya's experience, it had been customary to train recruits first with rifles as longer arms were simpler to produce, service and train with. It also made it easier to keep track of all the guns, as sneaking away a rifle was a lot harder than doing the same with a pistol.

But in the Systems Alliance Navy it appeared that the side-arm reigned as the basic of basics. For a variety of reasons, apparently.

Usually, with service on board spaceships, space was ironically enough at a premium. Weight, too. The lighter the gun, the less there would be for the engine to struggle with when taking off the planet. And since handling a gun like that was difficult in such constrained spaces, the smaller weapons became the standard.

And while in his era accuracy and stopping power was lacking with most pistols, in this modern day and age such worries had been long since overcome. The miniature railgun was capable of firing powerful and accurate rounds, completely overcoming the limitations of old. Once they hooked up to their hardsuits and connected the inbuilt computer with the pistols own computer, aiming assistance algorithms made shooting even more accurate.

Scanning their iris and lining it up with the sights of the gun itself, it could correct the targeting within a 10 degree radius of where it would normally fire. It might not seem like much at a glance, but at 40 meters where few of the new recruits could reliably hit the target, turning on the _aim assist_ and getting ten perfect bullseyes in rapid succession made them feel like they were on top of the world.

Emiya had tried it and found it fairly effective, if a bit slow. He could just aim himself if he wanted to hit, he decided. Not that he did, as it would raise suspicion. They had, of course, also gone through some of the "eyeballing" technique with the pistols. That is to say, aiming as it was done in his day and age, with a proper sight picture and focus.

_Don't look at the rear rights; just align the front sight and the rest works itself out. Lean slightly into it to absorb the recoil. Don't pull the trigger, press it without shaking the gun. Off-hand index finger should rest against the trigger guard to further minimize the shaking from pressing the trigger. Find the rhythm to firing, so that your sights line up automatically as the recoil stops and your sight picture is on target again..._

Shooting—like most if not all fighting related skills—was a perishable skill, but for him it had been so ingrained as mantras that re-learning it was a cinch.

And in a strange inversion of the 21st century where it was cheaper to build slightly larger guns, in the 22nd century it was cheaper to cut down on the frame material necessary for a larger gun. The electronics were so cheap and the amount of eezo necessary to power the round was minimal, that in comparison they were negligible to the other costs. Stranger still, given the longer rails needed for a rifle and overall higher output of the rifles, the costs grew exponentially which made a shorter weapon much cheaper to produce and maintain in the long run.

For the cheaper end pistols, a DC pulse in the range of 10,000 Ampere was sufficient which was apparently feasible with the cheaper types of batteries and a few mid-range capacitors. While that was already a ridiculous number in Emiya's mind, it was far more reasonable than the 50,000+ Ampere that rifles used, often with much higher rates of fire.

For that kind of current, it was necessary to have some top of the line capacitors. Even modern day batteries could not easily produce those kind of currents, therefore other components were necessary to make it work. To create such laminated and incredibly dense materials, extremely high power mass effect fields were necessary for production.

Which obviously enough, did not come cheap.

On top of that, the cooling systems required to handle the heat produced by the stronger and faster rifles were also much more expensive. With a relatively anemic and slowly firing side arm, the amount and type of material was much more forgiving. Even the firing block shaver was much more expensive when rapid fire was necessary.

Additionally, with the shorter ranges of conflict, the in-built sensors and computer did not have to be as expensive either. And since you already had a computer that worked to connect and record everything done, the old worry of stolen or misused gear became moot, anyhow.

Thus, the pistol reigned as the main workhorse of Systems Alliance personnel.

So slowly they grew accustomed to their Onyx armor and the Kessler pistol as the were instructed and taught. But at the tail end of the month, the focus began to change. The amount of lessons they had went into a decline and the amount of field exercises they had rapidly diminished as as the focus turned to tests and questionnaires by the instructors.

They were already E6's after all. Once they graduated to E7, they would be shipped of elsewhere. Now it was crucial to find a suitable place for each new cog in the great system that was the Navy.

The recruits also realized this, as they were now almost done with basic training and off to get into something more interesting and exciting. There was talk among several of trying out for non-commissioned officer and cadet lines or some of the special forces; the N-line of training being a hot topic among the toughest and most ambitious among them.

N7 were the toughest of the toughest, the best of the best. Everyone knew that.

Emiya already had his eyes on where he needed to go and he was fairly certain no one else shared his destination. General Engineering; the G-line. Not even combat engineers, per se. Rather they were simply the people who kept everything running. The fixers and shiners, who were passed around from spaceship to spaceship as things broke down and needed fixing. Rather than a grenade and a rifle, they carried their omnitool and an oil canister most of the time. A lot of things needed lubrication on a spaceship on a regular basis, after all.

A rather boring line, as the general consensus went. Little to no combat training, just a bunch of general electronics and eezo theory along with months and months of practical, hands-on experience with fixing everything and anything before you were shipped off to wherever there was need of a technician.

Though, the pay was decent enough and once you got out of the military you had the papers to get in pretty much anywhere anyone needed stuff fixed. Not that he cared about any of that as retirement was so long ways off that it had never even entered his mind.

Emiya would be using this body for a week at most and then abandoning it to return to the Moon. There was only one reason for his choice of training line.

The training base was on Mars, as he had found out early on. It seemed like a long while back already, that he had arrived on Earth. He had no other reason or objective behind that choice. Once he was there and had accomplished his mission, he could just get back to the Moon and be done with it all.

Simple and clear.

All in all, only one more hurdle presented itself before him, before he could apply for the G-line. Their final field exercise, held in Brazil in South America. They would be divided into teams of three and would be dropped off at a random locations, given only the basic equipment and weapons and then handed a set of objectives to accomplish.

Rather similar to the orienteering and field exercises from before, but simply _more_. For one, they were handed their _guns_ for once.

They hadn't been told much, simply that there would be further instructions once they landed in Rio de Janeiro, from where they would then be sent out into various locations around the country. Brazil had during the era of commercial spaceflight been one of the strange countries which had at the same time experienced a massive drop in population as well as a massive shift in its national industries.

With off-world colonies looking for anyone and everyone willing to work, the poorest and most numerous populations of Earth had been preyed upon by various companies willing to ship them off with a promise of a brighter future and a pat on the back. ' _Sign a five year working contract and we'll take you to a new world, full of possibilities and chances!_ ' some of the old slogans, still existing in archives had proudly proclaimed.

As usual, new frontiers had drawn in everyone who lacked the means to move up in the world as it was around them. So the favellas and slums had seemingly been emptied out over the course of a few years, back when humanity's expansion was at its most aggressive.

Leaving vast swaths of previously populated territory completely empty and unused.

Which in turn had up-ended and entirely transformed the economic reality of various countries, forcing them to invest in entirely different and new industries to stay afloat. Today, tourism was Brazil's largest source of income, as the long and warm beaches remained still a cultural icon of what humanity considered paradise.

For the Systems Alliance, this had meant that relatively safe-to-use and cheap locations to field massive training exercises were entirely practical in Brazil. The local government was more than happy to lease out three or four ghost towns for the Alliance to train in, finding no better use for them themselves.

So here they were, being shipped off in shuttles to Brazil for their last test. For a lot of recruits, this was a monumental event that would shape their careers for years to come. The instructors had assured them that a good overall rating everywhere else would not be negated by a terrible performance in this field exercise, and that a terrible overall rating would not be overturned by an excellent performance.

But still, it was human nature to look as the last as the most important part. Everyone had been excited for this the night before, discussing the possibilities and probabilities of the exercise and its results deep into the night, a part of the reason so many had fallen asleep immediately upon the shuttle's take off.

Emiya mostly felt hopeful for the prospect of getting out.

They were being monitored constantly, surrounded by others constantly, scheduled and jostled around at all hours of the day. He was a naturally industrious and hard-working individual, who made most of every hour of the day so that wasn't very much different. But that was not the same as military life.

He _chaffed_ , to put it simply. At least as a _Guardian_ when he had sold his soul, the Moon Cell left him alone for decades at a time. It would be good to be out of here he decided, somewhat regretting not simply stealing a shuttle on that first day already. Then again...

"Why the long face? You scared?"

Emiya opened his eyes, looking up at the grinning redhead next to him. Shepard winked, punching his shoulder lightly once to know she had his attention.

"Don't worry, I'll keep you from getting shot too bad." She grinned at him.

"Is that so?" Emiya grunted, turning thoughtful. "Last I remember, I had to carry you back."

She huffed, crossing her arms. "That was a just drill for medical evacs. Besides, I did cover your back when you had me in a fireman's carry, yeah?"

She mimed a pistol, pulling a trigger several times as she shot at an imaginary target.

"Mm, I guess you did." Emiya allowed.

They stayed quiet for a minute, the hum of the shuttle and the snores and shuffling of limbs the only sounds between them. For whatever reason, Shepard seemed to have taken a shine to him during the last few weeks.

Perhaps it was the similarities she found between them or something else, he couldn't quite tell. But whenever possible, she would team up with him and try to beat him. Before he had realized it, he had begun to quite enjoy their little competitions.

Still, this would be their last. After this, he was certain that she would not be one for the technical duties of where he was going. Whenever something related to eezo or biotics came up, her eyes would seemingly glaze over. In contrast, while on her feet and with a gun in her hand, her eyes seemed to glow with the excitement and dance around like sparks.

It showed in her overall performance as well. She tended to scrape by her written exams, barely passing on her second try. Then again, it was probably for the better. He had to go back to the Moon, anyhow. No reason to prolong this. Whatever _this_ was.

For better or for worse, this would be his last time working with the strange redheaded girl.

"Let's make it a good one." Emiya said and Shepard grinned at him, throwing him an oblivious thumbs up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was probably the most edited piece I've ever written. I had to read it over and over, edit it time and again because it never really satisfied me. I should read more drama and stuff, given how difficult it was to write, despite the fact that I don't find the stuff particularly appealing. If anyone has any thoughts or pointers on how I did, how I could have improved it or how bad it was, I would really appreciate the feedback. Thanks to tsaurn for pointing out the erroneous use of the word dearth.
> 
> To **Kinunatzs The Eternal:**
> 
> You make a good point, but I'm handwaving that a little in favor of giving me more to work with on a personal-level. It gives me more parallels to put between Emiya and Shepard, which gives me an easier time writing something between them. Think of it more like HF Shirou's body being souped up by the arm, but still being human. Less likes Laeticia and Jeanne and more like Shirou acknowledging that he will still be killed in one strike by any Heroic spirit, while still being able to run at 50mph through a forest. Besides, he's keeping a low profile. [Replying here because you blocked PMs, you git!]
> 
> Also, next few chapters will be rather action-oriented. Thank goodness.


	5. Welcome to the City Lost to Time

"Serviceman Emiya, Servicewoman Shepard, Serviceman Cassani. You will be team Charlie-4." The Lieutenant Commander before them said, not even bothering to look up from his datapad as they walked up to him. "You will be heading for shuttle 14, over there. Your lift off is in fifteen minutes. On site, you will receive your primary objective and on the way there, you may attempt to fulfill the secondary objectives en route as you wish."

"Will they affect our score, sir?" Franco asked, hesitating for a moment as they had never before had to directly deal with an officer.

But the Lieutenant Commander did not seem to care one whit about the recruit's hesitation. He looked up, his dark complexion that hinted at various ethnicities quite eye-catching. He had dark eyes, dark short hair and high cheekbones that made him seem more than a slight bit intimidating.

"Obviously. You are judged as a team, based on how many objectives you are able to accomplish, if you are able to complete _any at all_. The main objective is imperative; the secondary objectives will not be counted towards your final score if it has not been completed. If one of you is taken out, that will bring penalties to the rest of the team's score, but mostly to that person who got hit. But points can easily overturn that." He droned on, before looking back down to his datapad.

"So if we're all back in one piece, but with no objectives completed, we'll get a low score? But if only one of us gets back but we've done a bunch of stuff along the way, we'll get a much better rating? Even the ones who have been... _taken out_?" Shepard asked.

"Yes. That's about right. A lot of things go into the final tally, but mostly you will be observed in how you handle yourselves in the field. Just remember that you aren't the only ones out there; this is a field exercise with participants from several fleets along with your batch." He answered, nodding towards the valley behind him.

They were standing on a mountain-top, where below them they could see a city that had been half overtaken by the jungle that had encroached on it slowly over the years. A ghost city, once home to tens of thousands, now completely abandoned and left for nature to reconquer.

"Worst case scenario, we run into some N7's, huh?" Emiya noted with dry humor, making Franco and Shepard blink at that thought.

"H-hey, that can't be right, can it? We can't handle something like that?"

The chief smirked at that, saying nothing. Gunshots and engines of vehicles in the distance could be heard, echoing over the rooftops and around the alleyways and street corners of the crumbling buildings.

"Your weapons will be set to minimum power and thus your kinetic barriers will be set to tally up if you have been shot by someone else. The sensor will recognize the shot even as the round will bounce off harmlessly, and the internal servos of your armor will lock up to simulate damage. Your heads up display will show a relative health which reflects how damaging a shot would usually be." He continued explaining, droning on as he did. This must have been his dozenth team to debrief at the very least. "Thus, taking off your armor or firing upon someone out of armor will not be tolerated. There should not be anyone wandering around here, but you can never be too careful. We will be monitoring your progress and internal camera-feed, but if something happens contact us with your omnitools before something goes wrong."

"Yes, sir." They answered.

"Are they our allies, or will _they_ be shooting at us down there, sir?" Franco asked, nodding toward the valley.

The NCO looked up from his datapad, regarding the recruit with cool eyes.

"I could not say. It will depend on your mission and luck, I suppose. Worst case scenario? You'll be the main objective of some real tough guys. Lucky them, then." He said, with a grin.

To that Franco laughed nervously, deciding that perhaps he didn't want to know any more.

"Right... we'll just have to find out on our own, huh." Shepard shrugged, though a small smile seemed to be gracing her lips. It was complete chaos down there, from what she could see. The terrain could change entirely within a single city-block, as trees and undergrowth had taken over wherever they could.

At places, trees could be seen growing out of collapsed buildings even. This should be fun, she thought.

"If the power is scaled down on our pistols, does that mean we'll have effectively larger magazines?" Emiya asked, patting at his pistol. "I mean, the gun should overheat less per shot if they bring it down. Or is the strain on the kinetic barriers so much smaller that it scales as well? That we have to shoot forty times before their shields break?"

The chief blinked, looking up and regarding Emiya with some interest. "No, they put on a shot-cap and simulate overheating with the software. Same thing with your Onyx armor. One shot in simulation represents one shot in reality. Basic equipment as usually used, they just handle all of the simulation with alternate software settings."

They all blinked at the implication.

"We haven't done anything like that, though?" Shepard muttered, drawing her own pistol and regarding it curiously.

"The higher ups handle it. A network virtual intelligence makes sure everyone's guns and suits are set to simulation while keeping track of you. It's safe enough, we've been doing this for years without problems. You can't even be down there with an active eezo core without triggering a flag somewhere in the system that checks that you aren't using something dangerous." He reassured her.

"Doesn't that mean that anyone could theoretically hack our guns?" Emiya asked, realizing the downsides to having a high-powered computer stuck onto his guns and armor just now.

The chief grinned, nodding at Emiya. "Hope you don't run into any combat engineers down there. Sure would suck, that. Heheheheh."

"Aww... Fuck this shit, man..." Franco cursed under his breath, only audible to Emiya who glanced at him at that.

"Wouldn't that make us vulnerable in general? Wouldn't it just make sense to turn all that stuff off to deny any hacking access?" Emiya asked, frowning. It seemed like a considerable downside to him.

"Sure, but then you'd lose all your _aim assist_ functionalities, the HUD data from your gun and your smart-lock might turn off since it no longer recognizes you as the owner of the gun. Running completely analog's been proven to just not be worth it, so we stick with it despite the risks. Besides, the Alliance takes its cyberdefenses very seriously. This only works because they've literally got the backdoor key to all your gear." He explained, for once seemingly actually interested in the three standing before him.

"That makes sense. Not only does it give the grunt on the ground an advantage, it also gives the commander more accurate feedback from the battlefield. I see why things are the way they are now." Emiya said, nodding.

"Heck, you've got a good head on your shoulders. Thinking about becoming a combat engineer?" He grinned, whipping out his omnitool and bringing out a floating, glowing sphere from it. "The Alliance could always use more drone controllers and tech saboteurs; it's a part of our general doctrine after all."

Emiya considered that, before shrugging. The Lieutenant Commander turned to the two others.

"Nah, I'm good at running and gunning and not much else. Can't wrap my head around mass effect and eezo at all." Shepard said, shrugging before crossing her arms.

"Well, just keep your mind open to it." The chief nodded at the shuttle with a grin and a thumbs up, much warmer now than he had been before.

"I will think about it. But... Is this really all? I would expect there to be more rules and regulations for us to know about. What to do and what not to do. To me it seems like you haven't really told us much at all..." Emiya said.

"Don't worry about it. First timers don't need to know anything; you'll be fine regardless. Or rather, there ain't much room for you to fuck up. You kids should get running along now, your shuttles waiting. And good luck out there."

"Thank you, sir." Emiya said with a nod, before turning to leave for the shuttle as he thought about those words.

_It seems they don't expect us to be able to do much at all. This is more of a shock to see how the recruits handle a chaotic battlefield and being left to their own devices; a stress test._ Emiya considered that, before a small smirk threatened to show on his face. _But doesn't that conversely mean that we are allowed to do just about anything, since they haven't forbidden it?_

With those thoughts, Emiya boarded the shuttle.

The NCO huffed, looking down at his datapad with interest after following the shuttle taking off and flying into the city.

"Emiya, was it? Should be an interesting fellow." He considered for a moment, before deciding that he ' _might as well_ ', as he brought out his omnitool. "No one will mind if I just plug into the network and watch their progress, right?"

* * *

;

* * *

" _Touchdown in fifteen seconds!_ " The comm sounded inside their helmets and they shouted back their acknowledgment.

The three all wore the same gear; an Aldrin Labs Onyx light armor and a Hahne-Kedar Kessler pistol. All in all, a considerably anemic load out. But hopefully their mission and the resistance they would encounter would scale to match that.

A notation regarding a new message to his omnitool blipped in Emiya's HUD.

"Team-leader _Emiya, have you received your mission parameters?_ " The comms asked and he replied quickly.

"Yes, sir." Emiya answered, slightly annoyed that due to his generally highest scores he had been assigned as team-leader. He didn't really _need_ to perform well here, but now that he was here he felt a slight obligation to not simply coast along.

And a part of him, which he did not quite want to admit to, felt his old heart beginning to beat a bit more rapidly at the thought of action again.

" _Good, then starting as of right now, team Charlie-4 is a-go!_ "

"Aye aye, Sir!" They all answered as the shuttle touched down. Franco took point, his pistol scanning their surroundings. Emiya and Shepard followed, jumping to touch down on the roof.

As soon as everyone was on the ground, the shuttle took off and flew away.

They stood on a flat rooftop. Around the edge ran a rusted chain-link fence that had been bent and torn in places. Behind them stood a rotten and broken water tank and what looked like an old utility shed or transformer box. To the right lay a closed hatch; presumably the way down from the roof.

Around them, houses of similar height and proportions could be seen everywhere. They weren't quite in the center of the city, but they were near the eastern quadrants center. He motioned for them to gather up around him.

"What's the mission?" Franco asked.

"Not yet. We must have been seen by everyone near our position and the HUD map doesn't show any allied forces nearby. We need to move before we can start thinking about what to do in the long run." Emiya answered.

Shepard blinked, taking another look around them and peering for any hidden enemies with suspicious eyes. "Well, if you insist."

They opened up the hatch to get to the top floor, making their way down all the way to the third floor of the building at a relatively brisk pace, until they found the stairway collapsed from that point down.

"Can we jump down?" Shepard asked, peering down the edge while feeling tempted to kick a loose pebble over. She was fairly certain that a drop this long wouldn't be pleasant, hoping that they would not have to try it out.

"No, let's not." Emiya said simply. Too much could go wrong; even assuming that it was safe from booby traps or ambushes of any kind, jumping down would be too dangerous. In the worst case scenario, it could break the floor they landed on and even cause the rest of the building to collapse down on them. "There's another stairwell at the other end of the building. Let's check it out."

"Gotcha." Shepard nodded, turning to slowly lead the way with her gun held in her hands.

Many of the windows had been broken already, but though some were still in one piece if dirtied to the point of opaqueness by the passage of time, giving them an occasional view of the outside street and adjacent houses.

They saw no one outside, hearing only the distant sounds of turmoil reverberating queerly through the empty buildings around them. But a sound that did not belong joined that far-off cacophony. The 'frontline' of the battle raging was in the distance, somewhere to their east. At the very least it was two klicks off.

The discordant noise however had come from below them. So quiet that it could not have been more than the scraping of a chair against the floor, or a rusty door hinge. But he had definitely heard it.

Emiya halted, putting his hand on Shepard's shoulder. As the team leader he was walking in the middle while she took point. She did not turn around to look at him, merely kneeling down against the wall as she kept her eyes open and watching their front. Behind them, Cassani was handling the rear and he came to a halt next to Emiya.

"What's up?" He whispered, glancing at Emiya while lowering his pistol.

"...Someone's below us." He stated quietly, furrowing his brows as he tried to picture the layout of the building. Based on the floors they had already walked down, he could make a fairly accurate guess. He could also have used Structural Analysis to get the entire blueprint, but he didn't really _need_ to.

It could have been anything, really.

But in his experience houses were the worst kinds of place to be when you were engaged in open warfare. Urban combat was the thing of horror stories, of ludicrous mortality rates and of battles that bogged down for weeks and months on end as no one could gain a decisive advantage.

Urban combat was the meat grinder where armies went to die.

Inside of any given house there existed over a dozen places one could lay in wait for someone, turning each room into a potential death-trap. Behind every door, below every window, under every piece of furniture could lay a waiting gun or rigged bomb, just waiting for the opportunity to ruin your day.

In pursuing his dream of becoming a hero of justice, Emiya had naturally dealt with such circumstance countless times and he had methods for safely clearing a house of any mundane hostiles. But those methods were not usable right now; this was not just any fight for their lives, this was a monitored and recorded exercise.

He could not simply whip out his magic whenever he needed a quick solution, lest he give away his secrets. Emiya had been told to keep his head down which meant that revealing the existence of magic to the Alliance military was about as catastrophic failure as he could imagine.

Besides, it felt like _cheating_. Not the exam per se, but rather himself. He tried not to think about what that meant about himself, that he was enjoying this.

Still, that meant he had to use what he had been taught in the months prior for the most part. Which meant going through the house room by room, door by door, corner by corner. He could not hesitate. If someone was below them, they were either setting up an ambush or moving up to intercept them.

"Change of plans." Emiya said. "Shepard, lead to the west end. We'll jump onto the rooftop next to this house through the window. Once we're on the ground, we run like hell."

He had seen the building next to this one as they had walked. At this height the adjacent roof was only a meter bellow them, thus it should be entirely feasible for them to jump down. Hopefully, it would allow them to avoid the ambush he suspected had been set on the floor below.

Unless the shuttle's flight plan had been known or this was someone's base of operations already before they landed, he had to assume that whoever it was down there below them, had set it up in the scant few minutes since their landing.

That implied a very skilled and formidable team; someone they did not want to tangle with.

"...Seriously? You just said jumping down was _bad_." Shepard asked, turning back to look at him with wide eyes.

Emiya nodded. "It was. Now it's _better_."

She blinked at him and then shrugged. He was the team leader after all.

"Alright." She said, getting back up as Emiya raised his hand from her shoulder.

They turned around, making at a much quicker pace as they backtracked through the hallway they had just cleared. Opening a door as quietly as they could, they entered some sort of office at the west end. An old desk and a broken office chair lay on the floor, with the walls long since stained by the weather.

They closed the door and then lifted the old desk to barricade it while Emiya scanned the streets and buildings around them. He stayed low, barely clearing the window, as breaking a straight line like the window frame was one of the best way of being spotted and shot when trying to hide. He saw nothing, which was a good sign. Turning around, he froze as he heard another sign just as Shepard and Franco were done with their make-shift barricade.

"Damn, they're—" Emiya tried to speak, but by then it was already too late.

A shot rang out, punching a small hole clean through the wall. It hit none of them but surprised the other two so much that they flinched at the sound and flying debris. Leaving a fist-sized hole through the wall, Emiya could see the stairway through it.

— _fast!_ Emiya finished the sentence in his head, his eyes widening as time began to slow down in his perception. _They already realized we wouldn't be coming down? Do they have some kind of superior tracking equipment? We can't face them head on!_

"—WE NEED TO GO!" Emiya shouted, changing what he had been about to say as the turned around and vaulted out of the window. Holding onto the edge, he let loose and fell down onto the roof one floor below him.

It was actually a fair bit further down than he had thought, but it was still a doable jump. Especially as they faced an attack from the rear if they stayed.

The breath was knocked out of him, but he rolled with the impact and managed to keep himself unhurt. Looking up, he spotted Shepard and Cassani on the window ledge and about to jump down—though the latter seemed much less willing.

"Come on! Now, jump!" Emiya shouted, jumping down from the roof onto the pavement on the ground level. They needed to be gone before whoever it was that was looking for them actually got a bead on his team.

The two came down, landing more or less intact though far less gracefully than he had. A second later, a bright light and a deep sound exploded inside the room they had been in. _They shot through the wall to make a hole for a flashbang grenade_.

Shepard rolled and grabbed the edge of the roof she had landed on, making her way down to the street as Cassani looked up, his eyes wide as he realized that someone had just attacked the room they had been in seconds before.

"What the—"

"No time! Let's go!" Shepard shouted at him and it only took Franco a moment to realize that she was right.

As Cassani jumped down with a heavy 'oomph' at the impact, the sound of the door in the room they had been in breaking could be heard. Someone had rushed inside and shouting could be heard.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Three almost simultaneous shouts could be heard a second later. _They're experienced at breaching; dividing the room into parts and being able to trust your team enough to not react to anything outside of your slice-of-the-pie, merely handling your own sector like they trust you to, requires considerable training and trust._

"Cross the street, over there double-time!" Emiya shouted, kicking off at his top speed. Behind him a second later Shepard and Cassani followed.

"They're outside!" Emiya heard in the distance over his own rough breathing as he sprinted at breakneck pace for cover. If they remained out in the open streets, their attackers would have the cover and height advantage.

Halfway to the other side, Emiya felt a cold chill run down the back of his neck. A danger sense of a kind; the ability to feel bloodlust and killing intent had saved his life on many an occasion during his life.

— _thoom!_ An explosion roared in his ears.

He jumped to the side the instant he felt the danger; moments before he had even heard the sound. But his limitations in this body, without using magical energy, meant that it was too little too late. Someone up on the second floor had gotten him in his sights and Emiya had only been able to react the moment just before the trigger had been pulled. Even with the bullets massively slowed down so that their kinetic barriers could handle it, they were still traveling far too fast to be dodged at a human level after being fired.

Emiya could only half-avoid it, trading a direct hit for a glancing one.

He stumbled, feeling something. But upon the instant realization that there was no pain and that he hadn't been knocked over or tripped by the shot, he recovered and kept going. He jumped and rolled for cover behind the corner of a building.

No, not cover. Their guns, even at the dialed down state could still easily punch through the walls. It was merely concealment; something which prevented the shooter from getting an accurate shot. Emiya raised his pistol, reaching around the corner and blind firing at the windows to give covering fire for the two others, still lagging behind. Shepard and Cassani came a second later as another duo of shots ricocheted off the ground, cracking pavement and kicking up a small cloud of dust.

Neither seemed hit; the covering fire from the pistol had at least worked as a distraction.

Shepard had seen him get shot, taking evasive action and running in an unpredictable manner to avoid getting shot and Cassani following her had followed suit another second later. It had been enough to prevent the shooter from getting an accurate bead on them.

_A single-action weapon with several shavings; a shotgun?_ Emiya noted distantly as he recovered and noted that everyone was fine. _Lucky for us. Excellent for breaching, but it seems like it scatters heavily even at a middle distances_. _Had we stayed inside we would have been completely outmatched._

"Are you okay?" Shepard asked, running up to him and patting at his body. "Did you get hit?"

"Yeah." Emiya noted and turned around, nodding with his head to motion that they should keep going. "The HUD is telling me it was a glancing blow; wouldn't have punched through the armor apparently. But it would have fractured my hip, so the servos are locking down to simulate a blunt-force trauma."

"Will you be okay?" Shepard asked, licking her lips as she ran alongside him.

"It's fine. You guys okay? Did either of you get hit?"

They shook their heads to indicate a negative.

"Good. We need to find a place to hide. We can't outrun these guys if they can keep shooting at our backs."

"Okay, leave it to me. I can find a hundred places to hide in a city like this!" Shepard nodded with a determined look in her eyes as she began to take point again.

They ran for two minutes, turning corners and cutting through buildings and yards wherever possible. Ideally in urban warfare, you never wanted to be on the streets as that made you a sitting duck. Either you set up two or more teams and moved in rotation while the others were in cover and kept an eye out for anyone attacking, or then you tried to move inside houses, breaking outer walls whenever possible to stay out of the open while slowly digging forward.

But they didn't have much choice as it was and after another minute of desperate running, Shepard banked and jumped inside a large house. The lowest floor, where she entered, looked like it had been a cafe once, with large windows and plenty of space in front of a sturdy counter.

She vaulted over it, disappearing behind the old wooden shop counter. Emiya and Cassani followed after her, jumping for concealment. They all leaned back against the darkened and weather-beaten wood as flakes of old lacquer came off at the contact, taking deep breaths to recover from their running.

Thirty seconds later, running footsteps could be heard. They held their breath, lying as low as possible.

They passed by, well over fifty meters away judging from the sounds of their running. Shepard sat up to peer over the counter, but Emiya grabbed her arm and shook his head at her when she looked at him.

He raised a finger to his mouth and then lowered his hand down, signaling her to be quiet and to stay down. They must have some kind of radar that allowed them to track his team inside of a building. Probably based on sound or heat emissions.

The sun had been shinning all day and the lacquered counter, making it hot to the touch. Perhaps that had been enough. Or maybe there was a distance limitation. Whatever it was, they had escaped for now.

Emiya raised a finger to his mouth again, showing both of them to keep quiet for the moment. As they nodded back, he opened his omnitool and began to look into all the information he had received now that he had a moment to spare.

A map of the town; a main objective and a list of secondary objectives. He raised his eyebrow as he looked at the latter list. It was several pages long and constantly changing. One mission would disappear, another would appear, in one the parameters would change abruptly.

_The overseers who are monitoring all of us must be updating and controlling them in real time._

He sighed as he read their main objective: arrive at rendezvous location marked on map for extraction at 19:45 this evening. They had to survive an entire day in this chaotic battlefield? He almost felt like laughing at that. For a team of fresh recruits, being thrown into this kind of conflict was akin to being thrown into a meat grinder head first.

Add to that the fact that they were completely alone. It even specified to treat all other forces as hostiles.

It was certainly doable, but given that they knew nothing about what was going on around them, who was where and why, and that they had to cross the city to get there it seemed more than a little bit too challenging for a team of fresh recruits.

Not only were they lacking in training—well, the other two more so than him, but he was a definite outlier here—but also in equipment and weapons. That much had been obvious from the sole encounter they had had so far. Better guns, specialized grenades, sensory equipment and who knew what else?

He glanced at the side missions before dismissing them as worthless distractions. The freedom they offered the recruits here was to observe how they behaved once under pressure and in a boundless environment; to see what they were really made out of, he guessed. As they had been told, the main objective was the only one that really mattered. Anything more was just showing off.

And he had no interest in showing his cards.

Emiya closed his eyes and _listened_. Even without using Reinforcement, it was possible to hear surprisingly accurately what was going on in your surroundings if you simply know what to make of each sound. The general rule for keeping track of surroundings was that in cities you used reflections while in the wild you listened for any kind of sounds.

But that was really only describing the former in a non-combat setting where looking around would reveal your attention and when there was enough civilian hustle and bustle around you that listening was impossible. As for the latter, as their current surroundings were undoubtedly of a city that had been reclaimed by nature, it was entirely logical to therefore rely on his hearing here.

Especially since looking around would reveal his position if someone was looking for them. He couldn't hear anyone nearby. Which meant that at least it should be safe to talk.

"Right. Our main objective is simply to survive until the evening and to make it to a rendezvous location across town." Emiya whispered.

Shepard seemed surprised while Cassani seemed exasperated.

"Oh yeah, shouldn't be a problem so long as we don't run into anyone. Oh wait, five minutes in and we almost ran into a someone! Fuck."

Shepard glanced at the cursing man, hitting him lightly with the back of her hand to keep him quiet. "Don't worry, we're good as long as it's just a couple of guys. I can find a dozen hiding places along the way, no problem."

"Well, there's that at least. Until they start throwing more grenades at us." Cassani allowed with a defeated shrug.

"No. We'll be better off getting out of the city and into the jungle. We'll take the long way around and circle around them. Better to stay off the main battlefield since we don't have the kind of gear which would stand up." Emiya said, shaking his head.

"What do you mean?" Shepard asked, furrowing her brows. She was used to cities, having lived all her life in one. By that account, she was also fairly unfamiliar with jungles and she was more than a little worried about having to go there.

Would Emiya even know how to navigate through a forest, she wondered silently.

"Can you hear... _that_?" He asked, raising a finger as he spoke the last word. A deeper sound rang through the air, much lower in pitch and louder than other ambient gunfire. "That's not just any small arms mass accelerator. I bet they have some kind of large cannon mounted to a vehicle or something. We need to stay away from that thing at the very least. They say that infantry is the queen of the battlefield, but artillery is the _king_."

"Huh?" Cassani blinked.

"Ah," Shepard nodded, understanding Emiya's point. She looked at Cassani, tilting her head. "What does the king do to the queen?"

"...That's a really good point." Cassani said as he nodded nervously. He looked at Shepard, gesturing with one hand. "He makes a good point. Big guns are bad, yeah? I don't think our hardsuits can handle that stuff."

Shepard frowned, considering it for a moment before she nodded. "You have a plan?"

Emiya shrugged. "Not so much a plan as a ' _let's see what happens and hope no one shoots us_ '."

"I like the sound of that one." Cassani nodded.

Shepard huffed, but did not protest. Emiya took a deep breath, then slowly began to peek over the counter. Scanning left and right, he looked for anything unusual outside on the streets or in the buildings.

He crouched back down again, looking at Shepard, "Looks clear, get us east and we'll get into the forest. After that I'll take point."

Shepard nodded and rose up, pistol held at the ready as she looked around a second time. Not that she didn't trust Emiya, but it was good to verify herself as well.

"Alright, follow me."

* * *

;

* * *

They continued quietly through the broken and abandoned city.

To Shepard and Cassani, the broken down and overgrown city ruins must have seemed like an alien world, yet to Emiya it was far more familiar than the barracks and Navy headquarters had been. The architecture was from a more familiar time and the decay was something he was familiar with.

The cracked asphalt and shattered blocks of concrete lying around. The potholes and bullet marks left behind from previous exercises and the sheer passage of time. The strange tension in the air as every house and street around them remained dead and silent.

He had been through many places like this in his life.

Of course, in the distance they could hear the sounds of heated combat. Sometimes a more powerful gun could be heard, along with explosions and other strange noises. It was so far away that it felt like an entirely different world, yet it never abated enough to allow the strange mood of the abandoned city settle in completely.

"How much further?" Cassani asked as they continued to jog.

Emiya looked around, then glanced down at the map that had been uploaded to his omnitool. He had a mental image of it in his head, but there had been a lot of changes apparently. Some streets had been blocked off as buildings had collapsed and sewers had crumbled with the passing of time.

"Half a klick and we're in the suburbs. Another two and we should be good." He said. _As long as we don't run into anyone on the way_ , he added to himself. So far had been fairly good, given that they hadn't run into anyone yet.

"Who do you think those people from before were, the guys with the grenade I mean..." Shepard asked, turning to look at Emiya's back as he lead them.

Cassani shrugged.

"Probably the previous bunch of recruits, who've already gone through basic and chosen their lines." Emiya said. "Though that's just speculation?"

"Huh?" Cassani asked, not really understanding it. "Why?"

"Throw in the fresh newbies and see how they react. Let the older, better trained and armed guys bully them around a little to get them used to getting their teeth kicked in..." Emiya continued, explaining with slight smirk. "Get us bloodthirsty and angry. Then later, when we've gone through and graduated from basic, we get to do the same to get some payback on the new recruits."

"Like a hazing or... induction ceremony, you mean?" Shepard asked.

"Maybe. It's what I would do. Get people used to stress, or at least weed out who is fit for combat and who isn't."

After that, none of them spoke. Perhaps the thought of facing off against their seniors made them thoughtful, or made them want to keep quiet so as to avoid any other encounters.

They went through hollowed out buildings and through narrow alleys whenever possible. Though those were more easily booby trapped, it was still safer than running out in the streets and being spotted half a mile away.

And generally traps were only placed once the combat continued for prolonged periods of time. This field exercise had only started today, even for all the other groups. This much Emiya knew. So their haste was much more justified in that.

Emiya's suit's internal medical apparatus, which had been re-purposed to simulate injuries through a software update, did not actually slow him down all too much. It wasn't like he had actually been injured, it merely clamped down on him to give resistance to his movements. It felt slightly strange, as if someone was hanging off of him and keeping his hip from moving freely, but he powered through it.

As long as he adjusted to compensate for it, he could keep up just fine. At this level, it would only be draining his stamina and nothing else.

At one point, there didn't seem to be any way forward, so they backtracked and jumped over the roofs to continue onward. After one building almost collapsed under them, they finally gave up on that even as they made good time, and got back down to the street level.

If the city center had been dilapidated, the suburbs were little more than rubble and piles of refuse around the trees and undergrowth that had come to reclaim the abandoned lands. Encroaching from the outside in as the plants did and due to the less sturdy construction materials used, the widely spaced and smaller houses had been mostly eradicated already.

To Emiya, it was nothing new. Though the scale of the city, the climate and the length of time the city had been allowed to be destroyed was new, he was still familiar with places such as these. In his time he had seen the results of disease, war, famine, natural disasters and much, much more.

But to Shepard and Cassani, who Emiya gathered had always lived in the bustling and ever-awake cities, this was a landscape from their wildest fever dreams. Expensive houses and neighborhoods; places they could probably only dream of having lived in, completely destroyed and abandoned.

Small manses, large and small private homes, garages and remains of other buildings littered the landscape around and beneath the young trees. He even saw a gazebo that had been lifted completely off the ground by a tree that had sprung up beneath it. Nowhere in sight could you see the bare ground, as wherever there was space a plant had grown up to take advantage of the sunlight.

The knee-to-waist-high undergrowth swayed in the wind, like a green ocean as they walked. After a while, above them a light canopy of treetops began to form as trees began to appear more densely; a cloak of thin branches and green leaves stretched out to clad them in the formless shadows of the leaves above dancing to the wind.

Shepard began to falter and slow down, staring around with wide eyes and a slacked jaw, Emiya took over as pointman. He let the two gawk and wonder for a while as he consulted his mental map again. At this point, he had little more than a top-down picture and a topographical map that showed the elevation relative to sea-level since the trees above hid everything else from satellite view.

Not much to go on, but that was jungle-warfare for you. Fog of war everywhere; a neutral veil of uncertainty for everyone. Even people who lived in a jungle knew that the terrain was ever-changing and ever-treacherous and that few maps were worth anything past a month or two.

You simply had to know the rules and take every step as a first into unknown territory. Already twice Shepard and Cassani had almost stumbled as the ground—hidden from view beneath undergrowth, as it was—was actually not as flat and level as the foliage made it seem.

Once they got underneath the ancient tress where the canopy blotted out almost all of the sun, they wouldn't have to worry so much about the undergrowth with each step. With no sunlight, the weakest of plants died off, underfoot to the mighty giants that stood tall in the distance. Of course, if they went further in, they would run into vines and other things which would require a machete and hours of time to pass through.

But they wouldn't go in that deep.

"It's been a while..." Emiya sighed almost nostalgically, wondering whether those primeval giants still stood in those far-off jungles he had trekked through in another lifetime. He could clearly still remember, how perfectly straight they seemed; those dark looming pillars of eternity, like a cathedral that stretched high above and as far as the eye could see.

"Did you say something?" Shepard asked, walking up to his side.

Emiya blinked, realizing he had spoken out aloud just now and shook his head. "Sorry, just musing."

"...Musing?" Shepard tilted her head at him curiously, as if she had never heard the word.

"Thinking. Pondering. Considering. Something like that." Emiya said with a shrug, thinking that it would be enough to end the conversation.

But Shepard only seemed more interested if anything, noting that he did not seem nearly as lost as they were and growing ever more curious about it.

"About?" She asked, leaning in to stare at him as they walked.

Emiya felt slightly taken aback as he had gone back to staring straight ahead, not expecting her to continue questioning him, but didn't let it show on his face.

"Well, I'm quite thankful that this hardsuit is rated for all kinds of stuff. It's pretty great out here, despite the climate." He said with a shrug.

She didn't seem to understand what he meant as she frowned at him.

"You might not realize it with just your face bare, but it's pretty hot out here and the humidity would make it even worse. Normally, we would be sweating buckets right now." He said with an amused smirk, pointing up at the glaring sun. She frowned, turning thoughtful as she realized the truth of his words.

Only her face felt particularly warm, but she wasn't sweating. The suit felt comfortable on her. Neither hot or cold in particular, rather it seemed to be regulating itself to a comfortable level to allow her to keep moving without rest.

"Huh. Yeah, I guess you're right. It would suck having to walk out here without these things on." She said, smiling a little.

Emiya made an amused huff, but did not say anything. He noted how little they sweat, which threw off his internal clock. He didn't even feel thirsty yet, despite all that running and walking earlier. Quite different from what he had been used to, really.

Not that he was complaining.

They continued, arriving at a strange flatland as they began to circle the city towards the RV point. The ground must have been paved for miles in asphalt, as still only the toughest of weeds grew through the cracks. A thick layer of undergrowth, ranging from knee-height to all the way up to their hips grew everywhere. Collapsed buildings dotted the landscape, like some ancient beasts' skeletons as young trees grew here and there as prelude for what was to come.

It looked like some old industrial area, with storage buildings or hardware facilities all around them.

In ten more years, Emiya wouldn't be surprised to see this area having turned into the beginnings of a jungle like the terrain they had passed through earlier. It wouldn't resist the return of nature any better than the suburb had, it was only a little bit behind on schedule. Still, with the remnants of asphalt crumbling underfoot with each step, their pace grew considerably.

It stretched on for at least half a kilometer, Emiya judged as they moved from cover to cover. To avoid being detected from afar by naked eye, it was essential to consider the basic of camouflage; silhouette and shape they cast against the background; colors standing out; reflections of light from metal or plastic; shadows standing out; sudden motion and the sounds they made could all reveal them.

Thus Emiya took care to choose routes which hugged collapsed buildings and large bushes, walked through shadows and shade, went below the highest peaks of small hills and crests as far as the flat terrain permitted. All in all, it was a rather pleasant walk outside on a beautiful day.

But as pleasant as their walk was, it had to end eventually.

_Pshhhzztt—_

"Huh, what was—" Shepard turned around at the sound.

— _boom_

Emiya's eyes widened, his hand reaching out for Shepard and grabbing her wrist as he jumped down. She made a grunt of complaint as all the air in her lungs was pushed out by the fall, wresting her hand free a moment later to go for her pistol.

An instant later, the second shot came over their heads, whizzing past. The sound of the gun followed a second later.

— _boom_

"Missed." Emiya noted, checking his barrier and the status of the two barriers noted in the upper corner of his HUD, signifying Shepard's and Cassani's status. Shepard was fine, but Cassani was in the red.

"Wha—What's going on?" She asked, noticing only now the kinetic barriers herself.

"A sniper." Emiya concluded.

"Huh?"

"The delay between the shot hitting Cassani's barrier and the disproportionately loud gun report suggests a long-range sniper." For a moment, he wondered how it was shooting in the first place. Their guns had to be tuned down in order to not risk their shields failing, but that would mean that the minuscule bullet they fired would not be able to hit anything at a distance.

Not unless the gun's computer was automatically ranging and performing calculations for velocity correction.

He had distinctly heard Cassani's kinetic barrier crackle _before_ he had heard the shot, which meant a supersonic projectile. A weapon with that kind of power would still punch through their armor and kill them, at closer ranges.

"Cassani, are you okay?" Shepard asked, crawling towards the fallen and still form lying on the ground.

"Uh, kinda can't move here. Says I've got a ' _shattered spine, minor internal bleeding'_ here. That's bad, right?" Cassani spoke up, quietly, as if someone was sitting on his lungs.

"Yes. Congratulations, you're crippled for life. Well, for the duration of this exercise anyhow." Emiya answered.

"Oh... Well. Shit."

Cassani sounded fine, Emiya noted as he turned his attention away.

That meant that the projectile must have been shot with enough velocity to carry it all the way here, but not so much that it would punch through their kinetic barriers. So the sniper rifle shot at a higher velocity than other weapons, because at the distance it was used in this simulation it would still slow down enough not to be a problem? That must mean some sort of range calculations took place, probably a part of the software they used for the exercise. Or was it perhaps handled by the overseers through tracking who was where and feeding the rifle appropriate data?

Which might mean a lag in firing between distances long and short distance. He could use that.

"Shepard, get Cassani and on my mark run for the house over there with him." Emiya said, pointing at the remains of what had been once a fairly nice two floor house, painted yellow with a red tile roof. Even as new those walls would not have provided anything in the shape of protection against a mass accelerator, but it offered enough concealment that hitting them would be difficult.

Shepard nodded and began to crawl, staying low enough that she could not be seen as she made her way to the downed Franco.

Perhaps if the sniper had long-range sensors, they could have been shoot through the walls, but given that they hadn't been shot through the ground or grass yet that seemed unlikely.

First of all, he would need to find the sniper.

Well, that wasn't a problem. With his experience when it came to long-range combat and the two shots he had heard, he had had plenty of information to make a few educated guesses. He had already been eyeing the terrain around them as they walked, noting good locations for ambushes, traps, firing locations for various kinds of weapons and more.

He figured there were three good places where the shots could have come from, since the point of origin for both shots hadn't changed.

Assuming the sniper was alone, he had probably already moved to avoid being detected and to get a better angle while they were scrambling about—no, the sniper had shot the rearmost in their team to buy himself another second with the rifle while they hadn't noticed. Generally if someone in front of you was shot, you would react immediately whereas in this case most would have been confused for a second and had to look around to realize what had happened.

It would normally give the sniper enough time to aim for the next target.

It was textbook. _Too_ textbook. There was none of the personal flair that came with experience and skill, the small touches and tactics that reflected the sniper's mindset. And even though Emiya had immediately dodged for cover, the second shot had been too hasty and hadn't predicted their movements at all. The shooter was new; inexperienced. Probably not much older than they were.

So he would hesitate. Additionally, if he had support, they would be flanking while the sniper held Emiya pinned down. That made sense to him and he felt his plan fall into place; fifteen steps, with variations and checks to see if his initial assumptions held true or as things could change.

Emiya's old instinct began to resurface, the steel re-aligning itself as he turned back to the skills he had cultivated as a deluded murderer of men.

But he couldn't just react and shoot at them; that would be too suspicious in hindsight, even as he already knew where the sniper was, he couldn't simply act out as if he had read the script beforehand. He needed to play a part to avoid raising suspicion.

A second had passed since he had ordered Shepard to go for Cassani and Emiya turned on his omnitool. He navigated the menu, finding the connection to Cassani's hardsuit.

"Cassani, give me access to your interface." Emiya said, pausing as he was stopped by a password query.

"Huh? Yeah, okay." The answer came back, half-dazed.

Emiya continued on, going through the other's hardsuit data until he found what he wanted. A vidfeed popped up, showing what Cassani was looking at in real time. Emiya smirked, checking the options.

_Rewind_.

"Gotcha." Emiya said with a smirk. He pulled up the map on his omnitool, placing a small dot that represented Cassani on it and then aligning the paused vid with how it stood. On the frozen screen, the kinetic barrier flashing as it stopped the bullet was seen; a blue bubble rippling out like the surface of water disturbed by a cast stone.

And just like the center of disturbance could be seen on the surface of water, it was clearly visible on the kinetic barrier as well.

He could based on this see where the shot had come from, both on the horizontal plane as well as in the vertical. Emiya closed the omnitool and looked around, mapping out a route forward and to the south. He needed to move diagonally, so as to force the sniper to move his rifle from Emiya's current position.

Emiya burst into motion, crawling and monkey-walking through the rubble and tall grass. A good side to the high undergrowth was that it offered concealment, but in exchange the taller stalks would be disturbed by his movements, showing how he moved to anyone on look out.

Contrary to popular belief, crawling is not very slow at all. Certainly, when you are perfectly flat against the ground, moving quickly is difficult. But the key lay in understanding the terrain and seeing where you could move and how high up you could raise your torso. The higher you could go, the faster you could move.

Thus, mapping out a route was essential. Generally you wanted concealment from direct view, but here it was more important to avoid disturbing the taller grass. He moved methodically and quickly, using short bursts to cover distances and then moving slowly over precarious positions.

A minute had passed since the two shots. At this distance, if someone was coming for them using cover, they would be pretty close now.

"Shepard, come in." Emiya whispered.

" _You want me to go?_ " She asked from his comms.

"On the count of ten, go."

"... _Got it_."

Emiya inhaled, drawing his pistol and getting himself into a position where could get up quickly.

One. Two. _Three_.

He rose up in one smooth motion to his feet, just high enough that his head and shoulders became visible above the bushes. Completely unnecessary; he could have shot while remaining in concealment as you could see through the bushes at this range. But the point wasn't to shoot at the sniper, but to get his attention. That meant exposing yourself.

Time slowed down; color drained from his vision as he _focused. He_ aimed, aligning his sights as he relaxed. Though he could not see the sniper and did not know the specifics of the terrain, he could make an educated guess; enough for his mental image anyhow.

Three sniping positions, all within 10 degrees from each other from his position.

Emiya pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession.

In his mind's eye, the shot punched through three hypothetical snipers' heads, scattering each ones' brains to the wind. He got back down and began to rapidly move diagonally toward the sniper. Like before, he crawled and used the terrain; at one part there was a fallen house and he could get up and actually all out sprint.

Ten.

"Shepard, report."

A second of silence.

" _We're good! You okay?_ "

Emiya smirked.

"Peachy. He's probably seen me and is now focused on me. You see the three houses to your left?"

" _Yeah?_ "

"If someone is trying to flank us, they would come that way. Get Cassani into cover from both that direction and the sniper and wait half a minute to see if anyone is coming. Take them out if you can, but if there's more than you can handle, try to stay hidden and let them pass." Emiya spoke rapidly and the went silent, listening to his surroundings.

_Nothing_. _That means no flankers on this side_. _If anyone is coming, it will be at Shepard's location, like I thought_.

" _Got it. And then?_ "

"If no one's there by 40 seconds, run that way and flank around the sniper. You'll have a clear line to take him out. If there were more than the one guy, they would be flanking, so I doubt anyone else would be there with him. So once you see his back, go to town on him."

" _Heh, you sure know what to give a girl._ " Shepard was smirking, he knew it from her tone of voice.

Then again, so was he.

"Over and out."

" _Over and out."_

Emiya took a deep breath and then broke out into a run.

Running was bad in general, since it left you open to being shot even as a moving target, but the remains of asphalt here hadn't given away enough for anything to grow yet and he needed to go forward. So it couldn't be helped.

_Now_.

He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut as a loud—boom echoed. Emiya smirked, noting that it was another miss. And given that he hadn't changed weapons to something like an assault rifle meant that he only had a single-shot rifle for this range.

"Sloppy." He remarked as he continued to move along. He stopped, noticing a good rock—one looked similar _enough_ , anyhow—and grabbing it along as he continued to crawl forward.

Emiya stilled, waiting. At this point, the sniper had missed so many shots that the pressure must be building up. If there were any other enemies here, he should be expecting some gunfire in the distance soon or Shepard calling in to inform him.

Thus he might as well let the sniper stew for a few moments. Emiya calmed himself down, but kept his heart beating at an elevated rate. He didn't want to come crashing down in the middle of a fight.

Okay, that was enough.

_Can't let him recover his wits, either._

Emiya turned onto his side, judging the weight of the rock with one hand. He decided it should be possible, rearing back the hand and closing his eyes. By now, the shooter must have moved out of the previous firing location. He had been made, so according to _textbook_ , it served better now as a bait.

From here Emiya couldn't see the sniper's location over the tall grass—either the previous or the current one, which Emiya could only guess at—and they were both out of the basic sensor-range. The sniper must not have a better sensor either, as Emiya hadn't been shot yet either.

But in his mind's eye he could still see the location. Assuming a route behind the cover that he couldn't see over, a novice sniper would move _there._

He cocked back his hand and then tossed the rock with all his strength. And in its flight, it looked distinctly quite similar to the flashbang that he been tossed at them earlier. Well, only if you glanced at it quickly and had been trained with grenades enough to recognize one.

Which Emiya technically hadn't. But he guessed that this guy had.

It landed with a light thud, skipping twice around the corner of the collapsed house, right into the shadow where the sniper should be hiding.

"Shit!"

Emiya heard the shout in the distance as he got up with his pistol ready. This time, he didn't rise above the swaying plants, merely high enough that his eyes could pierce through the top of the foliage without breaking its silhouette.

Unfortunately, the sniper didn't jump out of cover. He must have realized it was a rock before he did a mistake that big. Or he could have just frozen in place from the surprise; that wasn't entirely uncommon either. But it was enough of a distraction for Emiya to line up his sights.

Pull—Pffftzzz, pull— _Pffftzzz,_ pull— _Pffftzzz,_ pull— _Pffftzzz._

The reports of the pistol were much quieter in comparison to the sniper rifle, to the point of seeming inconsequential in comparison. But the cracking sound of the debris being kicked up where the sniper was, was anything but; he had aimed at the hard rock on purpose.

He didn't have a clear shot at the guy anyhow and the pistol's power was too low currently to shoot through the wall. Sparks were kicked up; small pieces of shattered rock spread everywhere on impact and the sound was like a pickaxe on stone.

Emiya got back down and began to move again; he would flank around while the sniper was busy.

Movement.

Something was thrown out, flying out in the air like a small frisbee. Emiya hesitated for a moment, his eyes tracking the object as he knew for a certainty that he could have shot it, but knowing that if he did it would be too suspicious in the aftermath. So he ran instead. But it wasn't enough as a pulse of _something_ spread out, barely visible as it passed him by.

Instantly his HUD seemed to turn to static and his gun began to beep as if it had overheated. Emiya didn't hesitate, throwing the gun behind him into the grass as he continued to move. Behind him, the incessant beeping continued as he turned off his HUD and kept moving.

The sniper jumped out of cover, having changed his sniper rifle for his pistol as he burst forward at the beeping gun. _Some sort of tech-grenade? Miniature EMP, perhaps. Serves dual purpose of sabotaging my gun as well as revealing my position_.

Emiya stayed low, stilling his breath.

The sniper came to a stop as the beeping stopped; the overheating would still prevent the gun from firing for several seconds as it cooled down, though. The man was wearing completely different gear; it was half-black, half-green camouflage pattern, with much thicker and robust pieces making up the torso and limb pieces.

_Medium or heavy armor. Pistol wouldn't have probably worked anyhow._ Emiya concluded as he began to coil up. As soon as he got a chance; as soon as the sniper showed an opening, Emiya would jump out.

"Come out! You don't have a gun, newbie. You're done already!" The sniper shouted, sounding something between confident and relieved.

Emiya merely held back a smirk, having felt that a confirmation of his earlier theory regarding who had been hunting them down. The second-timers in these events probably had missions like 'hunt down the newbies _'._ But the fact that the sniper was facing his general direction also confirmed that the sniper's HUD radar had picked something out in this general location.

That would be a problem. The gun's overheating sounds had distracted him enough for a moment, but now it might not work anymore.

_I'll put a voice-playback on my omnitool and throw it over there and then take him down from behind if he falls for it. I can probably joint-lock him and take his gun to finish him off. Otherwise, I'll make a run for it, there's concealment enough for me to keep him guessing at my exact location. Double back for my pistol and try again._ Emiya nodded to himself, feeling his heart-rate pick up in preparation as a smirk grew on his face.

He was having fun, he distantly realized.

Pull— _Pffftzzz_ , pull— _Pffftzzz_ , pull— _Pffftzzz_.

Three shots rang out unexpectedly from further away.

"Guh, what!" The sniper turned around and Emiya smirked. _Nice job, Shepard._

He rushed forward like a loosed arrow, crossing the distance in great big leaps in less than two seconds. His hands shot out and one went to the wrist of the gun as another went to the shoulder in a simple and reliable arm-takedown.

"Ooompphh!" The sniper groaned as he face-planted into the ground with Emiya pressing down on him from above, wresting away the pistol by wrenching it in the direction of the thumb. He spun around the pistol, placing it directly against the side of the sniper's visor.

"How about we call it here. I'm not sure if the kinetic barrier will work this close, you know." Emiya said.

"Fuck you! It's ID-locked! You can't do shit with it."

Emiya blinked, pulling up the pistol and aiming it at a tree in the distance. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

"Huh. Well, I guess we're doing this the hard way then."

"Yeah, what are you gonna do—"

"Shepard, mind coming here and shooting this guy for me?" Emiya asked out loud and a second later the woman emerged from the bushes with her pistol held up. She had been holding back from shooting since Emiya had gotten into grappling with her target.

Then again, given that his shields had taken all those shots without a problem, she had hesitated for a moment at whether or not her pistol would even be able to punch through before overheating.

"Sure, no problem. Mind if I start with his feet?" She asked with a grin, taking aim.

"Wait, hold on!"

She didn't, shooting 14 shots into his leg and taking a short break to let her gun cool down and the continuing until the sniper's kinetic barrier gave way. She whistled when she finally got a few shots in and saw his leg begin to stiffen after a shot.

"Man, his shields are way better than ours. No fair." She said, even as she happily continued to work her way up. Emiya let go and dusted himself as she finished off with his shoulders and head. "Think that's enough?"

She looked up at Emiya with a wicked gleam in her eyes. He shrugged with a helpless smile.

"Give him two more for good measure. Both arms."

"Can do, Emiya." And she did.

After making sure that the sniper really was "dead", they finally relaxed.

They raised up the sniper so that he was lying with his back against the ruins he had been hiding inside. He seemed more annoyed and frustrated than anything else, so it seemed fine. Even as they asked him questions, the sniper sulked and remained stubbornly quiet.

"Are you alone or do you have back up nearby?"

The sniper said nothing, but Emiya took the sullen annoyance to mean that he had been alone. If there was back up nearby, a man of this character would have tried to stall them until the rest of his team or squad could come in and mop them up.

Emiya picked up his pistol from the grass and inspected it for damage. On pulling the trigger, he noted that it worked fine again. With some searching, he found the spinning disc the sniper had used before and brought it back.

"What's this?" He asked, holding up the tech-grenade.

The sniper averted his eyes, ignoring them completely. Shepard rolled her eyes, kicking at his shin lightly. The sniper merely looked up and glared, mouthing the words ' _I'm dead, remember?_ ' with inaudible sass.

Emiya huffed and then searched the snipers pockets. He found a few more of them, but realized that they weren't as simple as the grenades from his time had been. Emiya looked at the sniper, who was studiously pretending to not be paying attention.

Raising up the unused disc-grenade, he asked "Is this ID-locked... or is it activated with your omnitool?"

The man made a smug little attempt at shaking his head to show that he didn't know what Emiya was talking about, but it merely looked like he was having a seizure for a second as his entire hardsuit had been hardened up to prevent movement.

Perhaps Shepard had been a little bit over-zealous?

Emiya shrugged and put them into back into the sniper's pouch. Perhaps they could be used as diversions and maybe if he shot them, something interesting would happen. But assuming that they were usable by anyone who knew the key for example, the sniper's unit could all probably make them all go off inside his own pouch.

Better to discard unusable items, he figured.

And then looked at the rectangle attached to the snipers back on a Van der Waals-strip, realizing it was the collapsed form of the sniper rifle that had been used earlier. Finally, when Emiya had taken it, did the sniper seem to perk up.

His eyes followed the collapsed form of the sniper rifle like a hawk's.

"Yours, or Navy gear?" Emiya asked with a teasing grin. The sniper twitched. "Borrowed Navy gear, then. But you really like it. No, not it. _Her._ What's her name? She's a pretty girl. Nice smooth lines, no scratches and good polish. I can smell the oil, too. You must do maintenance on the regular to keep her in tip-top shape."

Emiya smirked as he ran a hand along the collapsed gun, almost fondling it in front of the sniper.

"Fuck you." The sniper glared at him now, finally opening his mouth. "ID-locked, asshole."

Emiya blinked, before thinking better of that snark he had just almost let loose. But apparently Shepard had thought it as well and was not above some more petty revenge for the ambush before.

"What, your asshole is ID-locked? Do you need your omnitool to go to the bathroom, or something?"

Emiya huffed, not so much at the quip; a bit cruder than he had wanted to say but still got the idea across. He was more amused by the confused and then mortified-with-anger expression of the sniper at her words.

"Well, I'll be taking her for a while." He said, standing up with a grin as he patted the rifle. "I'll be sure to be a real gentleman and to send her packing home before midnight."

The sniper was now glaring daggers at them both, seething at the mouth and obviously trying to break free. Shepard blinked and then let out a guffaw of laughter as she moved to follow Emiya back.

They needed to check up on Cassani and then get moving before someone came to investigate the firefight.

* * *

;

* * *

At least they had gene mods and hardsuits, Emiya thought as he carried Franco on his shoulders in a fireman carry.

Ahead of him, Shepard was scouting and keeping an eye out. For all her speed and toughness, she couldn't carry their 'wounded' for more than a dozen minutes before she would collapse. It was a simple matter of weight difference and natural physique, with his legs hanging down and getting entangled with everything when she carried him. Even gene therapy couldn't erase that entirely, since the laws were quite strict.

Which meant that it fell on Emiya's shoulders to carry Franco.

"Sorry about this, man."

"It's fine. If I had been taken out, I'd expect you to be carrying me around." Emiya said with a slight smirk, even as he felt his thighs burning. They had been going at a doubled pace for an hour now, just to make sure that they didn't get caught up in any other groups that might come to investigate the firefight.

Emiya took another sip of his water bottle as he exhaled hot air.

Luckily the servos locking down to prevent movement only affected the internals. As such, it wasn't like carrying a frozen human or anything, which would have been a decidedly awkward affair. Instead, so long as Cassani relaxed, Emiya could move his limbs around just fine. This meant that once they got a good position, Cassani could just tense a little and his body would lock into place which made it easier for Emiya to carry him.

Like a weird backpack, with terrible straps and poor balance and very heavy. Still, it was better than having to carry him than if he had been completely stiff. _Be grateful for the little things, it'll keep you from going insane_.

At this rate, they wouldn't make it to the recall point in time he guessed. He had been planning to skirt the edge of the jungle where the terrain was still traversable without having to cut down a dozen plants and hanging vines with each and every step you took, but with a man down it would not work.

"How about you, any changes?" He asked, looking up again as he continued to walk one step at a time.

"Nah. Still crippled and bleeding out. Got 14 hours in me, still. _Apparently_ , anyhow. My nose itches like a motherfucker, tho." Franco said with a halfhearted grin.

"Well, that's something at least." Emiya allowed. "But this isn't working out."

If they didn't have time constraints, Emiya was certain that he could keep going until his body literally collapsed beneath him. He had done it before and this time he didn't have to worry about being sucked dry by leeches sticking to every limb by the dozen, or about the constant rain beating down on him like that one time.

Franco was lighter, too. Or perhaps that too was just the gene therapy making him stronger. He wondered whether it applied to the immune system as well or whether in the long term he would have to worry about diseases and diarrhea again.

Well, it wouldn't matter right now. This exercise would end before that became a problem. He set down Cassani and recovered his strength by sitting down and breathing deeply until his legs stopped aching. Taking a deep swig of the water bottle, he finished it off till the last drop.

"You can have mine, not too thirsty, what with the excellent service." Franco quipped and Emiya nodded his thanks back. He switched out the bottles attaching his own empty one to Cassani's suit and then giving him a quick sip just in case, to keep him hydrated, before taking another deep mouthful.

It wasn't plain water, either. More akin to a light sports drink, really.

Shepard came back, almost tripping over a thick tree root sticking out from the ground as she did. She seemed to have adapted mostly to the the new terrain, but still seemed hesitant about moving at full speed as always something seemed to entangle or grab at her.

She looked at them, a flash of worry in her eyes as she sat down and took a swig from her own bottle.

"We're gonna have to change our plans a little." Emiya said simply.

"Yeah? Leaving me behind?" Cassani asked with a little bit of false cheer, though the undercurrent of worry was plain to hear.

Maybe Emiya and Shepard would pass with flying colors if they passed him off dead, but that would no doubt sink his grading for the exercise. Though little fault of his own, it would certainly be natural to consider such a conclusion and worry about it.

"Yes." Emiya said, just as Shepard had been about to utter a reassurances. She blinked, turning to look at him with a questioning stare. "We'll acquire a vehicle and pick you up. There's a hill just up ahead that runs next to a road. We can leave you there and keep the comms open; you can act as a watcher while we try to get something working."

Shepard paused, considering that.

"Yeah? Not gonna just leave me behind, are you?" Cassani asked, sounding a bit more hopeful, trying not to make it sound like a whine.

Emiya simply stared back at him blankly. He had hauled too many half-dead men around for real, to care about the peace of mind of this entirely healthy one. It was one thing when saving a man for real, but he could bring himself to care enough about the future prospects of Cassani to do the same here. And he also knew that tiring himself out by trying to force his way forward would just blow up in his face.

_Work smarter, not harder_.

"If we can't get you, we can't get you." Emiya said finally, shrugging.

"But if we can get you, we'll get you." Shepard continued as she stared at Cassani.

Their 'wounded' stared between them for a few moments, before he affected a shrug as best he could with his 'paralyzed' body.

"Yeah, okay. Works for me."

* * *

;

* * *

"Alright. Just give me the generals of what you can see and where, I'll consider what it's worth and what it means, so don't worry about it." Emiya said, patting at Cassani's shoulder.

He in turn gave Emiya a flat stare.

"Do I really have to be in a tree?"

"It's safer. No one's gonna look up and you can see further. No problems, right?" Emiya said with a smirk.

"Uh huh, and what if I fall, huh?"

"Well that's simple. Don't." Emiya said as he nodded.

"That's not a—hey!"

Emiya ignored him and jumped down from the tree. Getting him up there was a bit of a chore and had taken some time, but he judged that its benefits exceeded that trouble. With their combined gene therapy and rigorous exercise granted strength, with Emiya pulling from above and Shepard pushing from below, they had managed to get him up there without too much fuss.

Shepard merely stared up at Cassani in the tree and than down at Emiya, with one eyebrow raised. "Really?"

Emiya shrugged with an easy smile. "Let's go, then."

He didn't give Shepard time to answer as he turned to start jogging forward. He could hear her following and he turned up his pace. She must have been surprised as he began to move about in a strange pattern, instead of in a straight line as at times she faltered behind him.

It was natural. In nature there were no straight lines; you had to take the path of least resistance. Of course, seeing where one could easily walk was a skill all of its own, but one he had cultivated to a degree where terrain of this level was reasonably traversable.

Shepard copied his steps, following behind him at her own pace and he matched her so that they did not get separated.

Of course, this way of moving was quite loud, but as it was they needed to regain lost time so it couldn't be helped. In the forest and especially jungles, sound was the largest sign of danger. With trees growing this thickly around them, you couldn't see much past 20 meters, if even that.

_Heel-first on hard ground; rolling step. Toes first on soft ground to test it gently_. He remembered.

It took a little bit of effort, but soon his gait was the same after all those years. Well, Shepard behind him made his relative silence a moot point, but it was a good habit to keep cultivated nonetheless.

They made it to the road and he crouched down, by a tall tree that gave him plenty of cover on one side. To make the road, trees had been long ago cleared, letting sunlight shine down enough for some plants to grow here at the ground-level. This gave him ample concealment, as the waist-high grass and undergrowth was more than enough to hide a man.

Shepard came to a stop behind him, kneeling just behind him. He leaned forward, low and nearly touching the ground as he allowed his head to break through the grass onto the road. He looked left and right, peering as far as he could.

Reaching out a hand to touch the road, he frowned as he felt the composition and depth of the tracks. It had rained during the night and early morning, and the canopy above wouldn't have dispersed the droplets enough; several cars had passed by here today, judging by the freshness of the tracks.

"Yeah, this will do."

"Huh?" Shepard asked, leaning to look at what he was doing while staying low enough to not break concealment herself.

Emiya leaned back to cover and he looked at Shepard. "Weren't you paying attention? We need a vehicle, right?"

Shepard blinked at him, not at all amused at the grin.

"So we're going to stage an ambush of our own and rob whoever comes driving down this road." Emiya said, feeling entirely too amused by her seriousness.

"And they are simply going to let us—with our plinky little guns—take their _military spec car_?"

Emiya's grin only widened. The reason crazy schemes like this worked was precisely because they were crazy. "Yeah, after all... We have _this_."

He reached over his back and pulled out the collapsed sniper rifle. Shepard blinked, the realization clear in her eyes. But then she frowned as she realized the biggest snag in that plan.

"It's ID-locked, though. That asshole seemed pretty sure we wouldn't be able to use it."

"Yeah, which is why I messed with him a little. He was obviously some kind of techie-type, what-with his EMP grenades and stuff." Emiya explained.

"' _Techie-type'?_ Is that some technical term I haven't been introduced to, yet?" She snarked at him, to which he waved his hand as if to dispel her skepticism.

"He seemed pretty focused on a specific part of the gun, right here. I think I can work something out." Emiya grinned.

"Right, so we take one thing and use it to take another... It could work, as long as we can keep the momentum going. If they call for help or manage to keep contact, who knows who will be informed about the car getting jacked though. And they usually have some kind of transponder or signal, too. That's assuming you can get that thing to working, too." She mused, turning thoughtful.

He huffed as he knew he had her on-board already at this point. "Oh, an expert on stealing cars, are we?"

She snapped, turning to look at him straight in the eye with a dead serious look. He merely smirked wider.

"Oh my, naughty naughty." He said with a deliberately playful tone. He had her off-balance, now he needed to hook her in. She licked her lips in a nervous gesture, considering what to say. Should she deny, deny, deny? Play it off? It was obvious he was touching at a part of her past she wasn't very proud of. But before she could say anything, he continued, serious again. "Think you can take care of any trackers? Obvious ones, at least?"

_Extend a show of trust, delegate responsibility based on a shared secret. It will build trust without fail_.

She blinked at him and then recovered after a second as she realized he was waiting for her answer. He was deliberately looking away from her, as if paying attention to their surroundings. She needed to think her momentary pauses went unnoticed, lest she realized he was playing her. Or rather, he thought of it as a courtesy, allowing her to retain her dignity somewhat.

"Yeah. I can try, at least." She said, with finality.

"Good." Emiya nodded. "Alright, here's the plan. I'll be busy with this thing, so you need to find a few things..."

* * *

;

* * *

" _How about this one? It's nice and thick. Would stop any car dead in its tracks_." Shepard asked over the comms as she patted at a tree trunk in the distance.

"No, too big and we'll be cutting off the road for ourselves. It needs to have enough leaves and volume to make them panic as it falls on them, but not so much as to cause real issue. Besides, you're gonna have to cut it with your pistol, so think about how wide the stem is." Emiya replied as he worked.

He had taken a wide plant leaf, easily the size of a spread out newspaper, and begun to dismantle his pistol on top of it alongside the rifle. Technically, it was a terrible idea to mix up small parts like that, but he knew both guns well enough for that not to be a worry.

" _Won't they just drive through it, then?_ "

"Which is why we're doing this here." He pointed at the road for her to see. "The corner means that they'll probably drive into the ditch if they try to keep going through it without seeing the road and if they open fire we have enough concealment to just slip away and try somewhere else or something different."

" _Huh. Well, I guess_." Shepard shrugged and continued to look.

" _Heads up, a building just fucking collapsed in the north of town_. _Looked like it exploded and then just fell apart._ " Cassani's voice broke into the comm-line.

Emiya frowned, making note of that and considering whether it was internal demolition or a stray shot or explosive. Difficult to tell, but good to know regardless. "Copy that."

After that, he continued to take apart the two weapons while keeping one eye on the road. Shepard walked around, both left and right alongside the road on either side, straying further and further as she looked for a suitable spot.

As he got to the ammunition block in the sniper rifle, he looked at it curiously. There was some sort of text marked on it, proclaiming 'Dummy phasic rounds II – for field exercise use only!' with large yellow and black letters. He didn't know what that meant, so he shrugged and kept going.

At one point a car came driving by the road and they both scrambled for cover. Some sort of six-wheeled and heavily-reinforced combat vehicle, though it lacked outer guns. As it seemed to be full of hardsuited figures, promising heavy opposition; they wouldn't have ambushed it even if everything was in place. So Emiya and Shepard both remained low and silent, hoping that they would not be picked up.

As radar was beginning to be a problem, Shepard had asked if he had any ideas about hiding from those. Emiya tried out some things, and after some experimentation he found a way.

They had both turned off their suits and omnitools major functions as the car drove past, though the boot up sequence would mean that they would be completely vulnerable if it came down to a firefight. Still, given the difference in numbers, it wouldn't have mattered either way, he reasoned and Shepard had hesitantly agreed as he called it a field test.

He had found that functionality after reading through the hardsuits manual and doing some digging through the manufacturers extranet databases and manuals for various models. The military line was apparently a little bit different, but the basics remained the same.

Of course, given that this essentially meant that their kinetic barriers would not work at all, he was fairly certain he was skirting some rules here. It meant that their suits would not detect any shots—rendering them _invulnerable_ in a sense—and leaving them only to rely on the armor and in-built healing suites—rendering them utterly vulnerable _in practice_.

Well, the armor would still keep them alive from most shots, so it wasn't all bad.

But seeing as how no one had explicitly denied this function and the rules and regulations available to him did not mention such a scenario, they had simply decided to rather ask for forgiveness than for permission if it became an issue. After all, they hadn't taken off their suits, had they?

As the car drove by them without stopping or slowing down, they both let out a breath of relief.

"Seems like the sensors rely on electromagnetic radiation bleeding from our gear, rather than some sort of life signs..." Emiya muttered to himself. It made some sense, as the sensitivity required for the latter would case such sensors to pick up anything and everything he reasoned. Too much information can be just as bad as too little, quite similarly to what a flashbang did to your eyes.

After that, Shepard seemed to be doubly intent on finding a good tree for their use and another fifteen minutes later she returned to where he was working. Without proper tools, he had to adapt a little; using the edge of a cover as a screwdriver and such-like. Nothing he hadn't had to do before.

"Are you sure about what you're doing? Wouldn't it be better to just use the guns we know we have? I think we could make it work if we stop their car with a big tree. Pick them off from cover." She asked, looming over his shoulder.

"No. The pistols don't have enough power to really work. We need more to even the scales."

"Hmm... Well, if you say so. I found two trees that could work, if I climb up and entangle their tops with some rope or vine, one will pull the other down with it. At an angle they'd fall right on the road, crossing over each other." Shepard said, shrugging.

Emiya looked up with a considering look.

"Sounds good. Do you need any help?"

"Nah, just need to get some vine from back there. Think it will work?" Shepard asked.

"Don't see why not." He shrugged and then turned back to his work.

The basic idea was to hook up his pistol's computer to the sniper rifle's computer, so that it functioned as the basic firing mechanism while overriding the issue of the ID-lock. Of course, he had already figured out three ways of doing it and had been forced to discard two of them.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one who had ever had this idea and failsafes had been built in. But, he more than anyone else, _understood_ weapons. That, at least if nothing else, he could declare with pride. His life might have been that of an empty sham, someone who only walked down a path he had blindly stumbled upon and never thought to think through. But at least that much was real; he knew weapons.

How they were made; how they functioned both as systems and as tools; how they could be repaired and broken; how they could be made to do whatever you needed.

So, with a little bit of outside-the-box thinking and some crossed wires, a bit of spit and polish and he felt he had something he could work with. He smiled a little, though noting that the pistol hanging from the side of the rifle made it rather cumbersome to carry and aim in any position other than the prone.

But that was fine; he could take some distance and pick them off at a range. It was a sniper rifle, after all.

"Now, just to test this out..." He said, dialing the power manually to a minimum to keep the sound as low as possible. He aimed at a tree in the distance, standing against a hill. The odds of hitting anyone would be astronomical with that, and with the thick growth of trees and plants around him the sound would be relatively muffled.

His heartbeat slightly rose, as his finger found the trigger. The moment of truth.

He pulled—boom!

Emiya grinned, laughing lightly as he admired the gun and noting the recoil and line of fire. With his pistols computer as the go-between, the auto-aim function could not be used, as the pistols auto-aim was not calibrated for the sniper rifles. Thus, it could only use the simple 'eyeballing' aiming mode.

But that was fine, he could handle it. He had plenty of experience with 'dumb weapons' after all. But then he realized the problem.

"Damn." He cursed softly. The tree he had shot had been gouged through by his sniper rifle. _The safety program doesn't work; it's working at full power!_

He couldn't use this, not in the exercise at least. It would kill someone if it pierced their kinetic barriers.

" _What was that?_ " Shepard asked over the comms, distracting Emiya from his frustrations.

"Got it working, but ran into another issue. Any problems on your end?"

" _Huh? Really...? Uh, no. Fine here. Pretty much done. Had to be careful with the second tree, had to shoot out leave enough to make it fall with the other but enough to keep it steady until then._ "

"Good. We'll hammer out the plan, so get back when you can, Out." Emiya responded and then turned back to his cobbled together sniper rifle. "Damn. Hadn't thought of that."

He disassembled it and reassembled his pistol and tried it out, noting that the firmware was still in effect, which was something of a relief at least. Soon enough, Shepard returned and sat down next to him, watching as he continued to try and figure it out.

"You really like guns, huh..." She said, causing Emiya to completely pause and look up at her blankly.

"What?"

"I mean, you always seem like you're having fun when you're messing around with them." She said, giving him a half-smile.

"No, I just— _we_ need this thing to work, so..." He denied weakly, before trailing off as he frowned at himself.

Shepard merely looked at him curiously, as if analyzing a strange animal. He shook his head, turning back to the rifle. It worked just fine. Too fine, in fact. He sighed again, crossing his arms.

"So what's the problem?"

Emiya looked up again, still frowning.

"It's a matter of the firmware. The basic system still works, but it's different between the two guns, so the adjustments like _auto-aim_ and the _power adjustment_ don't work. The mass effect calculations and firing block shaver work alright, which means it works. But since the capacitors and rails are bigger the power scales up accordingly."

"...So if you wanted to shoot through a car engine, it would be fine, but shoot at a guy and he'll get killed? Assuming you could even hit them."

"Pretty much. And I could. The problem lies in the software, which would require hacking. But I don't have any clues about how to go about that, especially since I would have to hack through the Systems Alliance's firewalls..." Emiya nodded.

They sat there in silence, as Emiya continued to stare at the guns with growing annoyance.

"So are you going to apply for some Infiltrator-related line? You seem pretty good at all this." She said, nodding at the guns and at the forest around them.

Emiya blinked again, his line-of-thought about trying to re-calibrate the entire system from the ground up after frying some of the internal sensors getting cut short.

"Well... Something like that." He admitted. General engineering did technically allow one to apply for Infiltrator training, but the parallels were so minor you would have to re-train yourself pretty much from the ground up anyhow. He was simply going to Mars, nothing else.

"You always seem so sure of yourself. I'm still not sure what I want. About anything, really." Shepard admitted quietly, looking at the ground. "I mean, I'm only good with a gun when I'm running around without enough time to think too much.

"And the only line that's not just the bottom-of-the-barrel grunt marines that has that is the N-line Soldier, and I don't have the grades to get there." She sighed. "Well, maybe it would be fine to just spend a few years on some spaceship until I'm done with the enlistment contract, but I don't think I would really get anything out of it."

Emiya looked at her, hesitating for a moment at what to say.

He wanted to tell himself that he had nothing to say on the matter, yet somewhere in his gut an opinion seemed to be clawing its way out, nonetheless.

"N-line _Soldier_ , huh?" He considered it. She had the right attitude; she would have fit right in with some of the special forces guys he had run into in his life. That bordering-on-sociopathic mania when in the thick of things; the wicked grin she would sport while bullets flew all around her and she had a gun in her hand.

"Y-yeah... It was a silly id—"

"I think you would do great." He said giving his real assessment, going back to putting back together the sniper rifle with the pistol attached. He had something of an idea, that _might_ just work.

"Really?" She asked, looking at him slightly astonished.

He nodded, not bothering to look up. She would either believe him or she wouldn't; it wasn't his job to convince her.

Neither said anything after that for several minutes, until Emiya had the botched-together sniper rifle ready again.

"Emiya, can I ask you for a favor? A really big one."

"Hmm?" He looked up at her. She seemed serious. Resolved, even. That was good, he thought. For some reason.

"I don't have good enough grades to get into the N-line. My written tests went kinda... You know. But if I did really well here... Now, if I— _we_ did a lot of side objectives, I think I might be able to qualify for the N-line directly."

Emiya considered her words.

"Let's get the car first and we'll see what we can do."

She smiled at him, clenching her fist as she nodded. "You got it."

He made a sound of amusement and then took a deep breath.

"But first, let's see if I can make this work."

She blinked. "You got it fixed?"

"Nope. But I'm gonna call tech support and see what they have to say about it." He answered with a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters will be pretty different from the first few chapters. Rather than weeks and months passing between scenes, I've written out a rather detailed and close look on a single day(almost in the vein of say "Maybe I'm a Lion", which I rather like). I started out writing like this in my first fic, too.
> 
> If it feels like a chore or a slug to read through, do drop a word about it. This sequence of events is mostly already written so it won't be changing much, but I'll take it under consideration later on. Though I do like these kinds of parts, personally.
> 
> Edit: Special thanks to PseudoSteak for proofreading.


	6. Aggressive Hitchhiking for fun & profit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something of a side-note about Emiya using guns, here. I've gotten a few comments about Emiya not being experienced with guns, which is not exactly true. In Fate/Extra you'll see him with a scoped rifle and in CCC he'll decorate the My Room wall with numerous guns(both relatively mundane and somewhat fantastic; that sword revolver looks rather strange!) and he even has a slightly nerdy moment with Hakuno where he starts talking about handguns and how cool they are, before backtracking and saying that he doesn't particularly like them or anything.
> 
> So yeah, he's good with guns, it's not just been translated into English yet :V

Emiya pressed the haptic interface button on his omnitool; the call immediately dialing.

They had pulled back from the road, as during the duration of the conversation over the comms it would be impossible to shut down their suits to avoid detection if someone came passing by. Or rather, it would cut short the communication which would be bad, as he only had one shot at this.

" _Gunnery Chief Thomas speaking."_

"Serviceman Emiya calling."

" _Alright, what is it?_ _Keep it short, serviceman, we're busy here._ " The voice at the other end of the comms said.

Shepard kept looking at Emiya with intent eyes, listening in to the conversation while holding so quiet that she was almost stopped breathing.

"Sir, I have a bit of problem with a gun. The safety software doesn't seem to be working properly, so I don't think I can use it, sir." Emiya explained.

" _Hmm? The safeties are off? Are you sure the gun still works? Gun malfunction as a result of a failed hack is still a part of the simulation._ " Thomas answered, seeming to grow more interested in the conversation. A faulty gun could cause personnel injuries if left un-attended, after all.

"Yes, sir. It fires just fine, but the velocities exceed the norm."

" _That shouldn't be possible. Outside of very specific weapons platforms, the hard cap on velocity should not be possible to remove. What weapon are we talking about here?_ " The skepticism was clear in his voice now.

"It's a sniper rifle, sir." Emiya said.

The comm went silent. Shepard looked alarmed at Emiya, as after five seconds still no response could be heard.

" _Yeah, about that,_ Serviceman Emiya _, you grunts don't have access to that weapons platform; you don't even have the training for it. Your waste of my time has been noted and you will be called in for a disciplinary hearing following this—_ "—boom!

Emiya pulled the trigger.

The silence on the other end of the comm was almost deafening and Emiya had to hold back a smirk.

"Sorry, sir. My finger slipped."

" _...Hold up, let me pull up your camera feed..._ " Thomas said and there was another moment of silence. "— _Serviceman... newest batch, pistol and light hardsuit training, no hacking training or software..."_

Emiya could barely hear the Gunnery Chief muttering on the other end, as Thomas must have been going through his records. Emiya looked down at the frankenstein of a cobbled-together sniper rifle, waiting for the other end to finish whatever they were doing.

It didn't take long.

"... _Holy mother of god, what the fuck am I looking at?_ "

"Ah, well. We took out a sniper and took his gun. Figured we could use it since our pistols were proving a bit anemic. But as it turns out, the firmware update didn't carry over so it's a bit too—shall we say— _vigorous_ for our purposes." Emiya said, holding back all the smugness that he could. It was barely enough, as there was a certain enjoyment to be had in all this. Beside him, Shepard was grinning from ear to ear.

" _Don't... Don't move. Don't hang up. Don't do anything. I need to get a superior officer for this..._ "

The voice broke off and Emiya then had to smirk. Beside him, Shepard had less success in holding back her mirth as her shoulders were shaking with quiet laughter. A few minutes passed by and Shepard received another update on the happenings in town from Cassani, who remained wholly unaware of what they were doing.

Finally, after ten minutes had passed a new voice came through. A much darker and more somber voice, speaking of years of experience in command.

" _This is Major Maeda, what's the problem?_ "

"Sir, we have acquired a sniper rifle and it's safeties are off, rendering it too dangerous to use. I am requesting some assistance with this; turning off the ID-lock would allow me to use the gun normally." Emiya explained.

" _Denied. This was explained to you before; stolen hostile weapons platforms must be hacked using the outlined guidelines; failing that you have ruined the weapon according to the simulation—_

" _Sir, they've physically bypassed the ID-lock using another gun—_ " Thomas' voice interjected.

" _Which was_ also outlined _in the guidelines under the section Physical Interference. Physically tampering with Alliance Navy equipment is grounds for a disciplinary hearing. That the safeties are off is exactly why these things were taken off the table; playing cowboy with the rules like this gets soldiers killed_." Maeda was having none of it.

" _Yes, I know that, sir. But—_

" _But what?_

" _Sir, they're_ recruits _._ E6 _, the entire team. They haven't been told any of this; they don't even have hacking utilities or the clearance to carry sniper rifles._ " Thomas explained. That seemed to bring the Major up short, as the comm went silent. " _Moreover, the Navy techs have been working on this stuff for decades. The guns should be physically hack-proof with the stuff they have. They've found some loophole or exploit we've completely managed to miss, sir._ "

Another moment of silence.

" _Hmm. I see. Well then, have him called in after the exercise for a briefing. Well done, serviceman, the Alliance is always willing to reward those who help it improve its cybersecurity. Now, if there's nothing else..._ "

"Actually, I would still like for the ID-lock on the gun to be taken off." Emiya said, before the Major could get off the line.

" _Excuse me?_ " He actually sounded confused, as Emiya had expected. The flipside to the ordered nature of militaries was that often times officers did not come into contact with people who did not follow the exacting rules and protocols that had been set down.

It was the job of the NCOs—the non-commissioned officers who handled the day-to-day business—usually to act as the immediate enforcers, keeping the 'dumb grunts' in line. This meant that they acted as a sort of filter, allowing the officers to retain much of the authority they had without fear of familiarity breeding contempt.

But it also meant that they did not always have the full range of experience necessary to handle an uppity serviceman.

"Well, given that this _is_ a simulation, and I have successfully acquired and re-purposed a weapon used by the opposing force snipers, I believe I should be granted the use of the normal simulated firing operations of this rifle. The only reason it is unusable is because my methods were unexpected and new, which should not be grounds for punishing me." Emiya said.

" _And how would denying you this be a punishment? I believe in not already having you sent before a disciplinary hearing that I am being quite lenient on you._ "

Emiya smirked; an NCO would have simply slapped him down here for speaking out of turn. But this Major at the same time held a respect for his men as well as an unfamiliarity with how to deal with a case such as this.

It gave him the in he needed.

"Sir, the use of physical interference was never explicitly forbidden to us and there is explicitly a side objective listed as appropriating enemy personnel weapons for your own use and study. I have acted exactly as instructed and have the vid feeds to back it up. Certainly, the side objective says to ' _hack an enemy weapon successfully_ ', but given that neither 'hacking' nor 'physical interference' has ever been clearly defined for us and that I have _successfully_ managed to appropriate an enemy's weapon, I do believe that I have done no wrong. Any and all wrongdoing is therefore on the parts of those one step above me on the pecking order, for not fully explaining the rules of engagement properly to me.

"Moreover, I have wasted over an hour on this rifle. Time during which we could have been moving towards our RV point for extraction. We have set up an ambush alongside a road to commandeer a vehicle for transportation of a wounded teammate. If we are denied this weapon, the ambush will not only not work but will also have wasted my time, which seems hardly reasonable since I have already demonstrated that I have managed to make it function for me."

Emiya stopped speaking, holding his fingers crossed and Shepard stared intently at the glowing omnitool through which the discussion was being had. A long pregnant silence followed, finally broken by a sigh at the other end.

What had gone unsaid, but both understood implicitly, was that no one explained any of that to _first-timers_ because they were simply supposed to be running around like headless chickens for other people to hunt down.

" _Thomas, what do you think?"_ Maeda asked, the sound of his voice lower as he had apparently turned away from the receiver.

" _Sir... I do think it would set a poor precedence for them if we denied their creativity and initiative._ _Leave a poor aftertaste, for all their hard work, and all that... Sir."_ Thomas answered in the background. Emiya let out a sigh of relief, as delegating the task of deciding to the Chief could have caused this ploy to backfire massively on Emiya.

" _Very well. For the duration of this exercise the use of the Avenger II long-distance rifle will be granted to their team. But given that they lack the training for it, they will require constant oversight. Chief Thomas, given your involvement you will be held responsible for their actions and thus your are re-assigned to keep an eye on them for the rest of the duration of this exercise. I expect you to step in and pull the plug if it is necessary. Understood?"_ Major Maeda spoke, a tone of finality clear in his voice.

" _Yes, sir!_ " Thomas answered vigorously, the salute almost audible through the comms.

"Yes!" Shepard whispered, fist-pumping with a grin.

The sounds at the other end of the line scrambled, hinting at the Major leaving.

" _Well, then. Serviceman Emiya, get your gun back in order and once I have confirmed that it is functional again, you will be granted user access to that weapon._ " Thomas spoke a few seconds later. " _Oh, I will also be henceforth monitoring your activities; don't worry, it's normally just done afterwards when your instructors review your footage, so it's not anything to worry about_. _"_

"Yes, sir. I'll get right to it." Emiya said, unable to hold the smirk off of his face. He turned to Shepard who was giving him the thumbs up with a wide smile. He returned her gesture, still smirking. "Alright. Shepard, go fetch Franco while I get these things back in two pieces."

"Gotcha, I'll be back in half an hour." She said, jumping up to her feet and running off. After thirty seconds, she was completely gone as even the sounds of her running were too muffled to be heard through the general cacophony in the distance and the foliage between them.

He unplugged the pistol from _his_ rifle and began to re-assemble the guns back into their original shape and form, while narrating what he was doing for Thomas' and the recordings benefit.

" _Christ, how did a fresh recruit like you figure out all this..."_ Thomas' voice whispered through the comms as Emiya's hands moved rapidly through the parts. Lacking proper tools, he had to use other parts as screwdrivers and his hands like pliers, which forced him to do it in a slightly different order than normally.

It was possible to put _that piece_ back after the other one, even though it made more sense to do it the other way, for example. But doing it like that allowed him to use it first as a shimmy for another part, and so forth...

"Hmm, the comms are still on, sir." Emiya spoke, respectfully. Now that he had someone breathing down his neck in real time, he would have to be extra careful.

If the recordings had been watched afterwards and Emiya had done something out of the ordinary, he would have had plenty of time to figure out and excuse before someone noticed. But now, he might be called in to explain his actions seconds after the fact, which left much less time for inventing plausible explanations.

He was lucky that he had actually been curious about all the things that were required for this little field-adjustment he had performed. There was an extranet trail showing that he had researched and studied all of these things in detail, making it only _implausible_ rather than outright impossible or improbable for him to have figured it out.

" _Don't worry about it, serviceman. Just looking here; mind telling me how you figured it out? It would simplify explaining it up the chain of command for me later._ " Thomas said, chuckling. " _I mean, normally we don't get recruits running around with Avengers._ "

"Well, after I was issued the pistol, I simply read the manual that they gave us access to on our omnitools, sir." Emiya said. It was what he had done, actually. As the pistol had been entirely void of previous history, he had had to actually read the manual to get the full picture.

While slower, it did its job as it was damn well supposed to. So he had learned quite a bit about the pistol and mass effect technology in general after his second and third readthroughs. It helped that standard for manuals was quite high, and that it had been written in language simple enough for even the dumbest recruit to understand the basics.

He had gone beyond the mere basics in his analysis, of course. Weapons were something of a hobby and a point of pride to him and he made sure to understand them. But technically the manual was enough for his explanation.

"After that, I just looked up each part on the extranet and reasoned out how all the parts work from the manufacturers' specs. It wasn't really hard to then compare it to the sniper rifle, since the basics are the same." Emiya said with a shrug, even though he wasn't sure if Thomas could see it.

" _Hah, well, the Infiltrators and Engineers will have a field day with this. For once, someone actually read the fucking manual and it ends up being a completely new exploit no one's ever noticed before._ "

Emiya winced.

He hadn't intended to leave any marks of himself in history or on other people like this, but what was done, was done. To be fair, to him it had seemed a rather simple and easily noticeable exploit in the weapon's design. Even if he had had to go through two simpler versions of it, which had been apparently found before, to get to this point.

Then again, he had a unique way of looking at weapons.

"Alright. It's done." Emiya said, holding up the pistol in one hand and the rifle in the other.

" _Good. Now, I'll disable both, so point them at the ground away from you and pull the trigger on both. First the pistol; we're just testing to make sure. At this point if something goes wrong, we're both screwed, you know. Well, more you than me. I'll just have a mountain of paperwork. Actually, less than if you do succeed. Huh..._ "

"Aye, aye, sir." Emiya said, ignoring the chief's rambling.

Emiya aimed the pistol at the ground fifteen meters away and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

" _Good, everything green. Enabling pistol, safeties on and working. Next the rifle._ "

Emiya holstered the pistol by his hip; the gun collapsing into a smaller form and attaching itself to the Van der Waals-strip. He raised the sniper rifle, took aim and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, again.

" _Heh, everything green. Congrats, you've got yourself an Avenger II now. I think that's a first, too. Okay, so I'm shutting this line now and I won't be in contact unless something strange happens. If anything is about to go horribly wrong, I'll step in so just act as you would normally_."

"Understood." Emiya replied and collapsed the rifle and threw it over his shoulder onto the Van der Waals-strip there.

_Now then, time to finalize the ambush and steal a ride._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya prowled around, checking and re-checking the location they had chosen for their ambush. The road that went through the jungle was one that offered enough of a detour and concealment from the city, that he had reasoned that some would seek to use it for fear of getting stuck inside the narrow alleyways or crumbled streets.

And in that regard, he had been proven right. Already four different vehicles has passed by since he and Shepard had originally come here.

The road was quite narrow and had plenty of craters and holes, as the heavy rains often bombarded and played havoc on the surface of the packed dirt from above at the same time as plants tried to invade and grow on the open space, their roots pushing through from beneath.

From the sides, plants and undergrowth hung over the road as tall trees formed a wall that made the road almost look like an underground tunnel. Above, a dim line of light ran along the road as on the sides the canopy was thick enough that no direct sunlight could break through.

Emiya inspected the road, specifically the small turn that they had chosen.

He eyed both ways and looked around, noting his surroundings as he waited for Shepard to return. He climbed up the tree Shepard had chosen and checked that the top of the tree was sufficiently entangled with its counterpart on the other side of the road that once one fell the other would follow.

Then he simply moved around, noting details here and there in preparation.

If it came to a fight, knowing where every root and every hole lay could make for the difference between catastrophic failure and resounding success. If he had had some more time and this was a real ambush, he would have dug shallow pits and built rudimentary traps to further restrain passengers of the car at the point where it would be stopped.

But this would have to do.

He then walked up and down the side of the road, fifty meters to both directions of the spot where the trees would fall down on the road. With the sniper rifle, they now had more options, but it also had certain limitations which required careful consideration.

With the low rate of fire, he would need to be at a sufficient distance from the ambush spot so that he could exert pressure on them without having to worry about retaliation, but not so far away that the turn in the road left him blind. For example, lying prone with the sniper rifle, his accuracy would rise up considerably, but it would make it more difficult for him to make adjustments to his aim.

If he was so close that his targets could run over 10 degrees to the side, he would be forced to lift up and re-position the rifle or change his shooting stance.

The further away he was, the longer the distance needed to cover those 10 degrees became, thus giving him more room to work with. The road also worked as a perfect funnel in that regard, giving him a clear line of fire and slowing down anyone trying to flank him if they did manage to get to the concealment and cover of the jungle.

There was also the matter of the range calculations he had previously thought about. A little bit of experimenting revealed that if he switched between aiming at a nearby target and something far off in the distance, the trigger would disengage for a second. But at the distances he would be planning to operate, it would not be a problem. Switching between 10 meters and a 100 meters for example took less than 0.1 seconds for the computer to adjust, which should be fine.

He also had to consider their suits giving them away and how to handle it. Mostly it became a matter of timing. When to turn off and when to turn on; how long it would take and where they should be to avoid lines of fire.

The plan was fairly simple.

He would take position down the road, far enough away that he could use the rifle from concealment. Shepard would hide behind one of the trees by the ambush spot, ready to use her pistol to shoot through the stem of the tree to cause it to fall over and pull the other tree with it, which had also been weakened sufficiently to not resist overmuch.

This part was rather delicate, as even under controlled circumstances getting a tree to fall the way you wanted was always tricky business. This is where the two trees being bound together would help, as they were already leaning into the direction they would be falling towards and would not be able to deviate too much since they would be falling as one.

Emiya had experience with these kinds of traps before; mostly when he simply wanted to deny passage or to repel enemies, as he rarely created or utilized lethal measures. Too indiscriminate for his ends. He checked and double-checked the trees, marking the location that was necessary for the controlled fall for Shepard later.

It seemed to work.

Once the tree-trap was sprung, Shepard would stay down and wait for an opening to act. Since given her close position to the road she would be vulnerable to detection by sensors, which meant some extra care in planning would have to be taken. This would necessitate her kinetic barriers being turned off and her hardsuit and omnitool being in low power mode, which meant she could not be anywhere near the fighting before she turned on her own gear.

Once Emiya opened fire, she would then at a suitable moment spring out and open fire on the ambushed party's open flank as their attention was glued to him. This would allow her to inflict disproportionate amounts of damage, which would allow them to tip the scales of the confrontation.

Finally, Cassani would be placed to hide some ways to the opposite direction of himself, on the other side of Shepard.

Since he was "wounded", he would simply be working as another pair of eyes for them in hiding. Emiya could look out ahead on the road on his side, as could Cassani, while also during the ambush he would be able to look at them from behind and give away positions and maneuvers.

Once Emiya was certain that he had the whole thing planned out, he hunkered down to wait. A while later, Shepard returned. She looked around, not entirely certain if this was the place, as a lot of the jungle looked exactly the same even once you got to know it. She had hardly gotten used to walking through it.

"Here." Emiya said, standing up behind her.

"Whoa! What the hell, don't do that." Shepard jumped a foot in the air, pulling her pistol and dropping Cassani as she wheeled around to look at Emiya.

"Ow. Yeah. Less of this, please." Cassani complained from the ground, spitting at a plant that was sticking into his nose.

Emiya merely smirked and shrugged.

"I tested around a little with the suit some more. I think I've figured out the optimal way of hiding. The boot up takes just 5 seconds, this way." Emiya explained and Shepard blinked, realizing that she hadn't spotted him in her radar despite the relatively short distance between them.

Her toothy grin all but demanded that he show her.

* * *

;

* * *

The plan was set, he had explained all of their roles and set them up into their respective positions.

Now all that was left was to simply do it.

Emiya inhaled slowly, his ears straining to listen for any unusual sounds above the normal cacophony of the wild-life around them and the fighting in the distance. There had been a peak in conflict half an hour ago but it had died down now, Emiya judged.

There must have been a concentrated effort on the city front by one or more factions.

Still, no cars.

He lay to the side of the road, almost in the ditch as he held onto the collapsed rifle. _I hear something_.

He tensed slightly, raising his head up until he could see Shepard in her hiding place. They had agreed to minimize comm use, as there would be no way to communicate once they went _cold._ And there was also no way for them to know whether those could be hacked or monitored, either. That was also the reason why he had avoided explaining anything over the comms, whenever possible.

_Opsec starts with the smallest things._

He raised a hand and Shepard nodded in the distance. That was the agreed-upon signal for someone coming down the road from Emiya's way. Since Shepard couldn't look at Cassani while looking at Emiya, Cassani's signal was a loud whistle; the only thing their 'wounded' was capable of doing at the moment, really.

Emiya moved around, careful to avoid disturbing the plants around him as he turned to look down the road. He needed eyes on the vehicle to make a judgment call on whether or not it was a suitable target. It approached; definitely coming down this way.

He raised his hand again; the second signal, signifying to go _cold_.

Emiya waited until Shepard's presence on his radar disappeared before he turned off his own suit and rolling into the thicket to hide from sight.

The vehicle approached; another six-wheeled car, again without any external guns. But this one had less armor and as he peered he could see inside of it through the windshield. It had at least six seated people, counting the driver as well.

_A light Armored Personnel Carrier. Not perfect odds, or even good ones really, but I'll take what I can get. It's already 15:00, we can't waste much more time._

Emiya pushed with his heel against the tree behind him lightly, shaking just it enough for the topmost leaves to just move around. The third agreed-upon signal; this one green-lighting the ambush. He had just enough time to see Shepard's back, before he heard the first muffled report of the pistol.

Someone in the car seemed to notice the sound, but it was too late.

Five pistol shots punched through the already gouged tree's stem and it began to creak, the sounds so muffled that Emiya barely heard them. The timing was a little off, but it was only a bit too early which was still within acceptable limits. The car came driving down the road at a sedate pace, jumping up and down as it rolled over the numerous potholes and bumps dotting the surface.

The trees began to fall, almost agonizingly slowly and the driver apparently noticed as he began to slow down further. But the APC did not _stop_ , Emiya noted as it went past Shepard's hiding spot. He turned around slowly and carefully, still hiding and avoiding looking out too much as he slowly got into position to be able to fire.

The sniper rifle extended and he raised the scope to take a closer look, his finger still off the trigger.

Those in the car must have already suspected something, as trees rarely fall on their own like this. Two of them at the same time, even less commonly. Emiya had a poor shot at the occupants, he noted as he looked through the scope. The chassis was quite thick and angled to deflect rounds coming in parallel with the ground. Moreover, they must have a kinetic barrier as well, he reasoned.

He refrained from acting; patience was key right now.

With a vehicle like that it would be entirely possible to drive over the trees, Emiya reasoned. He exhaled, lifting the rifle and rolling half-out onto the road and setting up his shot in the prone position. The scope came up into his vision again and this time his finger found the trigger, his breathing seeming to slow down so much it almost stilled completely as he began to line his shot.

Emiya's heartbeat began to slow down as he stilled. Now he could only wait.

He eyed the back of the car; the wheels and the roof. He only had one definite shot; the wheels. But if he shot too many and immobilized the car, repairs would slow them down later, and if he shot only one they might just drive off anyhow with their five intact wheels carrying the brunt.

Additionally, he needed to incapacitate the APC with the first shot. If it had strong kinetic barriers, then they could simply drive off the moment they detected danger, while their shields still held.

The car slowed down, though it did not come to a complete halt quite yet. Emiya strained and he could hear some kind of argument from within the car. Someone probably suggested driving over the trees, but someone else was objecting, he guessed from the fragments he could hear.

Emiya waited, not quite lining up a shot yet as he kept his scope at the smallest possible zoom to give him an overview of the car. He was only observing for now, noting the behavior of those inside.

For a car that size, generating a kinetic barrier must be a massive drain. Of course the eezo core could be proportionally much larger than the one in their suits, but this was a lightly armored vehicle anyhow. It would have greater power demands as well.

It would not be able to take a single powerful round from anything Emiya would have aimed at armored vehicles, like tanks. No, this was a faster mode of transport, meant to avoid direct combat and to allow a small team to move around and behind enemy lines. He assumed it fit the role of a lighter vehicle, not meant for frontline combat. It would only have the bare minimum when it came to defense, he wagered. Just enough for small arms fire not to punch through and put the personnel inside in danger.

Just as no one had during his era tried to fit 20mm of steel plating onto a simple pick-up truck or land rover, it would have also made no reason to invest in a powerful kinetic barrier on such a light and nimble looking vehicle. Therefore it should only be just as big as it needed to be. The kinetic barrier would not extend much beyond the surface, if even that since the car did not need to move in ways a human did.

Perhaps it would adjust to something extending past the outer chassis' limits, but perhaps...

Emiya moved his scope to the driver's side, at window height.

Nothing happened, as everyone sat waiting.

Those inside the car had readied their weapons and tools, scanning their surroundings for the ambush that should have already begun. Emiya lay still as a rock, observing the car, hidden beneath the overhanging undergrowth from the side of the road. Shepard was hiding behind the trees, down low to the ground, waiting until something happened for her to safely be able to begin looking for a chance to insert herself.

But _nothing_ happened. Those in the car must have been anxious; their nerves strained. No one jumped out, no one threw a grenade at them. No more trees fell down to box them in. _Nothing_.

It must have confused the people in the car as they seemed to relax a little. They must have had reliable radars which were currently reporting nothing at all around them. After all, the only active kinetic shields within a kilometer radius of this location were their own.

And no one would be so cocky or dumb as to turn off their shields, right? Once again, Emiya considered how much trouble he might be in for playing around with his hardsuit, but seeing as how Chief Thomas hadn't said anything...

Well, it wasn't a problem for right now. Emiya looked through the scope, observing their body language with the half of his scope that wasn't aimed right at the driver's window. He could tell they were relaxing. They looked around and checked their gear, but there was no danger.

But that was wrong. The most dangerous moment is not when you are your most tense, but when you relax just after you think the danger has passed.

_C'mon, be stupid. You're driving a two tonne armored personnel carrier. You already made three mistakes and you're flustered and confused. But you're_ invincible _inside that thing and you know it, be an overconfident dumbass..._

And just then, the driver did something incredibly stupid.

He leaned out of the car to look out through the side-window to get a better look. It would have been less than a one second glance at the trees on the road to judge whether they could be driven over, but Emiya had had his scope aimed there already. After all, the only shot that could swing things in their favor would be the one that utterly incapacitated the APC.

He aimed at just the top of the head; as far away from the car; as far away from where he expected it's kinetic barriers to be.

Exhale; respiratory pause; pull—boom!

The head almost jerked forward with the shot, but then went utterly still as the suit simulation pronounced him instantly dead from the perfect headshot. Emiya inhaled, powering on his suit and waiting for the rifle to cool down.

_Got the driver. They'll want to leave as quickly as possible; but their radar will only show the one shooter; me. They'll hesitate between counter-ambush doctrine stating to make an immediate break away, or to vigorously counter-attack the lone sniper who just took out their driver. I want them angry and wanting revenge, then._

Emiya lowered the cross-sights, aiming at the rear tire. He angled it such that it would only pop the rearmost one, without hitting the metal rim or the axles. He chose the left side of the car; away from Shepard.

Pull—boom!

A kinetic barrier flashed, but then fizzled out as the sniper rifle's round popped off of the tire gently. Emiya hesitated for a moment, at how easily the kinetic barrier had broken; he had honestly expected more even though he had expected the barriers to be weak.

Well, not that he was complaining.

Pull—boom!

The tire exploded in a cloud of black rubber and dust. The car dropped a little, as the tire that had been bearing weight at the moment deflated with a loud pop. Gravel and sand was pushed up in a small cloud as pieces of rubber landed everywhere.

Inside the car, the passengers' jerked around to stare at the direction of the shot; they had pulled the driver back in as they had just now realized they _were_ in fact under attack and were scrambling to do something. _I have their attention_. But it wasn't enough; he needed them off balance.

This far none of them quite felt the pressure yet, he needed to do more.

Something dramatic enough to get the passengers' attention, he thought as he inhaled again. Shepard still remained _cold,_ waiting for her opening. The car doors—massive steel slabs that would have been decent protection against even full power mass accelerator rounds—were still firmly shut, with all but the driver's window closed. She wouldn't be able to do a thing until the people in the car came willingly out.

He looked at the shape of the car, considering acoustics as he had an idea.

_Even a direct hit will be fine, but the sound it will make inside the car will be quite loud, won't it?_ Emiya thought, this time aiming at the rear window of the car.

Pull—boom!

Those in the car reeled around again, noticing the impact behind them. The rear-window, a small thing on the large reinforced slab of a door, cracked with a spider-web of threads extending all the way to the corners. Emiya was rather surprised at that; he had expected more of a car's kinetic barriers. Another shot and he would punch through; the full power rifle would have already done so with the first. Someone inside the car shouted, apparently having had enough of doing nothing even as the one in the front passenger seat was trying to get into the driver's seat to allow them to drive away.

The rear left-side passenger door opened and a man jumped out, pulling a rifle off of his back and jumping into the undergrowth for concealment as he went prone. A rapid surge of suppressing fire answered Emiya's earlier taunting shots, forcing him to roll off the road and into the jungle. He collapsed the rifle and quickly crawled for cover as he could hear the two other doors opening and men jumping out to fire at him.

They still hadn't noticed Shepard or Cassani, that was good. And his suit power was finally on at full power, so he wouldn't be dead the moment a bullet hit him, which was always a good thing.

Emiya got up, opening the rifle again as he went to one knee and took aim again. He was half-behind a large tree, taking support from it for both cover and physical support for the sniper rifle. Several bullets hit the tree, gouging out pieces of cellulose and splattering sap everywhere. He could smell the sweet scent in the air, somehow refreshing him as he took aim and lined up his shot.

Pull—boom!

Another shot, this time on the right shoulder of a soldier, causing him to stiffen up and then fall over. His legs still kicked, pushing him forward to the cover of the car, so the shot must not have been deemed instantly lethal.

Emiya could have hit head on, but had deliberately not corrected his aim as he could have, allowing the slight margin of error to be corrected by the _auto_ - _aim_ to a simple shoulder hit. Just good enough of a shot to work, but not so much so as to raise eyebrows. Well, not too many eyebrows and not too much. It wasn't that he was intentionally failing, rather that he was simply half-assing it and not taking the effort to correct his aim at the last second.

Besides, with the sniper rifles rate of fire he would be overwhelmed if all of them rushed him at once. Wounding one would distract the others, causing hesitation and one or more of them to rush to aid the wounded rather than continue to concentrate on offense.

It would buy him more time, in other words.

One of the men turned around to go help the wounded one, leaving now only two shooting at Emiya; one still hiding prone in the undergrowth and another kneeling behind the car's armored frame.

" _Two guys taking cover in front of the car. One looks wounded. The other is patching him up, I think._ " Cassani chimed in from his location, far away from the thick of things.

Emiya leaned back and took cover as an object was thrown his way.

He pushed forward and ran five steps before leaping for cover again as something loud went off behind him. Presumably another grenade of some kind, but it had not affected him.

He turned around and took another shot—boom, kicking off dirt near the kneeling shooter's feet. He took cover again, letting the rifle cool down. _Okay, enough missing. They're spread out enough for now._

The last man—no, a woman, stepped out of the car and Emiya took aim and at the sight of a completely open target and pulled—boom!

But this time, the expected result did not occur.

Instead of reeling at the impact or being frozen in place, a purple field of some kind flared up around her, bending light strangely and making her seem hazy and ethereal.

_She tanked it?_ Emiya thought with surprise, collapsing the rifle as he moved to change cover again.

Only, before he could reach the tree some kind of floating blue orb came barreling between two trees, hitting him with the force of a fastball. He raised his arms reflexively for protection as he jumped back to minimize the impact, but what happened next was completely out of his expectations.

He jumped back _ten meters_.

Or rather, the force had been traveling with made him float backwards, as if he were almost completely weightless despite gravity. He kicked out, struggling to get purchase somewhere— _anywhere_ —as he helplessly floated in the air. At least they didn't have a clear line of sight to him, which meant he was safe for the moment.

_Biotics!_ He had completely forgotten, given how rare they were among humans. But here and now, floating in the air and completely helpless, he realized that that had been a huge mistake.

His mind re-asserted itself as he kicked out to get himself some bearing; the extended limb moving causing his body turn in the air. He had never fought in zero-G, but he had fought underwater. He reasoned it was similar to the time he had been caught and tossed around by underwater currents, completely losing his sense of direction and control.

_Calm down and get a hold of something!_

Emiya pulled his pistol and aimed at a tree and fired twelve shots in the space of two seconds; giving him just enough of a push to float close enough to a branch as he collapsed and holstered the overheated pistol. He grabbed the branch, swinging to position his legs on top of it so that he could remain there if the weightless state was canceled but also allowing him to kick off if need be.

He looked up. The biotic woman and the formerly-kneeling-behind-the-car man were jogging towards him; he couldn't stay here.

Emiya held tight onto the branch as he tensed his legs and then with all his strength, kicked off upwards. He aimed the rifle straight down and pulled the trigger—boom!, giving a slight boost to his upwards velocity with the recoil and allowing him to pass through the opening in the forest canopy above.

He blinked as the bright light of the un-blocked sun hit his eyes. Here, above the treetops he floated completely weightless. For a moment, he froze time in his own perception just to admire the view. A sea of green as far as the eye could see, shrouded in the golden light of the sun. Then he reached for the leaves and branches below him to keep himself from floating up too high, lest he lose control again.

But the leaves were ripped off as he grabbed them—unable to handle the force he exerted—his heart lurching for a second before he swung out the sniper rifle held backwards; the butt got caught in a branch and he could just pull himself close enough to grab onto the leaves. He struggled for a moment to cancel the spin from swinging out the rifle and then collapsed the weapon, throwing it over his shoulder onto the Van der Waals strip.

He looked forward and grinned. Using both hands he began to half-crawl and half-pull himself forward as he floated weightlessly above the treetops. It was almost as if he was swimming above the ocean he had just beheld.

Behind him, he heard the woman shouting that he had disappeared above the treetops and a second later a rapid fire stream of bullets whizzed upwards in that general area. Leaves and bits of branch were torn loose and tossed around, almost like a small geyser. But the canopy of leaves and branches was enough to blot Emiya out of view and the movements his grabbing of the branches as he pulled himself forward was not enough to reveal his location.

He made some thirty meters above the trees like that, before his weight returned and he fell through the leaves.

Emiya had just enough presence of mind to grab a thick branch and hold onto it, lest he fall and break his legs upon impact with the ground. He looked around and spotted the two who had come hunting for him, scanning the treetops where he had been with their weapons raised.

Emiya pulled the sniper rifle and opened it to take aim, but a burst of rifle fire caused him to duck for cover. Leaves around him were ripped apart and torn loose, as the prone man was standing now by the car and taking pot shots at Emiya.

He almost swung around to take him out, but then he spotted the shadow rising behind the man.

_Shepard will handle it_. He thought and lined up his sights at the non-biotic soldier with the biotic woman. They had turned around to look at the car, only just now noticing Emiya. He pulled the trigger—boom!

The man froze up instantly and keeled over, before relaxing and laying bonelessly on the ground. The biotic woman flinched, looking between Emiya and her squadmate with wide eyes before she jumped for cover.

Another burst of rifle fire went past him, but none hit him since he was half-hidden behind the trunk of the tree. And then he heard the rapid double staccato pistol-fire and the shouts of surprise from the three still by the car.

Emiya spared a glance that way, noting that Shepard had already taken down the man who had been shooting at him and was now trading gunfire from cover with the man who had dragged off the wounded man earlier. She held a pistol in each hand, rapidly pulling the triggers to compensate for the low power of each individual shot.

_I knew it was a good idea to hand Cassani's pistol to her_ , Emiya thought with a grin. The woman seemed to be completely at ease in the thick of a gunfight, using the two guns without any apparent hesitation or awkwardness as she ran between cover and concealment, denying her opponents even a moment of respite.

A cold shiver went through his spine and Emiya leapt out of the tree without a second thought, landing on an extended branch which swayed and bent under his body. He heard more than saw the impact of something blue smashing into his previous hiding place.

He didn't bother turning around as he jumped again, this time grabbing onto a thinner tree with his arms. The tree bent under his weight, slowing down his fall enough that when he let go the tree was almost parallel with the ground at a height of two meters.

Emiya landed on his back with a painful impact that knocked the air out of his lungs, but he rolled up immediately and took a potshot with the rifle. It hit nothing, but seemed to scare the biotic enough that she jumped for cover instead of pursuing him immediately.

He rolled and got to his feet, sprinting for cover again.

The biotic woman screamed something and Emiya grabbed a half-rotted tree branch and jumped as he threw it behind him. It hit the blue ball that had been chasing him, enveloping it in the weightlessness that had plagued him earlier.

_Seems like my guess was correct; it latches onto whatever breaks the surface of the projectile._ He thought calmly as he kept running.

He dropped to one knee and took aim, Pulling the trigger at the general direction of the woman, the gun let out another—boom!, making her jump for cover again. She used her pistol to take a few potshots at him, but none came even close to hitting home.

Emiya retreated towards the car, taking shots every few steps and keeping the woman pinned down. Halfway there, he switched from the rifle to the pistol and placed the former on his back as he began to pelt the biotic's general direction with bullets.

He turned around on the road and began to sprint for the car, blinking as he spotted Shepard in the front passenger seat with her gun held to a man's head as he sat in the driver's seat. Their new driver seemingly distinctly uncomfortable with the apparent state of affairs.

"Get in! He's driving!" Shepard shouted and Emiya nodded with understanding as he jumped in.

"Cassani, any problems on your end?" Emiya asked the comms.

" _Nope, good to go!_ "

"Floor it, friend." Shepard said, entirely too smugly as she poked the man at the wheel with her pistol.

"Our agreement?"

"As long as you hold your end." She said, grinning and ignoring the inquisitive look Emiya threw her.

That seemed enough as he floored the pedal and the car began to move, clearing the two trees with a few bumps and some noise of crunching wood beneath their tires, but otherwise without any issues. A testament to the original driver's inexperience that, really.

Then again, given how surprised their chauffeur seemed, perhaps the car wasn't _officially_ rated for something like that. Perhaps their driver had thought they would get stuck, which was why he was willing to cooperate as long as he did not get shot. Regardless, they hit the road and drove the fifty meters to Cassani's location and Shepard ordered him to stop.

Emiya jumped out, taking a prone position with the sniper rifle again as he kept vigil for the biotic woman. Shepard meanwhile, herded out their driver at gunpoint, jumping over the shift-stick to come out through the same door as he had, and then forcing him to grab and carry Cassani to the rear-seats.

Pull—boom!

The biotic ducked, the shot grazing her shoulder. Emiya exhaled, searching for any sign of her as he let the gun cool down again.

"Time to go, Emiya!" Shepard shouted and Emiya obliged, getting up and collapsing the rifle in one smooth motion as he jumped into the car. Their shanghaied driver put pedal to the metal as they shot off at full speed, the car jumping and shaking with the terrible road conditions and the lack of a rear tire.

They drove for five minutes until they came to a Y-shaped crossroad. Shepard ordered him to park the car next to the road and then for him to get out. The driver obliged, his hand inching to turn off the car.

"Nope. Keep it running. You think I don't know we can't start it ourselves?" Shepard asked, prodding him with the muzzle of her pistol.

The driver licked his lips, nervously.

"Think it through, smart guy. You give us a minor inconvenience and get shot. Or you let it go, do as we agreed and you get to run back to your squad. Which choice ends up with your entire squad dead and dying in the jungle and which ends with you getting back in time to patch them up?" Shepard continued, smiling still.

The driver raised his hand, leaving the car running as he exited with a sullen look.

"So why did you grab him? Besides for a driver, I mean." Emiya asked, getting out of the car as he scanned their surroundings.

"He's a doc, I figured he could take a look at Franco." Shepard said, shrugging.

" _Sentinel_ , not doctor. Not even a field medic, I just have the first aid specialization—"

"Yeah, yeah yeah. You're still the only one who can use those medigel you got, so get to it." Shepard said, motioning at the limp Cassani.

The Sentinel frowned, before walking up to Cassani and activating his omnitool. He scanned Cassani and then brought out a yellow bag, labeled clearly 'training tool – NOT MEDIGEL – training tool' in big bold letters.

He applied it and suddenly Cassani took a deep inhale and raised a hand.

"Oh, fuck yeah. I can move again. Wait, my legs..."

"He has a spinal injury, the medigel couldn't heal that." The Sentinel said with a shrug. "Can I go now? I need to—"

"Not so fast." Shepard said, raising her gun again. "Heal him, too, while we're at it."

She nodded at Emiya, who blinked before realizing she was referring to his simulated hip injury. He had long since learned to compensate for it, so it had essentially already slipped his mind. It didn't affect his performance that much and there wasn't any pain to blot out, so it was a minor inconvenience at worst.

"That wasn't a part of the deal, I need the medigel for my squad—"

— _Pffftzzz!_

The Sentinel fell, his leg failing beneath him as Shepard shot his leg mid-sentence.

"Yeah, that was the deal _before_ I remembered we had more injuries. Now, you're already down _two_ medigel. Want me to keep shooting you until you're down to zero?" Shepard said, smiling sweetly as if there was nothing at all wrong in the world.

The Sentinel gaped up at her, eyes wide open. He licked his lips, his eyes darting between the three who were around him in an effort to find some support against Shepard's demands. But he found nothing, as Emiya merely watched with cool indifference and Cassani was studiously pretending he wasn't a part of this conversation.

The medic swallowed nervously, before nodding. Emiya merely stood by the side, watching the whole event with a sharp gaze. He hadn't expected Shepard to be quite this proactive, but it wasn't like he had anything against it, specifically. Sure, she was kind of skirting morally reprehensible territory here, but this was all just a simulation. No one had actually been hurt; it was just the man himself who had gotten lost in the realism of the situation.

_Well, hopefully the only one._ Emiya thought as he glanced at Shepard. _This is exactly why she would be right at home in wetworks._

With a quick application of the fake-medigel, the servos locking up at his hip loosened up and Emiya could move again freely. He tested his range of motion with a few bouncing jumps and found it satisfactory.

Emiya nodded to Shepard and she half-smiled back at him, seemingly satisfied at the result.

"Alright now, run along before I change my mind." Shepard grinned at the Sentinel, shooing him away with her gun.

He hesitated and then began to limp away. — _Pffftzzz_!

Shepard shot at the ground at his feet, almost making him stumble and fall again as the dirt exploded into the air in a small crater.

"Did I stutter? _Run_!" She raised her arms into the air as she shouted, making the man blink. Then she drew her other pistol from the Van der Waals strip at the small of her back and took aim. At that he definitely reacted and began to limp away as quickly as he could.

"Heh, he won't remember to plot against us while he's running. Alright, let's get going." Shepard said turning back around with a refreshed grin. "Besides, he's running in the wrong direction."

She chuckled at that, holstering her pistol again.

Cassani stared at her with wide eyes, muttering ' _perra loco_ ' beneath his breath while Emiya nodded at her, ignoring their third teammate.

"Oh, yeah. I got us some more toys to play with. Wanna do your magic again?" She thumbed at the back of the car, where he could see three assault rifles.

Emiya huffed in amusement, shrugging at her with a half-smile. "I shall endeavor to impress. Or at the very least, to meet your expectations."

She, not entirely sure about some of the words he had used, half-frowned at him before shrugging with a grin. "Yeah, you do that and I won't have to shoot you, too. I'm only keeping you around for your magic touch, Emiya."

Again, Cassani seemed to be taking her seriously and seemed to pale a little, but Emiya understood that this was how she was showing affection.

Having grown up on the streets, her socialization was woefully lacking, thus she must be emulating what she saw around her, he reasoned. The bravado and bluster she saw among the other recruits, to her it translated into a behavior that to others must have seemed like near-sociopathic disregard for social conventions.

Emiya hesitated, before sighing. Wondering whether he could let this go on. No, it wasn't something for him to do anything about. That time with the foot had been a mistake on his part. Even so, he could see how she would struggle in the future if this error in her mindset was not pointed out...

He ignored that line of thought as he decided to focus on the moment.

He grabbed a rifle and aimed at the roadside, pulling the trigger... Nothing happened. Not entirely unexpected. "Chief Thomas, sir. I know you are watching and I know you know that I know how to make this thing work."

He waited five seconds and pulled the trigger... Nothing happened.

"Fine. We'll do it the hard way." Emiya said with a shrug. He turned to look at Shepard and Cassani. "Let's get Cassani onto the front passenger seat. I'll sit in the back and get this rifle working so I can talk to the Chief about it. I assume you can drive this thing, Shepard?"

"Nah, but I watched while that guy did and I can figure out the rest." She grinned.

Emiya sighed again, but went with it.

"The chief?" Cassani blinked, asking. But neither bothered to explain as they each grabbed an arm and hauled him up and into the car.

* * *

;

* * *

They had driven for fifteen minutes now. With Cassani's upper body working again, Shepard had returned his pistol to him and he had then been delegated to map reading.

The amount of roads, old roads, old roads that did not exist on the map and old roads that did not exist on the map nor in reality unless you squinted just right, exceeded all of their expectations. Emiya reasoned that the car would be hunted down sooner or later, so for now they should avoid the bigger roads to make it as difficult as possible for them to be found.

The rifle was much the same as the sniper rifle, with the barrel length, scope settings, shaver and mass accelerator's rate of operation being the chief differences. Thus it only took him the fifteen minutes to get his pistol cannibalized for his little exploit.

He had gotten so used to the process that he could have done it in ten, were it not for the constant bouncing and jostling due to the terrible road conditions. He opened the window enough to stick the barrel out.

"Firing in 3, 2, 1—"— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt_

The assault rifle spewed supersonic shavings at a considerable rate of fire, even with the short burst he had pulled. It worked just fine.

"Alright, now to call for some tech support again..." Emiya said, setting down the Lancer rifle and pulling up his omnitool again. He dialed the support once again and waited. Thomas picked up immediately.

" _You're enjoying this, aren't you?_ " He accused immediately.

Emiya stifled the smirk and controlled his face and voice as he waited for a second.

"Well... I won't deny that this is fun, sir."

Thomas gave an explosive sigh, obviously not at all pleased with them right now.

"Who's he calling? Who you calling?" Cassani blinked, trying to turn around as he heard the conversation.

"Mm, right. You weren't in the loop. Franco Cassani, this is Gunnery Chief Thomas, assigned to keep an eye on us because we keep breaking the rules we don't know about." Emiya said, carefully keeping any and all mirth from his voice despite the obviously mirthful choice of words. Cassani merely blinked blankly at that, having no idea what to say.

" _So you knew that turning off your shields was_ bad _, didn't you? Even though it was not explicitly mentioned anywhere and you had not been told that, you could infer it, couldn't you?"_

"Ah, well. If it works and no one thought to tell me not to... Well, who am I not to abuse the hell out of it?" Emiya said and he could hear Shepard chortling in the front by the wheel as she drove.

" _Riiight, and the fact that no one told you how to turn off the shields or how to manually reboot the hardsuit didn't tell you that? That perhaps you weren't supposed to be doing it? You could have gotten killed, for fucks sake, you crazy bastard. You could have gotten your teammate killed!_ "

"Actually, the hardsuit manual explicitly mentions the feature on page 4041 and refers to the advanced settings in the omnitool, for which instructions are on page 234 of the omnitool guide. And Shepard made the choice herself, fully aware of the risks." Emiya explained, dialing back the ribbing tone and opting for a more neutral and conciliatory one.

"Sure did, sir. Oh, can I ask for the tapes of myself later? I wanna see their faces again when I dropped right on them from nowhere, hehehehe..." Shepard laughed.

" _...For fuck's sake... It actually is in the manual. No one reads the fucking manual! Well, apparently except for you! Jesus, I'm gonna have to throw this ball up the foodchain because I have no idea who I'm supposed to chew up about this entire fucking fiasco._ "

"Couldn't you have just shut it all down?" Emiya asked. He had slightly been worried that that would happen.

" _I would have, if not for— What? Yeah, okay, I won't mention it._ " Thomas began but the cut off to speak to someone next to him. " _It doesn't matter_. _I see you've gotten the assault rifles working, too. Wonderful. I'll unlock them, so long as you promise not to give me any more crazy surprises. I mean aside from stealing a car and putting someone without the training to operate it—or even with a damn license to her name, for that matter—behind the wheel. You scrap that thing and we'll all be paying it off, you hear? Makos don't come cheap, alright? I have enough people breathing down my neck as it is._ "

"Sure, you got it, chief." Emiya cheerfully promised and the sigh from the other end before the com-line was cut was his only answer. _Someone was there, next to the chief? Someone higher ranked than the Chief himself, from the sound of things._

"Sweet. I've wanted a bigger gun since you got one. Was starting to feel a bit jealous." Shepard quipped as Emiya handed her a collapsed rifle, attaching it to her Van der Waals-strips on her back as she leaned forward.

He handed another to Cassani who took it a little bit more gingerly, holding it in his lap as he continued to scan the jungle that rolled by.

They continued on for a little while as Cassani and Emiya compared the maps, trying to figure out the best route ahead. They drove for an hour, taking a long detour around the city and using the smaller roads, often driving through patches of forest to switch between roads to get where they wanted to.

Somewhere along the way, Emiya discovered a manual for the Mako in the glove box. An actual, ' _dumb_ ' hardcopy of a manual. Printed on paper and everything. Though it lacked a search function which would have been immensely helpful, Emiya still leafed through it.

He found that there was a transceiver-receiver antenna which allowed the people to control and access the Mako from a distance with their omnitools, so he had them stop for five minutes. Of course, lacking any and all tools for a delicate disassembly, he simply let Shepard grab a rock and smack it loose from the frame.

Emiya could almost feel the Chief judging them from a distance as they did that. But it would be a quick repair job, so he ignored it. Hell, he could do it in five minutes, tops.

As they began to approach the city again, Emiya decided it was time.

"Shepard, we should talk."

"Huh? What is it?" She asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.

"It's got to do with how you act."

She blinked, slowing down and looking at him with furrowed brows. It was the expression he had seen on her face, when he'd confronted her about her leg. Though not quite as guarded; she trusted him somewhat already.

"Yeah, what about it?" She asked, the growing heat apparent to him despite her attempts to sound and be calm.

"Just that you might want to consider how it appears to others." He said, causing her to blink and frown at him as she brought the car to a stop.

"Want to consider how it what?" She turned around fully to stare at him, pursing her lips in dissatisfaction.

"That guy you shot. He'll probably remember you for the rest of his life." He said with a light smile, knowing it would release the tension a little.

"Heh, sure will." She said with a chuckle, before looking at him seriously. She would listen to what he had to say.

"The same way Cassani will remember you." He continued, the man in question flinching a little as he was dragged into the conversation, as he had been trying to pretend he wasn't there.

"Huh?"

"You do realize Cassani thinks you're completely crazy, right?" Emiya asked.

She frowned at him, glancing at Cassani with a side-ways look. "...Yeah, and?"

"Just something I thought you might want to consider. Nothing more." Emiya said with a disarming smile. Shepard stared at him through the mirror, her green eyes boring into him as she frowned deep in thought. She turned to look at Cassani, who was studiously avoiding looking at her. Her frown deepened. "And then there's the fact that treating a prisoner like that is technically a war crime."

"Huh? War crime?" She blinked at him in complete confusion, her brows furrowed.

Emiya shrugged, "Yeah. They might dock us some points for that."

"But... But? I mean, it _worked_ , didn't it?" She didn't sound just as much angry as she sounded confused. It had always worked for her, even before the Navy. It was how she handled herself and had always known. If you wanted something, you had to apply some _pressure_.

"Yeah, it did. But it still might affect our rating." Emiya said, then turning to look at Cassani. "Among _other_ things."

Shepard frowned, though said nothing.

"How about we eat now? We haven't had a break in a while." Emiya suggested and Cassani agreed immediatly. They broke out the field rations and water bottles, with Shepard eating quietly.

They continued in silence for five minutes, until Shepard looked up at Emiya again.

"Emiya, are we... _okay_?" She asked, sounding hesitant to hear what he would say.

He looked at her and considered those words. Perhaps he had been too direct?

Emiya hadn't meant to push her buttons this much, but he had considered from what he understood of her that it would be better if she realized this sooner rather than later. This would help her realize that she had been pushing people away, along with what he had actually said.

The way she looked at groups of people; the way she had been emulating that group dynamic with him; the truly satisfied grin she had been wearing all day even through the exhaustion, excitement and exertion.

She had obviously enjoyed working with him more than she had enjoyed any other relationship in her life. But that wouldn't do. He wasn't going to stay with her, after all. No, that was wrong. It wasn't that he was _worried about her_ , he simply—

Emiya sighed, ending that train of thought.

Perhaps he had sabotaged their working relationship now, but given how much serious thought she seemed to be giving his words, he thought it would be for the better nonetheless. She wouldn't be happy if she stayed alone and scaring off everyone with her behavior. Not in the long run. Because he was going to leave sooner or later, she would also have to come to terms with this at some point. Perhaps this was his fault; having approached her in the first place and butting his head into her business without asking for her permission or opinion at all.

But having gotten involved, he would see it through. At least in one form or another.

Seeing her at first, he had felt strange. Nostalgic, in an almost painful manner.

He saw someone pushing themselves forward at a desperate pace, with a single-minded zeal, disregardning everything around them as they simply could not understand the worth of what they eschewed. And he thought that she would regret that kind of life, in the end.

He knew what that kind of life was like first hand, after all.

"Yeah, we are." He nodded as he took a bite out of the dry ration bar and chewed. He looked up, meeting her eyes. "Aren't we?"

She blinked.

She really _looked_ at him, then.

It was a strange realization, that. Coming to terms that he might not understand her thoughts as intimately as she knew them herself. That he might not know what she wanted through simple inference. She looked at Cassani, who was also eating and for the first time realized that she did not understand him at all. Therefore it made sense to assume that _he_ did not understand _her_ at all, either.

And suddenly things that had been out of place, simply seemed to _click_.

Coming from a world where one lived day to day, always struggling to just make ends meet and acting out relationships in the most superficial of manners, she had never considered that. Never considered that there could be additional layers to interacting with people. That where they had come from, even if they were all in the same place in the present, might greatly affect how they behaved and thought of others.

She knew rage. She knew fear. She knew veiled and hidden hatred; a resolve to lash out when it would not hurt one in return. But this form of deep resentment and unease, which did not manifest outwardly in immediate violence.

This, almost _shallow_ anger that existed in the hearts of others. It was strange.

Those words he had thrown at her before; about always being too wary about everyone around her. She finally _understood_ them.

"Yeah. _Yeah_ , I guess we are." She said, sounding somehow surprised. She looked up at him, then turned to Cassani. "How about you, are we okay?"

"Er... Sure? Yeah?" Cassani hesitated for a second.

Shepard blinked, looking thoughtful. She continued eating, nibbling at a ration bar in deep thought as she muttered, "I guess we aren't, huh..."

Emiya shrugged and ate the rest of his rations. For all the resolution and peace she seemed to have gained from that conversation, all of his doubts seemed to have re-doubled and returned with a vengeance.

Suddenly, he remembered a _smile_.

Emiya scowled and emptied his water bottle, washing down everything in his mouth along with the grimace that sprung up at the memory.

* * *

;

* * *

"Alright, show me the building that collapsed." Emiya said after they had finished eating.

Overall their rations were simply terrible. Well, as far as taste went. Nutrition- and energy-wise they were top-notch. So much so that it required an enhanced metabolic system to make full use of all the stuff compressed into those little bars. Still tasted like ash and sand, making Emiya grimace with every bite. After he was finished, he began to plan ahead again.

The Navy also discouraged eating nutrition bars for more than four days in a row, as much like MREs of centuries ago, they did play havoc on your gastrointestinal tract. Due to the heavily concetrated nutrients and lack of fiber it would result in an eventual experience best described as, "shitting bricks".

An increase in flatulence frequencey and amplitude was also a noted side-effect. Apparently. _The more things change..._

Emiya had pulled up a holographic projection of the map they had received before landing in the city. Cassani hesitated, then looked down at the map.

"Uh..."

Since the map was a picture from orbit, rather than an artificial representation with a legend and a scale, it required a different kind of eye for reading. And it also would not be update in real-time, which meant that he had to annotate the changes that had been wrought. Most of the stuff he had noticed while inside the city, he had merely mentally noted in his mental map, but at this point it was better to keep everything above the board.

Which meant doing it the proper way.

"It might have been this one." Cassani hesitated, pointing at a rectangular building at the North end of the city.

Emiya nodded, considering that. It was obvious that Cassani was not entirely certain, but as long as the general location was correct it would tell Emiya something about what was going on in the city. Where the combat was happening; where a hypothetical shot might have come from by comparing to the positions he remembered from before; what they might have been aiming at and more.

It wasn't much, but on the battlefield when one was completely isolated and without support, considering even the smallest details was vital. But at the same time, avoiding over-extrapolation was important as well. Going off half-cocked because of faulty intel was paramount to assisted suicide.

"We should go around. This thing can go through the jungle roads just fine. Even if we have to take a long route _around here_ ," Shepard butted in, pointing at the map as she traced something that might have been a road. "we should still have plenty of time to get to the RV. We've got, what..."

"Three and a half hours left." Emiya answered as she moved to check the time.

"Huh, well..." She hesitated, licking her lips as she shot a glance at Emiya.

_There's something she wants, but is hesitating to ask._ Emiya thought. _Right, the side objectives._

"I'll check the list and see if something pops up. For now, start driving that way. Cassani, strap yourself to the passenger seat and keep an eye open on the right side with the rifle ready. See anything suspicious, just hose it with bullets." Emiya said, sending the annotated map to Shepard's omnitool so that she could read it while driving.

" _Drive by_ -style, eh? Can do, boss. Wish this thing had a radio, though." Cassani said, nodding with some bravado as he patted the dashboard in front of him.

"...Well, I know you have some music on your omnitool, so I won't mind if you listen to it. Just don't bother me with it." Emiya said after a moment of thought, making the third member of their team blink and grin his thanks in return.

It was dumb to listen to music during all of this, but managing Cassani's nerves was important too. Emiya knew that Cassani hadn't enlisted with direct combat roles in mind, so the man wasn't quite as used to this. He had a simple enough role that it didn't quite matter so much, anyhow. As Shepard shot him an inquisitive glance, he waved her away mouthing the words ' _just let him_ ' as he did.

She frowned but nodded and began to set up her omnitool with the map in her HUD.

Emiya turned around and crawled through the inside of the car until he reached the back, there he got on his back and began to kick at the fractured rear window. The two at the front jumped in surprise at the first kick and looked at what he was doing, but then turned around to keep doing what they had been before.

Emiya's weird ideas seemed to work most of the time, so there wasn't really a point in questioning everything he did.

Finally, after the fourth kick, the pane came loose enough for the mechanism for opening it to function again. It was a rather simple latch that let the window fall backwards and down, but when locked it would hermetically seal it. In theory it allowed for an airtight vehicle, and it was definitely not something he could have kicked through since it had stopped a rifle bullet.

He opened the rear-window and began to set up his sniper rifle. It wasn't the best firing location, but assuming they would get pursuers sooner or later, then getting it ready now would save time. He tried several positions and anchor points for stability, getting used to how it felt and how he could fire there if he needed to later.

Besides, if someone could shut down the car from a distance like they could start it up with their omnitool, then they needed to have a way of getting out of the car. After all, it was certainly possible that the doors could be locked to the inside as well when it was done.

_Always keep your options open_.

Finally, he retracted the sniper rifle and collapsed it again. Checking that the window was still loose enough to be closed and opened normally, he closed it to offer them a fraction more protection. Since they didn't have kinetic barriers, getting shot through the back would have been bad.

"Alright, let's go."

The engine hummed back to life as the car began to move forward, having been idling during their break. A quick examination by Emiya had confirmed Shepard's earlier caution as prudent, in that it required a omnitool command to start up the car, along with several other features that they did not at the moment possess.

He would have liked to read through the manual more thoroughly, but for now it would have to wait.

Shepard continued to drive, using the smallest roads and gaps possible, often ignoring the holographic map altogether as she navigated on sheer instinct and gut feeling. She simply chose a heading and then checked that she did not stray too much as they drove on.

At one point, Cassani had objected when Shepard had wanted to drive down a cliff. She argued that if they kept going fast enough, they wouldn't fall off. He argued that she was insane. Emiya reminded her that if they broke the car, they would have to pay for it, which seemed to change her opinion on the matter.

Only a little, it seemed.

She followed the cliff until she found a sheer drop which was much shorter, which she deemed safe enough to drop down from. She didn't bother listening to Cassani this time and Emiya actually felt his stomach drop for a moment there and for a second he had considered Reinforcing the suspensions just to keep it safe.

But luckily, the Mako seemed inordinately sturdy and took the drop without any problems.

Soon they broke out of the jungle and reached the half-plains of old suburban areas, driving through and over old houses and collapsed mansions. This seemed to be especially to Shepard's liking as she whooped and hooted every time something crunched and cracked beneath their massive tires.

Even Cassani seemed to be having fun, though he would have denied it vehemently.

As the looming skeleton of the decrepit city loomed ahead, Shepard finally pulled to a stop as she turned to look at Emiya. She still hoped he would find something. Especially since they had made it in less than an hour through the jungle and suburb.

With over two and a half hours worth, there was plenty of time in her mind for some frolicking around in the city. Emiya shrugged, presenting a mission objective he had chosen among the multitude available to them.

"' _Disable communications relay in water tower_ '... And it's pretty close by, huh?" She read, licking her lips and looking up at him. It was still his choice. He nodded at her, pulling out his omnitool map again.

"We could do it, but it would require some scouting and planning, first." He said, with a serious look in his eyes.

She inhaled and nodded after a second. "Which would need time that we don't have."

Cassani looked at the two of them, confused.

"Huh, what's the problem? We have like two hours, that should be plenty."

"It would be." Emiya said, turning to look at him. "Except we're probably being tracked. This Mako is most likely something that its owners can't afford to lose in the long run. They'll be looking for us."

"And we can't leave it, because moving in the city without the armor just leaves us open to ambushes. Especially with you around, you know." Shepard continued.

Cassani made a noise of understanding and then sat silently. "So we're gonna have to split up? One checks it out while the other two keep moving in the car?"

Emiya nodded.

"Well, it is what it is. Shepard, you keep driving around. Get back in the jungle over there and try to make it seem like you're not just wasting time if anyone is watching. I'd rather not someone come investigate my trail." Emiya spoke, checking his gear. Hardsuit, omnitool, pistol, assault rifle and sniper rifle. Compared to the beginning, his loadout was much improved. "Come pick me up here in half an hour; I'll go and take a look around and see if there's anything we can do."

"We can still just ditch the car and walk to the RV. I... I mean, getting there would be already pretty good. I don't think many would manage in the city, if they were dropped off where we were." Shepard said, not looking at him. Her gauntlet-clad fingers were gripping the steering wheel.

"Maybe. But no harm in just taking a look. We've got momentum on our side. Might as well make use of it." He said, shrugging as he got out of the armored car. Slamming the door shut, he nodded at Cassani and began to jog away. He turned on the comms as he kept going. "And if I don't come back, just head for the RV without me, alright?"

Silence answered him for a good ten seconds, until Shepard answered. "... _Understood."_ and then drove away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to _shadyxlr_ for consulting and assisting with military stuff, and to PseudoSteak and FourScore for proofreading.
> 
> This chapter was one of those weird ones where I wrote it in one sitting, enjoying the hell out of it, but then on going back and editing I re-wrote half of everything at least once because I didn't think it was quite right when I read it again later. _Weird_ stuff, but I need to keep going forward.


	7. A Shot in the Dark

Emiya jogged, keeping up a good pace as he held the assault rifle in the low ready. It was close enough to the pistol training he had received and he had seen several people already using them, so it wasn't entirely unbelievable for him to be this confident with it.

He still practiced taking off the safety, raising it to high ready and aiming at various targets as he moved. He never pulled the trigger, wanting to still keep some measure of his stealth as he ran. But he wanted it to appear on his feed that he was experimenting and not simply going for the kills straight off.

Soon enough he found the solid purchase of old asphalt beneath his feet, as old buildings began to surround him. Though the ground beneath his feet was cracked and worn all over, the shelter the buildings had given it over the years kept the worst of the wear away.

Turning to skirt around the edges of the city, he made his way toward the water tower he could see in the distance. Along the way, he could see the rooftop of the building marked as the RV-location marked for their pick up at 19:45.

He gave it a cursory scan as he moved, slowing down slightly to double his purpose here. It was open enough that he had a few options for making it there, but he wasn't altogether sure that it was safe. For every entrance, he could think of fifteen ambushes or traps to lay.

Then again, it seemed just as derelict as their entry point had been; hopefully no one else had any presence or need for a team on the ground there. But that was for later, so he shelved that line of thought.

As he slowed down, he stared up at the hill ahead of him. Upon its crest stood the water tower; a large concrete monstrosity that seemed to have been built by someone with either exceedingly poor taste or a fetish for flying saucers.

After all, it looked like a UFO of 1950's popular culture on top of a stick, from a distance.

Certainly, he could see that it had plenty of volume for storing water, but the design seemed unusual still. Well, perhaps there was a story there he wasn't aware of. In all other respects, it seemed like your perfectly average water tower. Maybe construction methodology had changed today, but it seemed to fit his knowledge of their workings fine.

Since building a hundred pumps for a hundred homes needing water was excessive and wasteful, the usual method was simply to find a high location and to build a reservoir there. That way, you only needed one large pump to get all the water there and then let gravity handle the distribution to the hundred homes.

The pump would have to be larger and need a back up in case of breakdown, but overall it cut down on service and maintenance costs considerably.

The larger your water network, the larger the reservoir had to be and the higher up it would have to be build. Since to distribute over a large area, you needed more water pressure. Which meant that for this city, which must have been a fairly respectable metropolis at one time, the water tower was absolutely huge.

Even at this distance he could tell that much.

_How old is this city, anyhow? It must have been abandoned for decades already, at the very least._

He had known of certain eccentric rich people who had bought old water towers and turned them into homes or novelty businesses, like restaurants or wall-climbing centers, but it did not seem like this one had received such a treatment. He was still half a kilometer away, but already from here he could judge that the water tower could have housed easily an entire platoon inside itself.

And that was without even considering the top of the actual physical structure. Anyone on top of the tower would have uncontested view over the entire city, barring broken line of sight due to other buildings.

Hell, if he had been here in his normal capacity, he would have taken a hold of that tower as the first thing he did. Or perhaps second, after he familiarized himself with the city.

Emiya raised his assault rifle and scanned his surroundings again as he eyed the radar in his HUD. So far it had not once warned him of anything, but it might still surprise him. Progress was relatively quick, and he had found an abandoned house. He broke in and got up to a higher floor, leaving him with a broken window through which he could observe the hill in the distance without being seen.

He should be fairly safe here, since he had not seen anyone else. Still, awareness of your immediate surroundings was always important.

The doors and windows were all relatively loud in their poor condition, the floor on the way here had been creaky as well and there was plenty of dirt and rocks that could make noise if someone were to try to sneak up on him.

Outside of someone spotting him through the window inside the room he was in, he should be fairly hidden from anyone on the lookout. Placing the assault rifle on the ground, within immediate reach, he reached over and took the sniper rifle. He would want the scope for this, more than the gun itself.

He expanded the rifle and took an old chair for support for the barrel as he set to looking through the scope. The water tower seemed abandoned, but he still took the time to analyze the surroundings.

A broken chain link fence ran around the premise, with a notable lack of any tall trees or buildings inside the premise drawn. There was an old ramshackle house at the base however, presumably for maintenance and control purposes, or for housing the pumps at one time. It lacked any windows and only had the one door, otherwise remaining entirely austere in design. At one time, the grass would have been cut and kept under control, but as it was right now it had overgrown and reached well above the waist-level.

He would have expected some trees to spring up after the long time the city had been abandoned, but perhaps no seeds had been carried there yet by the winds. Still, what was already growing there would give him considerable cover and concealment.

Sneaking in wouldn't be impossible, then. But the yard would probably be trapped or set up with sensors to detect intruders, assuming it was manned. Which only made sense to assume, given that a communications relay was supposedly set up there.

Emiya swung the scope up, checking the top of the water tower. He couldn't see anyone there, despite it overlooking the entire city. It was a perfect location for a sniper or a mortar team; giving them range and visibility over the entire operation zone.

He frowned at the height and curvature of the tower's top. Due to the angle, he couldn't see the actual top of the tower, merely the edges of it. He tried looking for anything; a rifle sticking out over the edge or perhaps some sensors or cameras. But he found nothing.

Then again, it would have also drawn attention to the water tower if someone was up top. It might endanger the relay if they were shooting at people and making themselves known. Thus, perhaps that was reserved as only a last defense measure. Assuming they had access to the inside from the top, or that men had been positioned there beforehand and were in contact through their team-comms.

Then again, why had there been a side mission objective for it anyhow? Telling them straight up where it was hidden? Did others know? Could they not reach it or did they know something that he didn't? Emiya shook his head, returning his attention to the water tower.

Too many questions without answers would get him nowhere.

An old ladder—rusty and questionably usable—was visible on one side of the tower. It could be possible to get up top if he sneaked through the chain link fence and the overgrown grass, but that represented such an easily booby trapped route that Emiya hesitated calling it his "in".

By the base of the water tower, there was an old and rusty entrance, apparently recently used judging by the blown open lock and the half-ajar door. Inside was probably a stairway, a ladder or an elevator to the inside of the saucer-like top, though it was too dark to tell from here. He doubted that any elevator would still be functional, unless it had been looked at by an engineer, anyhow.

Nonetheless, it represented a complete death zone for anyone attempting to break in.

Suitably anemic grenades— _so as not to break the concrete walls, as even a 15 kPa burst could cause damage inside and break the aged structure and cause a collapse_ —could be lobbed down freely at attackers while they had had all the time in the world to prepare a death zone for any intruders.

With no room to maneuver, trying to bust in through the front would be nigh-impossible.

Really, the only way he could think of safely taking out a structure like that was through a ranged explosive. A rocket-propelled grenade or a broken phantasm, for example. But he didn't have anything like the former and he was fairly certain he wasn't supposed to be blowing up buildings with Systems Alliance personnel potentially inside for the latter.

_Or that I'm perfectly capable of blowing up buildings even without any equipment, anyhow. Emiya thought wryly. Hmm?_

He noticed movement, his scope zeroing in immediately at something near the open doors near the base of the water tower. A man, stood there with his omnitool activated. He swiped it left to right, as if scanning the perimeter after which he went back inside.

Emiya followed the man unfailingly with the bead of the rifle, but did not pull the trigger. Taking out one man at this point would only alarm anyone on the inside of his presence. Besides, the man had been wearing the heaviest armor Emiya had seen so far.

Even at this range he could guess that it was in the excess of 50 kilograms; a true behemoth of heavy armor. There was no guarantee that this rifle would even do anything to him. And if there were more like him inside...

As far as he could see, he had three options.

One: Sneak up to the tower and climb up top with the rusted ladder and see if he could do anything there. _Which leaves me vulnerable to traps and alone inside potentially hostile territory._

Two: Try and force his way through the inside, picking off people on the inside slowly and carefully in a prolonged gunfight. _Which will take time and is too dangerous._

Three: Pull back. _Honestly the best option_. _And really, the only reasonable one._

As an additional consideration, either of the first two options would necessitate abandoning their car and _slash_ or getting Cassani to the RV first. Emiya sighed, raising his eye away from the scope as he eyed the water tower in the distance with his bare eyes.

This was merely a long-distance reconnaissance—a tentative and careful first look for initial estimations—and already it was looking bad.

He was sure that the closer he got, the worse it would seem. Besides, did he even know if the relay was there beyond a mission objective stating so? Perhaps there was a simple decoy device inside, meant to simulate an ambush and going inside was actually a trap meant to be detected and defused as the actual objective in terms of the simulation?

Or were some of the other squads fitted with dummy explosives and the real job was simply to get close enough to be able to bring down the tower like that? He lacked entirely too much information right now.

_I could pretend to be thinking; jump out of the body and take a look in my astral form. No one would notice..._

Emiya shook his head, collapsing the sniper rifle and taking the assault rifle again as he began to move. He had spent five minutes getting here and an additional three scoping the tower out. He still had time to relocate and try from another angle, if he wanted to.

But he was already fairly certain that they wouldn't be able accomplish it.

He pulled up his omnitool, hesitating for a moment as he pondered contacting Shepard to call it all off. Why was he hesitating, now? Why was he putting in so much effort for this? It didn't matter to him at all. The g-line accepted _anyone_ who applied, as long as they weren't complete idiots. He already had all the necessary credit to apply.

It wasn't like they could refuse and send him to something less popular, either.

Then again, even if he _did_ fail here, he would still probably be able to apply just fine. So it wasn't like him rolling the dice on something like this would _really_ hurt his actual objective. Still, there was no reason for him to be bothering with all this; there was nothing to be gained from all this.

But he _was_ putting in the effort and he _was_ looking for a way to help her out.

Emiya sighed, pulling up the list of side objectives and he scrolled it down again. He looked through the various objectives available to him, trying to see if there was anything that he had missed. But while parts of it had changed, nothing else looked like it would be actually realistically doable for them.

_'Take control of central point A4', 'close off node C5', 'capture bridge between sections db-1 and dc-6'_ and more like that. Those would all require manpower and firepower they didn't have. Even with their bigger guns and new ride, they were still horribly under-geared for direct conflict of this class. This had been the simplest one available, but even as he had suggested it he had known there must have been a catch.

An easy fish would have been reeled in early, which meant that there was something strange with this objective. Perhaps it was too far from the main lines. Perhaps mission control had hidden it from everyone else. Perhaps everyone who had tried already had been summarily taken out.

It was impossible to tell. Emiya sighed and began to move; he would check the place out from one more angle and see if anything popped up.

He moved through the empty houses like a ghost, his eyes picking out spots on the ground without any rubble that would give him away as he ran. As he stepped, he moved with the heel first and rolled with his entire foot to minimize the sounds of his passing.

He stayed low, hugging walls and moving through cover and concealment whenever possible, jumping in and out through windows of houses to avoid being out in the open as much as possible. Finally, as he had moved two hundred meters in two minutes he found an apartment complex that he figured could be useful.

The floor inside was dusty and covered in all sorts of rubbish. Dead and dried leaves, shards of glass and pieces of the walls and ceiling crumbling down littered every surface. He felt fairly certain that no one had disrupted this place in years, as aside from the highest floors and rooftop giving you a decent view of the water tower, he couldn't think of any tactical advantage it offered that one or another building adjacent to it did not offer better.

Still, he cleared the corridors and stairway one by one, moving to the rooftop at a quick pace. In the distance, the sounds of battle continued. There had been a lull an hour back, but it was in full swing again. The center of contention had moved further south, away from him and hopefully the rest of his team.

That would hopefully reduce their chances of being found again. But hope wore thin quickly on the battlefield.

"Shepard, come in."

" _Shepard here._ "

"I'm still looking around. Anything on your end?" He spoke into the comms as he finished clearing the room and closed the door behind him. The rooftop was open and a little bit higher, but would leave him visible to anyone looking for people on the roofs. Thus the highest floor would have to do.

"— _N_ o, w _e're—dri_ v _ing ar_ o _und._ An _y luc_ k?" She spoke back, her voice slightly muffled and distorted by either the distances involved or due to the signal being jammed by either's surroundings.

"I'll get back to you on that. Emiya out."

" _...Got it. Shepard out._ "

He found another broken window through which he could observe the water tower. From this side, he couldn't even see the ladder and the door would have only just been visible, even if the maintenance shed wasn't in the way. He placed the assault rifle on the ground just in case and expanded the sniper rifle to make use of the scope.

As before, there was no point in putting the assault rifle away when he might need it at a moment's notice. Before he had had plenty of time to ensure no one was around, but in his haste this time he might have attracted undue attention, therefore he looked around to make sure he had several escape routes before he settled down.

_Outside the window is a fire escape, it's rusted but will let me get to either the roof or the floor below. The next room loops around through the kitchen, allowing me to get to the front door._ He noted.

Emiya looked through the scope, resting the barrel against the window frame, since there wasn't any suitable furniture to rest it on inside. If he sat down with his legs crossed for support, he would be too low to see anything, so that was out too.

It was a sub-optimal firing location, as were he to fire, his muzzle flash would reveal him to anyone on the look out. If he wanted to fire, he should pull back into the room to let it contain most of the flash and sound. That would give him time for another shot or two, before he had to relocate.

But, he wasn't intending to shoot anything at this time, so really it didn't matter.

Stilling his breathing, the swaying of the scope disappeared as he focused. He adjusted the zoom to max and scanned the water tower again, but found nothing new. Even at this higher up location, it wasn't enough to see to the top of the water tower, either.

_What if the relay is on top of the water tower?_ Emiya suddenly considered, blinking at the thought.

It made some sense, as a water tower generally had to be as high up as possible to deliver water to numerous locations. Even if there was a higher up location, it would be at such a distance that it would be impossible to see anything, much less to take a shot at it without having some sort of area of burst or explosion on impact.

But then, if he had that he might as well simply have used a shorter range explosive ordinance to collapse the structure.

_It would be hidden from view; it wouldn't be enclosed by walls around it that might weaken the signal and if someone did break in, it would act as a final layer of defense, since the intruders would still have to get to the roof after getting all the way up._

He sighed, collapsing the sniper rifle and setting it on his back. Moving away from the window, he sat against the wall, deep in thought. He brought out his omnitool and pulled up the map and studied it closer. But no matter how he tried, the resolution simply was not sufficient for getting a closer look at the top of the water tower.

It merely looked like a smudge of gray and white.

_It would be a little bit too easy, if the map itself showed the exact location of the relay_. Emiya thought with a huff. But still, the assumption that the relay was on the roof was quite an attractive one.

Getting inside was impossible; their paper-thin kinetic barriers couldn't handle any kind of concentrated fire and a prolonged firefight was off the list anyhow due to their approaching pick up at the RV-site. The only possibility for them to actually succeed was for the relay to be on the top of the water tower. If it was inside, he would give up on it. But as long as he assumed it was on the roof, then he could perhaps improvise some reasonable method.

Emiya blinked, considering the map again. He closed it and changed to another program, trying the extranet connection. It worked; he had access to the _Rio de Janeiro_ -extranet hub. But that was simply a civilian resource; it wouldn't offer him any up to date intel, especially not on an abandoned city that was being rented to the military.

Well, perhaps aside from some enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists who might have an interest in the place, but he doubted they would have the information he was looking for—Or maybe they would if he asked the right questions.

Making a thoughtful sound, he entered several search words and after a few attempts and changes, he actually found what he had wanted. Looking for a flying saucer water tower had helped him narrow down considerably the location and name for this city.

He smirked and then began to look around for archives and data dumps. This city must have still been around back then and judging by the architecture of the water tower it too must have been built back in those days. With some luck...

"Found it."

_' : The biggest forum for Systems Alliance critics! Proof that the UN was lead by the alien Illuminati in 2031! Videos proving the existence of Mass Effect technology on Earth before the Mars Discovery!'_

Emiya nodded, this looked like it could work. It was just the right kind of paranoid site, where eccentrics like that would gather.

He scanned through the various hyperlinks and documents, until he found something useful. One of the advantages of the extranet was that the capacity for information storage had grown exponentially. Thus, people with a tendency to hoard information and archive everything they thought strange could be found much more easily.

Even during his day and age, he had sometimes used online hangouts, imageboards and forums as analysis hot-spots and think-tanks. Given sufficient incentive, people with too much time on their hands could accomplish miracles. He was pretty sure he had run into more than one government information analyst shitposting with anime avatars, during those days, too.

His friend had used to mock them viciously online; making a game of spotting letter soup agents by their posting style and anime or cartoon preferences. Emiya shook his head at the memory, concentrating on his search.

He had never been the most tech-literate of people when it came to information technology itself, but he understood the basics. Hell, he had fixed more than one computer before he had turned eighteen. Another memory popped up; the face his second magic teacher had made when he had compared her jewel magic to hard disk drives in functionality. He laughed then.

"So far so good."

_'Archive of entire google earth map from the year 2044! Donation link below! Join me on—'_

He ignored the rest of the text and opened up the data file. His omnitool complained about the format and he had to download a converter program, but soon enough he had the entire world's map as it had been available to every civilian with online access in the year 2044.

_Including_ this city. He wasn't interested in road maps or anything like that, as he switched to real photograph composite maps.

Like many major cities, it was possible to zoom in quite a considerable amount, switching between points-of-view from satellites, company cars with mounted cameras and most importantly to him, _flying_ _drone cameras_. He zoomed in, looking at the hill from all angles and then zooming in at the top of the tower.

The assumption was that to get something as important as a communications relay onto the top of the tower, there would have to be a hatch, so that you could access the roof from the inside. Otherwise, getting the equipment up there would prove rather hazardous and difficult.

For a relay that would be able to transmit communications reliably between ground forces and orbital ships, the size would necessitate such, after all. Of course, even if he didn't find anything, that did not mean a hatch could not have been installed later or that the relay wasn't there.

But if it was...

"Heh, it's there." He smirked, zooming in as much as he could.

Then he would take it as a green light.

In finding a picture of a large access hatch to the top of the flying saucer-like water tower, he felt fairly certain that the relay would have been moved there. With that kind of access hatch, it would be entirely possible to move equipment to the roof, where it would be very difficult to reach or damage.

_Difficult, but not impossible_. Emiya judged as he looked at the water tower through the old maps. At the top there was a small flat section, without any obvious protections besides a safety rail cordoning off an area around a hatch. _In fact, entirely doable._

He closed the omnitool map and grabbed his assault rifle. The area on the roof sectioned by the safety rails was 3 meters times 3 meters; a much smaller area than he had previously assumed. Even if you had to fire blindly, hitting something there was entirely possible as long as you knew the angle.

Trying to hit the something on the roof blind would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But in narrowing it down to just that section, it would be as if most of the stack had been removed leaving them with but a handful to go through.

This was actually possible.

_Still, this is all assuming it_ is _on the roof of the water tower. But a shot in the dark is fine if you know it might accomplish something with it nonetheless. It's not a gamble unless failure means catastrophic losses. With just this much..._ Emiya thought, closing the map and pulling up the comm-line.

"Shepard, come in."

" _R_ i _gh_ t _—h_ er _e._ " The static was acting up again.

"I might have something." Emiya said as he made his way down the building again. He would have to find another place to shoot from as the angle from here was all wrong, but first he would have to join up with the others and share his findings.

_Additionally, it will require an arc; even the tallest building in town won't be high enough for a straight line to be able to reach the top of the water tower._ Emiya realized. That would take some more work, as well.

The comms remained quiet for a moment.

" _Oh, well..._ Th _at's... Go_ od _!_ " Emiya blinked, realizing that he had heard assault rifle fire through the comms along with tires loudly screeching as if she had been drifting. " _We'_ re _k_ i _nd of h_ ea _ding th_ a _t way, could you get out onto the streets?_ "

The signal quality was getting stronger by the second, he noted.

"...Okay, I'll be by the red apartment building, the one that's made of bricks." Emiya only hesitated for a moment before kicking off into a sprint to make it down.

" _What's a brick? Never mind, I see it._ " Shepard said and already Emiya could hear the sounds of an approaching car along with rapid gunfire. Emiya sighed as he crouched by the house-corner, in front of the street.

The Mako came to a screeching halt in front of the entrance of the building and Emiya ran up to it, jumping inside in less than a second. Cassani had the rifle ready and was holding it backwards and aiming with the side-mirror as best he could while being strapped in on the front seat.

"Hiya, welcome back! You better strap in." Shepard grinned at Emiya as she greeted him. She turned around and floored the pedal, causing his back to get pushed all the way into the seat as he was about to reply.

"She's not kidding, man. Oh, yeah and we're being followed by two other cars, so there's that." Cassani helpfully offered, his one hand holding onto the seatbelt in a death grip, his knuckles white from the pressure.

Emiya turned around, looking through the rear window as Shepard began to drive. She swerved at a corner, the rear of the car hitting an old and rusted lamppost and snapping it in half with a loud screech.

"Oops."

Emiya frowned at her, considering whether he should take the wheel after all. He hadn't driven a vehicle like this before, but at least he had had the experience of driving other vehicles in his previous life.

As if she had been reading his mind, she glanced at him and spoke.

"I'm starting to get the hang of this already." She cheerfully said, completely oblivious to the stares of her two passengers right then.

"I can see that." Emiya noted dryly as he continued to peer at their rear. Finally, he caught a glance of someone chasing them. A large car; six-wheeled and white, just like theirs. "Same model as our APC, or do they have guns?"

"Same model, but they have a bunch of toys we don't." Shepard spoke as she vigorously turned the wheel to turn another corner.

"Like?"

"Oh, they can jump. Like, over entire cars." She said with a deliberately flippant tone that did nothing to hide her envy.

Emiya nodded at that, turning to look forward. "Probably something this car has too, but we just don't have access to."

"Huh, I knew I should have pressed that doc harder. Oh—" Shepard began to say, but as a second APC came screeching in from the left in front of them, she was forced to swerve and turn the car at full speed. "—weeelll!"

Emiya saw it in slow motion; the car cutting the corner; the widening of the eyes of the other driver as he realized they were about to crash; the clenching of Shepard's knuckles over the wheel as she reacted by making a sharp turn.

She crashed into a building and drove all the way inside of it; the street front had once been a glass terrace, perhaps for a coffee shop or a restaurant at one time. Now, it was nothing more than rubble and shards as their armored car plowed through in a hail of debris and screeching noise.

"Where the hell did you learn to drive, anyway?!" Cassani asked, holding on for his dear life as the glass and concrete washed off of their windshield.

"Behind the wheel, duh?" Shepard answered immediately and only Emiya could see Cassani's eyes bulge at that answer as the man realized no one had taught Shepard the first thing about vehicular safety. Emiya held on, regretting momentarily not strapping in properly already as he almost hit the inside of the door at the sudden turn.

The APC that had been coming at them drove past, as Emiya was sure he saw the other driver panic and close his eyes as he readied himself for a head-on crash. The other car went into a screeching halt as the driver pulled all the brakes; its six tires grinding against the pavement in protest to the sudden stop as it tried to minimize the impact of direct collision.

Only Shepard's quick driving had spared them a direct collision. Or rather, a direct collision with the other car; they'd still driven right into a building.

She grinned, flooring the gas as she turned the wheel and burst out from the building again in another hail of crumbling concrete and rusted pipes ten meters ahead from the previous spot. The five tires screeched on contact with the pavement, kicking up pieces of crumbled road and other debris as the car shot forward.

Emiya looked back, realizing that Shepard's two bursts had utterly destroyed the side of the building on the first floor. It was already sagging and he could see in slow motion how it was about to fall over and collapse onto the street.

He winced, turning to look forward. _Hopefully they won't get buried beneath it all._

Shepard's grin had not faltered one bit throughout all this. Taking another turn, the wheels struggled to find purchase on the pavement and for a moment they slid sideways until they hit another wall with a rough impact. Shepard didn't even seem to notice, slamming the gas again and shooting off at full speed down the new road.

Emiya got up, using the lull in excitement to reach out and open the rear window so he could try and take a few potshots at their next pursuers. Only to stop as he found the window had gotten stuck _again_ , probably due to Shepard's rough driving.

He shook his head, grabbing a hold where could and giving the window another good kick. This time it only took two, but he almost got sent sprawling through it as the car hit a bump and he was lifted into the air for a moment with one leg dangling out through the open window.

The next car showed up, hot on their trail.

"Try and keep steady, I'm gonna take a few shots at them." Emiya half-shouted and Shepard threw him a thumbs up without bothering to look back. He pulled free the sniper rifle and expanded it, judging the greater burst potential to be of better use here than the rapid fire spray of weaker shots. They had been obviously ignoring Cassani's attempts at suppressing fire for a while now.

Setting the muzzle outside the window, Emiya inhaled calmly and began to line up a shot. Finding a target, he pulled the trigger.

— **boom!**

The rifle roared, the majority of the sound echoing outside the car as the muzzle went through the open window and was drowned by the roaring of the engines. A blue flash shimmered and deflected the shot, the APC that had been gaining on them only swerving a minute bit in surprise at the attack.

"Their shields are working; can't take out the wheels." He noted, though knowing that as long as he could get their shields out of play with a shot or two, he could take out their wheels just fine.

For a moment he wondered how this was supposed to work as a simulation. He had managed to shoot through this Mako's shields with his puny sniper rifle— _comparatively_ , anyhow—and put some physical damage to the vehicle. But if he shot a wheel on that car while it was in pursuit, it would surely swerve into a wall.

This seemed like another time where they were skirting the rules again. They were wasting Alliance money by breaking material, after all. _There will probably be hell to pay once we get back..._

Then again, "Chief Thomas only said not to break _this_ Mako."

Shepard, hearing that laughed merrily as she swerved again, the tires squealing as this time the traction at least held enough for her to retain control of the movement. _She's getting a hang of drifting. Joy._ Emiya had to push with one foot against the ceiling to keep from being jostled around overmuch as he held on.

Emiya considered the situation for a moment. _What are they trying to accomplish? They are clearly not trying to shoot us_ , _for whatever reason. Do they have some other means of making us stop without harming the APC?_

"Shepard, do you think they're tracking us?" Emiya asked, shouting from where he was laying on the floor in the back of the APC.

"Huh?" Shepard shouted back as she continued driving.

"Yeah! They seem to always know where we are!" Cassani jumped in, turning his head to look at Emiya.

"They did seem to find us, even when I lost them with some tricky driving. It's a first time for that." Shepard agreed as she turned another corner and drove over what remained of an old fence that was crushed beneath their tires. Emiya held on and considered that.

"Have they tried to shoot at you _at all_ , or just tried to box you off into a dead end or something? What have they been trying to do?" He asked, collapsing the rifle as it was just in the way.

Cassani blinked, looking at Shepard who was still paying attention to the road.

"They've just been following us. They told us to stop with the comms, but we just shut them out after they started repeating that. I think they might be mad at us." Shepard said. Emiya nodded, considering that. It still didn't make much sense. Not the part about them being mad, that made perfect sense. But what they were trying to do seemed somewhat lacking.

"They're probably still mad about you shooting that guy you took hostage." Cassani chimed in with a shrug.

"Oh, now I get it!" Shepard shouted having ignored Cassani entirely. Turning to look back hastily before looking forward again, she licked her lips. "The medic started up the car with his omnitool, it's why I didn't want him to turn it off. I saw it before with higher end cars, back when... Well, it doesn't matter. Anyhow, they can turn off the car if they get close enough!"

Emiya blinked, processing that.

It must have been some kind of program that had to be activated in near vicinity then, not some kind of continuous "shut down"-signal, since their pursuers had driven right past them when Shepard had driven into the building earlier. It must have been something they thought of once they realized the antenna had been ripped out.

Like a remote keyless system in cars from his era, Emiya realized.

"Why doesn't it work at visual range?" He asked.

Shepard shrugged, "I dunno. I've just seen guys start their car right outside of it so they can directly drive off. Maybe it's just a precaution? I mean, wouldn't it be hilarious if your car turned on when you sat down somewhere else and then drove off on its own?"

She laughed merrily, looking over her shoulder for any pursuers.

That seemed a little bit too lucky for Emiya's tastes. They had disabled the systems he had found, but realizing that there could be countless other methods was always annoying. Perhaps there was some reason for the cyberdefenses being so particular. Perhaps there had been someone with the authority to turn off the car at a distance but they had been taken out. _Whatever it is, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Okay, so now we know what they want. How do we use that?_

"Cassani, can you hack them? Or do anything to distract them, like what you did to my omnitool?"

"You kne—That was Rodriguez's idea! I just—"

"Never mind that, stay focused. Can you do anything to them?" Emiya waved his hand and Franco calmed down after a second as he realized Emiya wasn't actually bothered.

"Uh, no. We just kind of messed around with some scripts and the basic functions of your omnitool through the shared controls settings. The APCs are a completely different story. Like, you have to be pretty much inside of them to use your omnitool to connect to it—probably the reason why they're having trouble, too. I don't even know where to start with something like this, anyhow." Cassani said and as he slowly rambled, adopting a more thoughtful look as he went on.

Emiya let him, turning around to scan their rear as Shepard continued with her reckless driving. Their tail was gone again, for now. _Which must mean they're looking at the maps and looking to cut us off ahead._

"Shepard, they're probably coming up ahead. Change heading."

"Right-o!" She shouted and Cassani's eyes shot wide as he grasped for anything to hold onto as she suddenly pulled a 90 degree turn at full speed. The wheels screeched and their tail-end busted an old bench, but they didn't slow down much at all despite the violent turn.

The bench however was sent flying through the air, embedding itself into a wall.

"God daaaaamn! Fuck!" Cassani cursed unable to stabilize himself with his legs, as he was at the mercy of Shepard's driving in an entirely different way than Emiya was. The man in the passenger seat breathed heavily, before inhaling deeply and collecting himself. "Yeah, no. It's no good. Sorry."

"It's fine. On to the next topic. Here's some stuff I found." Emiya said with a nod, transferring the maps and technical manuals he had while he had been away.

"Uh... What's this for?" Cassani asked and even Shepard glanced sideways at them curiously.

"We have to assume that the communications relay is set up on the top of the water tower. If it's inside, we can't do anything about it. But it is possible for it to have been hauled all the way up there, since it's the highest point in the city and no one's going to bring down the whole tower anyhow. Up there, it should be perfectly safe from anyone trying to look around." Emiya explained.

Shepard perked up at the mention of the relay, dividing her attention between Emiya and her driving.

"Uh... okay?" Cassani asked, hesitantly. "So what's with the 'A _venger II User's Technical Manual and Specifications v3.501_ ' file?"

"That's for the sniper rifle I have. It has the aim assist and correction calculations formula and range specs along with how to access the advanced settings." Emiya said, pointing at a page he had pulled up himself. "It says that the effective firing range is two kilometers; but that's only because after that the bullet drop is so big that the automatic adjustment can't compensate for needing to aim so high."

"Sure...?" Cassani agreed, checking the page himself.

"But that means if you actually fire considerably _above_ the target at a range, the bullet could still hit as it arcs through the air." Emiya said, smirking. _Like an arrow, you aim above and the arrow drops onto the target at an angle rather than in a straight line from the archer_.

Cassani furrowed his brows at Emiya

"So if there is something on top of the water tower, even if we can't see it, we could still shoot at it due to this curvature." Emiya explained. He raised his hand up and down, as if to show the vertical plane involved as his other hand drew an arc. "As long as those numbers are crunched and fed into the computer, it should be a possible shot."

_I could do it, after all._ Emiya thought with confidence; he could picture the whole of the area, even outside of his field of vision. With that, taking the shot was not impossible for him, even with older models of guns that would have had lower firing velocities. Therefore it should be possible for the aiming computers in their guns to do it as well.

Shepard turned around, taking her eyes entirely off the road as she grinned at Emiya; a vicious and gleeful look of excitement plain to see. Cassani on the other hand was frowning at the files, going through them with care.

"It's _possible_. But even if you get it right, you wouldn't know where to shoot horizontally, so why—" He moved his hand left and right, before blinking. "Right, but we could just sweep it degree by degree. If something is there, we would hit it sooner or later. But it's still a pretty wide area—oh, right, if it's just this smaller area then..."

Cassani seemed to be taken in by the idea, before he frowned. "Wait, you want _me_ to do those calculations?"

Emiya nodded with a smirk. One of the perks of authority was delegating duties. Cassani licked his lips, hesitating.

"I-I wouldn't even know where to start, I mean..."

"The manuals are right there. Start with finding us a building where it could be possible; the broad strokes. Just look at the big picture for now; don't get bogged down in details. Take one step at a time and make it possible by working your way up. Don't _think about doing it_ or whether it's _possible_ ; just do it." Emiya spoke, slowly and quietly. Yet both of his teammates in the front seemed to naturally absorb those words.

"Right. _Right_."

Shepard looked up, using the rear-view mirror to stare at Emiya for a long moment, before she realized she needed to continue looking forward if she wished to drive without crashing into things. Behind them, their pursuer appeared again.

"That's my cue." Emiya said, reaching over and expanding the sniper rifle. But after three shots as the kinetic barriers were looking to collapse, the APC pulled away.

_They're getting more confident again_ , Emiya thought as he collapsed the rifle. Well, they would have to hurry anyway as they had less than an hour left until they needed to be at the RV. For now, they needed to lose their tails.

"Hold on." Shepard said, with the casual tone of voice one would use when noting that it might start raining soon.

Emiya blinked, only having a moment to react before suddenly the entire car was in the air. He realized a second later that she had just driven over a fence and gotten considerable airtime out of the makeshift ramp. Just enough to mostly clear a small park.

Mostly, as in the squealing of bent metal beneath their car still heralded their landing. Must have been another bench or fence.

"Oops." She muttered, turning the wheel.

Emiya looked back, spotting the second car coming to a sudden halt as they hit their brakes instead of trying to make the jump themselves. They backed off, tires squealing on asphalt as they turned to drive off to go around.

"Heh, chicken."

Emiya turned to raise an eyebrow at Shepard, then. "Mind telling me how many times you had to drive away from the police?"

"Hah, not telling." She grinned as she performed a sharp turn and clipped a half-rotten telephone pole in the process. Behind them it crashed down, pulling with it the remains of dead electrical wires as they sped away to half block the route their pursuer would come from.

Emiya shook his head, putting away the rifle. He had thought he would need to come up with an elaborate escape plan to buy them time. He figured he could shoot something to make it collapse on top of their pursuers. But it seemed Shepard had it well in hand.

Now if only she would stop cackling.

* * *

;

* * *

"We've got thirty five minutes." Emiya said as he jumped back into the APC. This time, he opted for the front seat, though he would probably have to jump into the back again later if their pursuers came too close for comfort again.

"Cassani's good?" Shepard asked before gunning it. She had stopped here earlier just long enough for Emiya and Cassani to get out and then came rolling around to pick Emiya up again as she made the circuit. The calculations Cassani was handling weren't anywhere near done, but he could continue with those near the RV anyhow. Keeping a 'crippled' man with them would only slow them down if they had to run.

Emiya nodded and she grinned, rounding another corner as behind them the following APC began to catch up again. They must have noticed that Emiya had jumped off earlier, which would have raised some flags in their pursuer's minds.

_Hopefully the hiding place is good enough to last_ , _in fact they might even think we're both still there._ Emiya thought as he expanded the sniper rifle again. If their pursuers had men in reserve, it would make sense for them to investigate what Emiya and Cassani had done, but if their interest lay solely in the APC then perhaps it would be fine. _At least for half an hour. There's too much ground to cover and they can't have any teams ready nearby given how wildly Shepard has been driving all over this sector._

"Alright, let's gun it and see if we can't get it done." Emiya said as he eyed their rear and front, turning his head to keep track of both as best he could. Shepard nodded and made another turn.

"Take a left here, we need to get to this building." Emiya transferred the map location to her omnitool

"Huh? I can't read that thing while driving." She complained.

"Fine. See that building over there?" He said, pointing out to the west.

Shepard leaned forward, peering through the window as she looked at what Emiya was pointing at.

"That big ass building?" She asked, blinking as she looked at how far up it seemed to rise even at a distance.

"Exactly that one."

"Can do!" She grinned and she made a sudden turn into an alley. A rusted fence gave way beneath the massive car as she forced her way forwards. Behind them, their pursuers shot past the alley as they had been closing in at the straight road.

Shepard changed gear as their car bounced around and crushed something beneath its massive wheels that looked like a rusted trash can. Not simply content with taking one crazy turn, Shepard immediately took another left, causing the Mako to drive over another fence and an overgrown bush into a something that looked like an old playground.

_The second for the day_ , Emiya noted coolly.

The wheels kicked up gravel and dust as she accelerated enough to build speed for the overgrown hedge on the other side, where the sun shined enough to let it grow without restraint. Emiya raised an eyebrow, throwing aside the sniper rifle as he grabbed onto something with both hands as the entire car bounced over the hedge as if it had been a ramp. Again.

For a moment they were in the air and then they were in freefall, followed by a mighty impact and bounce as the car landed on a park bench. She turned the wheel so hard as she made another turn that Emiya swore he could feel two of the wheels come off the ground as they tilted to the side.

She had managed to switch roads, forcing their pursuers to stop. They would have to back up and find a way onto this road as the one they had been on previously lead to the center of the city while this one went on straight.

He glanced at Shepard, who seemed to be grinning as widely as humanly possible as she continued to work the wheel and pedals, changing gears rapidly as she drove recklessly towards their destination.

Feeling his stare, her grin only seemed to grow wider. _She's enjoying this, alright._

"Cassani, come in. Give me an update." Emiya spoke, raising his omnitool as he held on with the other hand.

A second passed and then the quiet voice responded from the other end.

" _Still working on it. No one seems to be around here looking for me, but I can't really see from here so who knows. Give me fifteen more minutes and I'll have something hammered out._ "

"Keep at it and call in once you have something, out." Emiya said and closed off the comm. He looked at the time. They had made it this far in two minutes and would be there in another three and a half, he guessed. After that, they would have fifteen minutes at most for shooting and then they would have to start legging it back to the RV to make it for their shuttle.

Especially since they would probably have to go back by foot. Of course, it would be faster if they had a car, but he knew that was too optimistic to plan around. They would have to ditch the Mako once they got there.

Shepard leaned forward, peering through the dusty and dirty window. The Mako would need a good wash after all this was done, among _other things_.

While he has somehow hoping to avoid being held responsible for all the vehicular damage he had indirectly and directly wrought, it also remained a distinct chance to get a closer look at the inner workings of a Mako in a more sedate environment.

If he was told to fix what he had broken, he could even ask for an electronic manual for one. He figured if they made him work on repairing it, he would have all the cause in the world for getting his hands on all the specs and details. Those systems they hadn't unlocked seemed particularly interesting and worthy of some study, if he had the time.

Well, that was just a possibility in the future, not something he should be thinking about right now.

"Shepard. That's a house." Emiya noted.

Shepard hummed at that, not bothering to answer.

"Shepard—" Emiya said, but then had to hold on as Shepard only stepped on the gas and accelerated.

They blew right through the small two floor wooden house, that exploded into bits of rotten wood and plaster, as she cruised onwards.

"Hah, knew it. Cardboard houses, hehehe."

Emiya turned to look at her, before thinking better of complaining. She would only take it as _encouragement_.

"Heads up, new contact 4 o'clock." Emiya noted as he noticed the approaching car. As expected, with their location being known, even taking a shortcut through concealment wouldn't be enough for them to disappear. And it appeared more personnel had come to find them, which promised nothing good.

"New? So there's three now?" Shepard frowned, before shaking her head.

"Yeah, the two cars from before coming in from 8 and 10. They're boxing us in."

"Shit, there's a another one coming at us from behind, too." Shepard cursed, looking at the rear-view mirror and noting someone had been determined enough to follow in her tracks after all. "Good thing we're there. Four would be a little bit tough to keep running from."

"Just a little?" Emiya asked, with amusement plain in his voice. Shepard shrugged with a grin, as if stating that she stood by her words.

She frowned, eyeing their destination ahead. She turned around to look at him and then said, "Alright, this is gonna a bit rough, so hold on."

Emiya collapsed the sniper rifle and put it back on his back as he jumped to sit down and get himself secured. He wasn't sure what she was planning, but given her usual driving and the fact that she had thought to warn, he was sure it would be really something.

She slammed down the pedal to the metal, downshifting at the same time and the feeling of sudden acceleration was undeniable as suddenly his back was glued to the seat. The engine roared, the RPM rising as the velocity increase and the torque it needed to exert on the ground evened out. The car continued to accelerate, reaching higher and higher speeds until it capped out in the highest gear. Then, she took a small turn left followed by a sharp right as she slammed all the brakes. In effect, the car was suddenly skidding sideways towards their destination in a complete drift.

_She really was practicing drifting the whole time, wasn't she!_ Emiya realized with a start as he held on.

The building looked like an old high-rise hotel; the fancy double doors and with even the lowest windows way above head height, it would have intimidated and impressed most anyone who had never stayed at such a place before. Even the passage of time hadn't robbed the entrance of that.

Too bad Shepard didn't care one whit; she wanted to ram the car right into those doors.

The impact with the double doors was like a thunder-strike from clear skies. The two tonne APC rammed itself halfway through the door, causing it to be embedded into the building as the entire front of the building shook. At least one nearby window shattered on impact.

Emiya shook his head, getting his bearing. His right ear was ringing slightly, but he ignored it. They had slowed down considerably with the drift and the armor had held up against the impact; he should be fine. Additionally, the 360 degree impact suspension system he had read about seemed to be working just fine.

"What a terrific all terrain vehicle..." Emiya muttered, getting his belt off and trying the door and found it jammed from the crash against the wall. He guessed at a glance that pulling out the car would require several hours of work and tools no one present should have.

Well, not that he wanted to open the door anyhow as it lead to the outside. They wanted _in._ But at least this would mean no one on the outside should be able to open it either.

"Yeah, I so _want_ one of these." Shepard answered a second later as she shook her head as well. "Everything okay?"

"Peachy. Door's jammed, try your window."

Shepard reached over and put a finger onto the automatic window roller. It went down without any problems, causing her to make a noise of pleased surprise even as dust came loose and got into her nose as a result. She sneezed twice, getting her seatbelts off. Getting herself free, she jumped out through the window and rolled onto the floor inside.

Emiya followed suit a second later as she had taken a knee and drawn her assault rifle to scan the perimeter of the hotel lobby.

"We're inside." She sounded almost surprised that her maneuver had worked. Emiya wisely chose to ignore that as he dusted himself off. He looked around, finding the inside just as empty as every other building around here.

"Right, and with this the front entrance is mostly blocked. Unless they can open the windows and crawl through, this way is blocked." Emiya said, looking around. "Let's get up top."

Shepard nodded, taking point as she ran forward. They didn't have time to clear the building safely, as those four APCs outside would not simply disappear anywhere. Time was of the essence, so they simply ran. Emiya reached over his shoulder and grabbed his assault rifle, following her five strides behind as she headed for the stairway.

Being a part of the inner city, this building had been relatively sheltered from the elements and encroaching jungle. Thus, it remained in mostly recognizable condition. The stairways were a bleak and miserable thing, as the building had used to run mostly on elevators, leaving the stairs as a fire exit for the most part. That was normal; few people wanted to go up and down dozens of floors by stair every day.

Emiya's eyes scanned doorways and offices through broken and battered doors as they continued ascending, one floor at a time.

Outside it was still light, even as the sun had begun to slowly dip. But inside, where no window let the natural light through and the electrical systems had long since deteriorated away, it was pitch-black.

They ran in the lights of their omnitools, panting as they made up floor after floor. Emiya kept count, and they made it all the way to the 35th floor before Shepard began to slow down. By the 40th, both had to slow down and they stopped to rest and drink. Quietly, they listened and stared down the stairway, trying to see if anyone was making pursuit on foot.

"How tall is this place, anyway?" Shepard asked as she begun to get up again, whispering quietly as they rested without their omnitools' lights.

"45 floors, on paper. In practice the rooftop is at about where a 50th floor would be." Emiya answered, equally quietly.

"That's pretty high up."

"...It is. You can usually see pretty far away from the top." Emiya spoke. He had never been particularly afraid or enthusiastic about heights, but as a magus there was a certain strength in being able to handle them.

He had often relied on superior vantage points before, especially given how he preferred to fight.

"You've been to the top of one before?" Shepard asked, raising her voice as her curiosity and surprise took over. She had only ever seen them from the distance; those structures sparkling in the horizon. They had never been a part of her world.

Emiya blinked, realizing it might not fit his cover story as an urchin to have visited such a place after all. He frowned, thankful that the darkness concealed his face and gave him an additional second of time to think.

But hadn't he been doing that for a while now?

Revealing things that didn't fit who he was? As a team of fresh E6's, they should have simply been desperately running away, yet he had done quite a bit more. It started with the sniper; his reaction more instinctive than anything else during that encounter.

But since that point, he had simply gone with the flow. He had felt like he had gone back in time, back to those days before everything. Before he had struck a bargain with an omniscient alien quantum-supercomputer in the sky. But gone was the desperate tension and struggle; leaving behind but the exhilaration and excitement.

"...Yeah. Security tended to be pretty tough." He finally said, composing himself.

Why was he putting in all this effort? Even more so making it seem like wasn't something more than he was. It was entirely unnecessary for the mission he had been given. But this had never been about some mission, had it? Not this... This thing he had allowed to grow, between himself and Shepard. This _friendship_.

"Hah, I can imagine. I can't wait to see it." She replied.

He felt an urge to correct her that they wouldn't be going on the roof, as shooting from one of the top floors would be enough and would give more concealment. He hadn't gone on the roof on either of the two other buildings when he had staked out the water tower, either.

But he hesitated. It wasn't like the other forces had air superiority and there wasn't anything really to be lost by going all the way to the roof, either.

Emiya got up, shaking his head. "Let's keep going. We've rested long enough."

"Yeah, lead the way, Emiya." She cheerfully replied, getting up and turning on her omnitool's light at a much lower radiance than before as she moved to follow after him.

"And remember to keep one eye closed even when we get outside." Emiya noted.

"For dark vision, right? You got it." Even in the dark, her grin seemed impossible to miss.

* * *

;

* * *

"Whoa..." Shepard dropped her rifle to her side, her arms hanging as she gasped.

A strong wind blew, messing up her hair and blowing it in her face, forcing her to close her eyes as she braced for support. But as she opened her eyes again, her expression of wonder and amazement had only doubled in potency.

_It's fine,_ Emiya thought as he walked out after her, looking back down through the stairs they had walked up. He looked around, taking in what he was surrounded by. On the roof, there were old air conditioning units, electrical transformer boxes, a relatively large water tank along with the small access-way to the top floor they had used to come up with.

_Yeah, it's fine. The stairs present a better defensible point than one of the rooms on the top floor would anyhow._ He told himself as he inhaled.

"You haven't even seen the view yet. Go closer to the edge so you can see down. Be careful you don't fall, thought." Emiya snarked as he walked past the still form of Shepard. She blinked, realizing she could only see the horizon past the edge of the roof from where she stood.

If she got closer, she could see the entire city around them; see everywhere where they had tread this whole day far below her.

She ran up to the edge, getting lower as she got closer until she was almost crawling as she made it to the edge. On all fours, to keep her low enough that a sudden wind wouldn't knock her over and to keep from leaning to far over the edge, she looked down.

"Whooaaa... It's so far away..." She whispered as she peered down at the three APCs parked outside the building. For a moment, she considered spitting down, but then thought better of it. She crawled back away from the edge, breathing in deeply through her nose and mouth.

She smacked her tongue, as if tasting the air and finding it slightly odd.

"Yeah, it's a little bit different." Emiya said. It had taken them three minutes to get to the roof, a rather impressive time all things considered. They still had some time, but honestly the schedule was beginning to grow a bit tight.

Yet he didn't have the heart to tell Shepard that she needed to get focused again. The expression on her face as she stared around them, drinking in the sights near and far, measuring the jungles and mountains with her palms and fingers as reference, reaching out upwards to the setting sun as if she could grasp it...

Somehow he felt it would be improper to break her out of this moment.

Instead, he began to set up the sniper rifle. It didn't come with a bipod, so instead he used an old pipe to support the bottom of the barrel as he began to settle down. He didn't go right to the edge of the building, rather he set up about five meters away from it. It gave him a perfect view of the water tower ahead, without leaving him at the mercy of the winds swirling upwards near the edge.

He inhaled, eyeing the target.

Even from here, it was impossible to see the rooftop, thus this remained a blind shot. He considered using magical energy to Reinforce his eyes; it would be a minute thing, hardly more than a blip of body temperature on the records...

But no.

That was the line he had drawn. He admitted that this had been fun. He admitted that he enjoyed working together with someone again like this. He admitted that he might have been letting loose within the limits of human ability. But that was all. He might have given it his all when it came to planning ahead.

But he would not use magecraft.

He exhaled. His heartbeat already calming down considerably from the run up the stairs. His hands were shaking a little bit from all the running, but it would pass in another ten seconds as he calmed down. Though nominally the _aim assist_ program would handle any and all corrections necessary, it was an old habit to calm down. And it would still help.

The stabler the platform, the better the shot.

"...Do you think it's really there?" Shepard asked, walking up to him.

"Only one way to find out."

She didn't say anything to that, simply standing by silently as he continued to try and find the optimal position to fire from. The problem was the lack of a bipod support and the slightly different weight of the sniper rifle compared to what he had used before.

It wouldn't be as stable, he knew. Usually the mass effect field generator inside would compensate by making the weapon heavier on the moment of firing to let the increased mass absorb the recoil. But he suspected that Cassani would draw upon the energy used for that stabilization to power up the shot, since he needed all the juice he could get.

They were a long ways off from the water tower, after all.

He wasn't sure how it would behave when he fired it and he needed it to be as stable as possible. He would only be pulling the trigger really, mostly just keeping it stable as the program Cassani was working on would fire each and every shot based on the calculations and script he wrote.

Emiya's job was to keep the sniper rifle from moving, to ensure that the spread would cover the entire width of the water tower's top. Not the entire top, of course, only the flattened area near the access hatch.

That was what they had agreed upon and if it did not work, then it couldn't be helped. Yet still, Shepard seemed hesitant. She had asked him to do this, hoping it would be enough to let her apply for the N-line special forces.

Yet if this failed—or even in the case of success—and they came late to the RV, it would backfire on him more than her, or so she thought. If she did not get into the special forces, all that reasonably remained to her were the marines who took anyone who was willing to join and could keep up.

But he had performed above the mean across the board. He could apply for _anything_ , as long as they got to the RV. She wondered what he was thinking about, having accepted her request even as time continued to run short.

Then again, even in her wildest dreams she would never have considered that Emiya was planning to head to Mars.

"Six more minutes and then we leave." Emiya announced, looking at his omnitool.

"Yeah. I understand." Shepard replied.

His tone hadn't been apologetic or pitying. Merely a statement of fact. And she hadn't let her trepidation color her own voice either. Even if nothing came of this, she would always remember that he had been willing to go out of his way for her.

"You should go back to the stairs." Emiya said, looking up at her.

"Huh?" She blinked.

"Here, take this, too." Emiya took his assault rifle and hand it to her and she received it with a nod.

"You think we might be followed all the way up here?" She asked, turning serious.

"We certainly did aggravate them enough to assume that, yes. The stairs should be a good choke point. Keep it and we can stay here for as long as we want to." He said, nodding to her.

"Got it." With that, she jogged to the stairway and took position, going prone herself as well. With the low penetrative power of mass accelerator weapons, especially now in their dialed down settings, she could rely on the thick concrete to offer cover for a while at least.

Emiya took another deep breath, centering himself. He exhaled fully, until his natural respiratory pause between the exhale and inhale came and there he centered the scope's aim on the water tower. With the aim centered, he could even close his eyes and get the shot roughly right if it came to it. Now it all came down to whether or not Cassani would pull through.

A minute passed, with only the wind to keep them company.

Another minute passed and slowly Emiya could feel that Shepard was beginning to grow worried. She kept looking his way, her index finger tapping the side of the rifle.

Five minutes passed and Emiya sighed.

He had given himself limitations which he refused to budge on. If it wasn't meant to be then it couldn't be helped. Already, they had accomplished a fair bit. Who knew, perhaps she would have what it takes to get to the special forces as it was.

" _...One more minute, yeah?_ " Shepard asked. There was a tone of pleading to it. Not quite asking him to extend the timeline; she understood that one well enough. Rather, she was hoping for Cassani to make it in time. She probably wanted to comm him and ask him what was taking so long, yet knew that it would only be a bother.

"Yeah." Emiya answered after a moment.

Forty seconds left.

Finally. Something happened.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

" _Contact stairs!_ " Shepard reported and a second later the sound of rapid gunfire followed. It started out as a lone assault rifle, but soon a shotgun echoed alongside it and then there were three other guns until it was nothing but a cacophony of conflict and ricocheting bullets.

"How many?" Emiya asked, not getting up. Shepard would handle the lone way onto the roof; the choke point was a good enough defensible location for her to handle alone. He had his own role to play and leaving it to go support Shepard would only anger her, he figured.

But he still needed to know, as they would also have to fight their way down from the roof.

" _Got one, he's down at the bottom of the stairs. Saw another three, I think. I can hold them pinned indefinitely. I got this!_ " She sounded confident, projecting the thought that she didn't need any help, that he should stay right there, with each word.

"Got it."

Emiya waited, ignoring the fight behind him as he stared at the water tower in the distance through the scope. The sound of gunfire waxed and waned, until a grenade went off somewhere behind him.

" _No problem! I've it under control!_ " Shepard shouted at him so loudly he could hear it in stereo through both the comms and from the distance.

He inhaled slowly. Thirty seconds left—

" _Emiya! I got it! Sending it now!_ " Cassani shouted and a second later the updated firing algorithms pinged into his omnitool.

His fingers danced, updating the sniper rifle's aim to function as they needed.

"Chief, by now you should know what we're doing, so if I'm about to shoot someone you better be pulling the plug now." Emiya said as he worked, hoping that the Gunnery Chief was listening.

It took an agonizing three seconds for the program to finish downloading and the rifle to reboot with the new operative parameters. Emiya exhaled, riding the breath down until the respiratory pause. He pulled the trigger—

— **BOOOMM!**

The roar of the sniper rifle drowned out everything they had heard until now and for a moment Emiya could hear that the firefight in the stairs came to a complete halt as all parties involved stopped to listen to the sound.

After all, a _big gun_ had just gone off. Everyone wanted to make sure they hadn't suddenly received an unexpected and new ventilation hole. As they realized none of them had been hit, they continued to slowly resume their fighting.

Emiya inhaled, keeping himself steady as the sniper rifle cycled. The cooldown was extended to three seconds due to various changes to the firing algorithms. He eyed through them as he waited, the script up on his omnitool.

For one, the shaving size had been quadrupled to increase the bullet's weight.

A rather unusual decision but one that he supposed made sense. As that would shorten the distance the bullet flew, in effect it would make the arc of the bullet greater at this range. If they kept the normal shaving size, the smaller bullet would be much easier to propel that distance. But it would want to remain in a flat trajectory, since its maximum range would be much further.

But there did not exist a straight path from here to the water tower's rooftop. He needed an arc.

Of course, they could have simply powered down the railgun so that the maximum range shortened with the smaller bullet, giving them the arc. But that would affect the penetrative power of the bullet. If it did hit something with that lighter round, it might just bounce off.

Thus to have enough power to make a difference on the target, they simply had to scale up everything. Make a bigger bullet and then increase the charge of the railgun to match the new bullet, to get the arc they needed.

Which meant that both a heavier round and a more powerful charge to propel the round. Which meant a massive drain on the batteries.

The HUD was already beeping at him that there was only enough juice left for six more shots at this rate. It would be enough to cover the entire width of the section of rooftop on the water tower, Cassani had calculated.

Except for one mistake, Emiya noticed.

_He forgot to adjust for the Coriolis effect; the air pressure, temperature and angle calculations are all on point._ He thought as he read through the scripted file through his omnitool while waiting for the cooldown to complete. _The shots are a little bit too much to the left due to not accounting for the spin of the planet, which means if the relay was pushed all the way to the right on the rooftop, it will be not be hit even if I fire all seven shots._

Not that he would have known how to account for it or had the time to send it back; he could only read the script and gleam at the workings Cassani had wrought. He had to roll the dice, that's all there was to it.

_If I use the pistol's battery, I can get one additional shot_. The thought came unbidden. He shook his head.

Emiya began to exhale. There were many ways to breathe when shooting, but he had found that certain methods worked best for him. The ironic thing was, that for his various long-range weapons he had had to learn wildly different breathing methods.

For the _yumi_ -bow in kyudo it was taught that breathing with your chest or worse yet shoulders led to poor shooting and that to learn proper form one had to breathe into the belly.

" _Breathe in a circle. Belly breath is healthy. Chest breath is ordinary. Shoulder breath is sick. In the beginning, if you forget about focusing on your breath, you will easily lose concentration. Always keep your breath in center._ " spoke the 20th century zen master of kyudo, Awa Kenzo."

In many forms of ancient breathing technique, the belly breath's virtues had often been praised and extolled to high heavens. And thus it followed that it was used in kyudo as well; one should expand without pause until the moment of release, so that the entire body loosed the arrow as one. As your sides expand, so too was the string pulled away from the belly of the bow. Not merely the muscles and limbs, but the very skin and internal organs ought to expand to their maximum capacity just like the bow that has been drawn to a full moon.

One released as a whole, the whole as one.

With each of the eight steps you inhaled at the beginning and exhaled at the finish; infinitely expanding with both inhale and exhale, as if becoming one with the world around you. The border between the self and the outside becomes dim, as if made out of mist until they are one and the same.

The archer and bow become one and in the moment of release one releases a kiai from the full inhale— _the image of the draw and the arrow-line so perfectly visualized that it cannot be anything other than reality_ —causing the arrow to have already pierced the target without fail, before it catches flight.

However unlike archery, when it came to guns this technique proved to be completely wrong.

He exhaled, riding the breath all the way down until his lungs were fully deflated, he reached the respiratory pause and waited a fraction of a second. And in between heartbeats, he pulled the trigger for the second time.

— **BOOOMM!**

_Five more shots_ , Emiya thought glancing at the HUD for the mission parameters. Nothing so far, probably meaning he hadn't hit anything. Hopefully that also meant he hadn't hit _someone_ , either. At the very least, nothing was on the maps behind the hill beyond untold miles of dense jungle.

But you never knew.

Certainly with short range encounters, it did not matter as much how you breathed. But as he began to try and learn how to shoot at longer and longer ranges with guns he came to realize that what the bow had taught him was nearly worthless for the rifle.

The three main techniques he had learned for breathing with firearms was to _inhale and fire at half-capacity_ , to _exhale and fire at the pause_ and finally to _exhale fully and to fire at the pause_. In each technique, the natural respiratory pause between breaths was crucial.

Only at the moment of stillness between changing from inhale to exhale—or from exhale to inhale—was to body completely still. But between these three techniques, only one worked at the ranges he would need to fire at. With a pistol or the assault rifle, any of the three was fine or even shooting without minding one's breathing.

But with a sniper rifle, where the smallest change could cause massive variance at the other end, it _mattered_.

Of the three techniques, only the last technique could bring him the reliable stability necessary for these shots; as you inhaled and exhaled, you rarely found the exact same lung volume with two separate breaths. This meant that as your rifle's butt rested on your shoulder, your aim would rise and drop.

Especially in the prone position, lying face down and steadying the rifle as you aimed for a far off target. So just as you thought you had found the target and prepared to fire, your own breathing would betray you.

Even attempting to inhale fully would not work, as the lungs were very flexible and one's ' _full capacity'_ was a very nebulous concept to reach for. No, the only reliable method he had found for shooting at long range was to exhale fully; to empty his lungs completely. And then at the short pause as his body switched from exhale to inhale, he would pull the trigger.

With the bow, one sought to become one with the world. With the rifle, it was nothing like that.

You emptied yourself of emotion and merely pulled the trigger. As you shot something, you did not become one with the rifle or the bullet. There was no need for a perfect image in one's mind of the self and the target aligning with the _arrow-line—_ the _yasuji_. It was too mechanical and too clinical compared to archery; you simply ranged in the sights, aimed and shot.

The only thing that one felt with the pull of a trigger as you killed someone was the recoil of the gun against your shoulder. _Aim with the hand, shoot with the mind, kill with a heart like arctic ice._

Shepard continued with the shooting on her end and Emiya was certain he could hear her switching to her pistol as one of the rifles overheated, even as she cycled between the guns to keep a maximal rate of fire going downrange.

Two seconds passed since his last shot and he repeated the process again as he pulled the trigger, his mind slipping into the zone of perfect performance with practiced precision.

— **BOOOMM!**

He repeated this process, again.

— **BOOOMM!**

And again.

— **BOOOMM!**

And again.

— **BOOOMM!**

And again.

— **BOOOMM!**

"Damn it." He swore as the sniper rifle dimmed completely; it's batteries so expended that even the controls had gone dark. Nothing. The objective on the HUD remained unchanged; he had hit nothing.

_Time to pack up and keep going; nothing to it. We played and didn't win, but we haven't lost yet. As long as we pull back in time, it's fine_. Emiya thought, yet he didn't get up.

He remained there, lying prone with the rifle as he stared at that water tower.

_One more shot_. _I could make it with one more shot._ The traitorous thought bubbled up. _There's still that one spot in the right-most corner. If something is there..._

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The pistol on his hip seemed to grow heavy and hot against his skin, even through the hardsuit. He could still take that battery and use its charge for one more shot; the relay could still be on the roof, with the error in firing calculation it could still be there.

He could still take that last shot.

But that was the sunk cost fallacy talking, a cold part of his mind noted. The irrational belief that because you have already invested so much into a failing endeavor that you are bound to gain something in return if you keep going; the belief that those losses accrued had to be patched over with a victory.

He was already down the sniper rifle; the most potent weapon in their arsenal. He would only continue to pile up losses if he kept this up. Would he be satisfied with the pistol? Or would he go over to Shepard and ask for one of her guns?

Or would he think of draining his suit, next? Surely, he could get back to the RV without getting shot once; that was the kind of arrogance this weakness would lead to.

_This immaturity... Nothing has changed, has it? Not satisfied with any result that ends in loss? That is exactly the weak and childish stubbornness that caused my life to end the way it did!_

He felt his blood running hot again, any and all cold calculation from the moments before disappeared as if they had never been there in the first place.

Yet.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

Shepard was still fighting behind him.

"Damn it." He cursed again. He turned the comm on, "Shepard! We're extending the mission for two minutes! Hold them off!"

" _Eh? Wha-Why?!_ " She shouted back.

"Just do it!" He half-growled, pulling out the pistol and beginning to dismantle it with record speed, even for his own standards.

Because she had asked for his help.

Before, when he had gotten angry and lost control over himself he had helped her out, thinking that he was doing it for his own sake. That he was being selfish and rational, that he wasn't the same as he had been all those years ago. But that was wrong.

He hadn't changed at all. He had only gotten drunk off of his own introspection and doubts, having come to wonder whether his life had meant anything at all in the end as he sat and rusted away on the moon.

_How pathetic_.

He remembered a _smile_ , gritting his teeth.

Now, here as he stood at the precipice again, he understood that. This time, he would not even bother with the excuses.

"One shot." With all his skill and ability, without relying on anything else short of magic, he would take one shot. After that, who knew what would happen, but he would have cast the die. Not merely acting out a part, but truly investing something of himself in this.

He stared at the rifle; having hooked up the pistol's batteries to the side and moved around, his original position was lost. Even if the sniper rifle's computer hadn't shut down and had to reload the firing calculations, the position he would be firing from would be different; it wouldn't be hitting the area that was left.

The computer couldn't handle this.

No, only _he_ could do this.

Emiya took position; his eyes sharpening as he exhaled. He took aim, inhaling. Getting the correct sight picture as he turned off the auto-aim and took the controls himself; he began to exhale.

It was through combining those two techniques; of becoming one with the world and of defining oneself so clearly and distinctly, that he had risen to the levels he had. There were many heroic spirits of the bow, among whom were many masters of bow or gun. But he dared to argue that he was the only one who had mastered both.

Emiya took in the sight before him and discarded it; now it was a matter of using his mind's eye.

He _saw_ the water tower; the roof was clear except for one part, where something tall stood. He didn't know what the relay looked like, so he imagined the outline of his most common target instead. A _human body_ ; his own body correcting itself through minor movements as his mind's eye settled on piercing right through the target's heart.

He _saw_ the building he was on, on the rooftop. The image settled into his mind; the entirety of the distance between the beginning and the end, the line between them and curve that he needed to shoot through.

Exhaling to the end, he rode the breath down to the respiratory pause and pulled the trigger in the space between two heartbeats **—**

— **BOOOMM!**

A moment of silence, as the world hung in stillness. Emiya weighed his actions.

Perhaps someone would realize what an absurd shot this had been. Perhaps nothing had been on the roof after all and no one would ever know.

But he had chosen to help someone again, extending his hand out to those who sought his aid. He had thought his death had steered him clear of this path, but it was obvious now that Emiya Shirou could never distance himself from that ideal.

Emiya closed his eyes, collapsing the rifle and ripping loose the pistol battery. It didn't matter right now, he would think about it later. He got the pistol into one piece in record time, placing both of the now-dead weapons onto their respective Van der Waals-strips.

Emiya stared at the water tower, then shook his head and turned around. Running to the stairs he arrived some meters behind Shepard and then got down to all fours and crawled next to her as she was firing full auto down the stairs.

"It's done." Emiya said simply.

"Did you hit it?" Shepard asked, not looking away even as she paused firing.

"Don't know." He checked the HUD. The mission objective was still there. "It probably wasn't on the roof at all."

She remained silent at that, only nodding at his words.

"Time to go, then." She said and Emiya nodded. "But it looks like the way down is kind of blocked."

Emiya looked down, as she handed back to him his assault rifle. He couldn't see anyone. Even the one enemy who had been shot before had apparently been dragged out of the stairs' bottom.

"Hmm, got any ideas?" He asked offhandedly.

"Sure. I hope you're not afraid of heights." She said with a grin.

Another head peeked around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. As neither Emiya nor Shepard could be seen just over the edge of the top, the stranger felt brave enough to take another step out into the stairway. He took a tentative few steps, painfully slowly as he strove for complete silence.

He got two steps up, before Shepard raised the rifle over the edge and let loose a full auto hail of bullets. He barely got back into cover as his kinetic barrier 'failed' and his leg got locked down by his own suit.

Emiya huffed with amusement. "Enjoying yourself?"

"This is kind—what was that word... Oh yeah. Relaxing." She answered, not denying it one bit.

"Like shooting fish in a barrel." He huffed.

"Huh? Why would you shoot fish in a barrel?" She turned to look at him.

"Never mind."

She blinked at him, eyes turning suspicious for a moment before she shrugged. "Well, whatever. I had some time to think while you were over there. When I looked down over the edge, I saw that the floor below had some kind of... Platform? Next to the windows. Getting up to the roof from there would be crazy, but dropping down should work, right?"

"You mean a windowsill?" Emiya asked, frowning. He could see it working, but without rope it seemed like a rather risky maneuver. The roof hung outwards, over the windowsills easily a meter or so, from what he remembered.

"That thing has a name?" Shepard seemed surprised by that, more than his complete lack of reaction at her telling him to dangle off the side of a 50-story building.

Emiya shook his head at her. "Fine, I'll get right on it. You stay here and keep them distracted. I'll comm you down once I'm done."

She gave him a thumbs up and a grin as he crawled away, now with rifle in hand. Once he was far enough away that a stray bullet would not reasonably clip him, he got up and jogged to the edge of the building. Like Shepard before, he got down on all four and then crawled to the edge of the roof and looked down.

Indeed, there was a windowsill that could easily support someone standing there, but it was at least a 2 meter drop and it was at an angle inward. You couldn't simply hang on the ledge and then let go; that way lay only a sheer drop of a hundred plus some meters.

"Sheesh." He complained, putting the rifle onto his back and shaking his head. It was a crazy plan, but it might just work. Just like how he usually did things, really. He must have been rubbing off on her, or was this her idea of a joke?

No matter.

He inched backwards, feeling nothing underneath his toes. Then his knees. Then his entire lower body down from the waist, bending down as his stomach rested on the edge while his hands kept him from sliding down. The wild winds blew at his hanging limbs, but he didn't let it bother him.

Finally, he let himself be pulled by gravity so that his elbows held on at the edge, and then just his hands. He hung by only his fingers, then.

Emiya looked down, feeling his entire body hanging freely. Beneath him, he could see a hundred meter drop. It would be a painless death, if nothing else. Just a freefall followed by a sudden _splash_ at the bottom. _Enough of that_ , he thought as he began to swing his legs back and forth.

Not so much that he would lose his grip, but enough that he began to swing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like a pendulum, he built up speed until he felt he had enough and he let go.

For a moment, he was completely in the air, holding onto nothing as the windowsill approached beneath him and then he landed, completely safe against the wall. He inhaled and moved his body flush against the wall.

Not bothering to look down, he moved sideways, shimmying his way until he reached a window. It was still in one piece, despite the passing of time and the beating of the winds this high up. He tried to open it, but found it stuck.

_Well, this complicates things_ , Emiya thought. He would have to break the glass to get inside, but that would probably alarm everyone inside. Then again, perhaps it was far away enough that no one would notice.

No, he would still need some covering noise.

"Shepard, come in."

" _You already done? Sheesh, I didn't even hear anything._ "

Emiya huffed in amusement. "I'm flattered that you think so highly of me, but no. I need you to take both of your guns and make some noise." _Better not to tell her; they could be monitoring the comms_. Emiya thought.

" _Gotcha, Shepard out!_ "

And a mere second later the cacophony of gunfire began. Not merely content with the sound of guns firing, she was shouting obscenities and insults while aiming at the loudest bits of wall she could see.

He could hear it all the way down here. It would do perfectly.

Emiya backhanded the window with a single finger held slightly out, extending the second knuckle of his middle finger like a ball point hammer. The window made a light clatter, cracks extending all the way to the edges.

Pushing in the bits, they made a little bit more sound, but hardly enough to warrant notice. He crawled in through the new entrance and drew his assault rifle. "Alright Shepard, thanks."

At once the cacophony ended.

Emiya sneaked forward, towards the door of the room as he looked around. This must have once been a penthouse suite, sold at a premium, given how large the room was. Right now, it was simply another barren room with nothing inside. He found it slightly amusing that even the full floor carpets had been ripped and taken away, whenever it was that this place had been closed down.

He came to a door and slowly opened it as he kept his rifle raised and ready. But nothing greeted him in the next room. He kept moving through the dark and dusty room until he made it to the front door that would lead into the hallway of the top floor.

Emiya looked through the peephole, leaning left and right as he searched for anything beyond the door. But it was too dark for anything to be visible. It was possible that the people who had chased them here had left or that they had some form of night vision gear, to explain the darkness.

He tried to recall the layout, but they had simply gone through this floor without memorizing it first, so he couldn't really tell where he was in relation to the stairway to the roof beyond a general direction.

Pulling back, he pressed an ear against the surface of the door, closing his eyes as he listened.

He could hear something, but couldn't put a finger on exactly what. It could have simply been Shepard shooting, given how far away and isolated he was. _And this right here is where I would use Structural Analysis for the entire floorplan and move to take them out, one by one by shooting their legs through the walls._

Hell, with Structural Analysis telling him where something was pressing down on the floor, he could tell exactly where people's legs were. Emiya shook his head at his own complaints, letting that line of thought go.

Reaching for the door-handle, he slowly and quietly opened the door. The hinges had long since dried out, making a loud creak as he turned the door, but he compensated by simply going slowly enough that the noise remained at acceptable levels.

For safety's sake, he was crouching down by the floor and using his extended hand to push open the door, staying as far away from it as possible. If anyone saw the door being opened, they would try and shoot through it or next to it by the wall at a person's height after all.

Keeping the muzzle well away from the widening crack into the hallway, Emiya slowly _sliced the pie_ as he kept his eyes and ears peeled for anything. Though it was tempting to come closer to the door for a better view, he needed to be far away enough that no one could simply grab him and drag him out by his rifle or his hand.

Slicing the pie refereed to a standard corner clearing technique, which was used when faced with a situation where you did not know what lay behind a corner. You could not simply jump out with guns blazing. If you did that, someone in wait would have more time to react and shoot you. Which meant that you moved sideways slowly, taking an inch at a time and making sure to remain in cover for as long as possible. This way, you could with relative safety try and see if anyone was lying in wait.

The name came from the way one usually sliced a round pie; taking small slices at a time that were easier to digest. There were many techniques for clearing corners in modern combat and all of them had their upsides and downsides, but this wan was a rather simple and quick one.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was only ten seconds in reality, the door was ajar enough to let him walk through. He passed through into the absolute darkness of the hallway, moving forward like a ghost as he assumed a 'lower' high ready with the rifle. At these ranges, you didn't need the sights as simply aiming from the 'hip' would do almost as well.

It was a technique breaching teams often trained to master; running and gunning while keeping most of your vision unobstructed and simply aiming by hand-eye coordination. Additionally, he couldn't even _see_ the sights right now.

Well, not with his right eye anyhow. His left had been kept closed ever since before he had gotten to the roof. Even with evening approaching, the light outside relative to inside was blinding and his eye was struggling to adapt to the darkness.

Additionally, the HUD wasn't exactly helping, given how bright the various feedback systems and statistics were. The radar alone was blotting out most of his vision in the lower corner. _Isn't there some kind of brightness adjustment, or perhaps even an automatic program for that?_

It was a pity that he did not have a low-light vision enhancing program in his omnitool or suit, as it would have proved most handy in a situation like this. Or he could have simply Reinforced his eyes. But really, he didn't need it. He had come prepared, after all.

He glanced at the radar one more time, making sure nothing was there, before taking out his omnitool. The dull glow could have revealed him around the corner, so he moved several meters away and facing away so his back would blot out most of the light, before turning it on.

_So there was a setting for brightness,_ Emiya observed as he looked through the settings. But for now, he wanted it _all_ off. His HUD disappeared entirely, leaving him only to watch through the mundane visor of his helmet.

With all the sources of light gone, Emiya inhaled and opened his left eye.

Acquiring a natural perfect dark vision took a long while, though within ten minutes of darkness the eyes already acquired most of its potential. But for the full human potential dark vision, it was necessary to keep the eye in darkness for hours without any light sources to disturb it.

His left eye had been allowed to adjust to the dark stairway on the way up and had been held closed while on the roof. That gave it plenty of time for him to adjust.

Suddenly, the seemingly absolute darkness of the hallway disappeared, as his left eye could see light pooling in from beneath the cracks between the various hotel room doors and the floor. With the removal of the carpet, it had created enough of a space for light to pool through.

_I wonder if the gene therapy-pack includes something in that regard?_ Emiya wondered as he looked around, closing his right eye for short moments to let his left eye get used to looking again. He had told Shepard to keep one eye closed before they came up for a reason, just as he had kept his own left eye closed while on the roof.

The dissonance between the darkness his right eye reported and the relative visibility his left was certain of was always slightly strange, but he got used to it quickly enough. For now, he would simply keep the right eye closed and just use his left eye.

He came back to the corner and kneeled down, listening for a second before peeking around it.

Seven men were up ahead at the other end, all crouching by the entrance to the rooftop though far enough away that they weren't in danger of being hit by Shepard or in the range of any potential grenades. No, there was one more, lying on the ground. Probably the one Shepard had gotten at the beginning.

_Rustling and silent whispers; no lights_. _They must have either adapted to the darkness like I have or used a vision-enhancer or scope of some kind_. He observed.

Emiya quietly leaned back, listening intently to make sure his head hadn't been spotted when he had peeked around. Nothing. The whispers continued, but did not change in pitch or frequency enough to suggest alarm or surprise. Of course, if these guys were good, they could have had a sign language or Morse-by-tapping form of communication for situations like this.

He knew he had used such often enough.

Emiya pulled back away from the corner and faced away like before, switching to his right eye again as he turned on the omnitool; it's orange light almost searing in its brightness. _For the love of... Don't they think about low-visibility ops at all? Light discipline is one of the most vital aspects of a night raid._

If he had looked at it with his left eye, he would have lost all his night vision instantly. He grumbled some more under his breath.

Perhaps it was simply due to the prevalence of radar technology and barriers which negated the brunt of an attack, allowing soldiers to survive an ambush long enough to find cover and to recover their shields again. Even here, were he probably another five or ten meters closer their radars would surely be within range of each other.

Still, it seemed like a glaring weakness to him. One that he would be more than happy to abuse the hell out.

"Shepard, stay quiet and count of thirty and then come down, expect hostiles, out." Emiya whispered and then closed the comm-line before she could reply. He took off the omnitool and fiddled with the settings; as there was one program he _had_ downloaded for it, for just this kind of situation.

Technically it was called the _party-light app_ , but he had found it useful enough for his purposes anyhow.

He turned back to the corner and counted in his head. In rhythm with the twenty count, he performed a single set of box breathing. He didn't need it per se to calm down, but it had always been a habit he had had before thrusting himself into the thick of things.

Fifteen. _Time to go_.

Emiya reared back the hand and threw his omnitool with all he had, the wrist-computer hitting the hard floor with one, two, three sounds of impact as it skipped and slid almost all the way to the people across the hallway. _Heh, wouldn't have gotten it that far if the carpet was still here_.

Then, the flashlight turned on at maximum brightness, lighting up the entire hallway instantly.

"Gah!" A shout could be heard as someone must have been looking right at the sudden object thrown at them. Emiya leaned out again as he fell on his right shoulder so that his rifle and head just barely broke the edge of the corner, keeping most of his body hidden behind the wall as he took aim.

His right eye was open, taking in the brightness with only some mild discomfort as his left eye remained closed. He aimed, lining up the sights and then pulled the trigger.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

The automatic fire took them all by surprise as the confined area turned the loud staccato into something truly stunning in its loudness. As they scrambled for cover and to return fire, Emiya changed targets as the one he had been aiming at stiffened and fell over. _Three, two..._ Closing both of his eyes, he continue counting in his head. _One_...

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

The omnitool went into overdrive; no longer a single bright light illuminating the hallway, it turned into a spastic discotheque of flashing lights, bright enough to momentarily blind and bedazzle someone but not long enough to let anyone get used to it.

The flashlight on the omnitool wasn't strong enough to actually blind someone like a flashbang. But like this, when they had gotten used to the darkness or were relying on light enhancing optics, it would still be stunning for a moment. Which was why he had been prepared and had closed his eyes.

Even without sight, he could still aim as he remembered where they had roughly been. And the corridor presented a rather small area where he could aim, anyhow.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

Any and all dark vision they had built up until now would be completely gone. Even if they had some form of vision enhancers, it would not protect them much from the overload of light. Even at this distance Emiya could vaguely see it through his eyelids as he kept firing.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

Three seconds later, it all stopped. Emiya opened his eyes and aimed again. Most of his firing had missed as most of the enemies had thrown themselves to the floor. But that was fine, he took aim in the darkness again, his eyes mostly still able to see.

He took aim again, aiming at one enemy trying to get up to get to cover— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

The man stumbled and fell, leaving Emiya to count the amount of 'slain' opponents. One, two, three, four, were lying motionlessly on the floor. _That leaves at least four more._

He sat up, getting to his feet and away from the corner. First he would check the other end of the hallway he was in, as any proactive soldier would be flanking right about now to get at him from behind. Emiya ignored the second, timed light show behind him as he ran away from the corner with the gun held at the high ready.

The omnitool would perform the flashing twice and then stop, with the five second pause in between where Emiya had shot down the man before. The pause was timed long enough to make someone fall in a sense of false confidence and open their eyes, thinking they had just weathered through a grenade.

A rather positive side to smart 'grenades', he found. Really it was supposed to be hooked up to a song, where the lights would sync with the beat, but he had gotten it to work like he wanted one lazy afternoon some weeks ago.

He ran fifteen steps, arriving at the opposite corner and began to slice the pie slowly. Now, given he had had time to look around some more, he had come to the conclusion that the hotel's top floor was designed such that the hallway formed a single simple rectangle, with doors both on the inside and outside facing walls.

Presumably the outwards facing ones were suites and the inwards facing ones were storage closets or smaller rooms, since they lacked windows. If his opponents had come in with a larger force, each door would represent an incredible risk to cross without first clearing, as behind any door countless guns could be just waiting to spring on your open back.

Urban combat was a meat grinder in modern doctrine, for this simple reason.

If one ran a full circuit, he would come around to where he had begun. But here, given that the enemies had taken position on one side and he on the opposite side, it had turned into a strange stalemate.

Emiya peeked around and saw the hallway that ran parallel to the one he had been shooting down not moments before. He weighed what to do; to run down and attempt a flank; to stay and wait for someone to try and flank; to run back and check that no one was advancing down the other side?

If one simply left the cover of the corner and moved forward, they would leave themselves wholly open and vulnerable to being shot down from the corner ahead, but if one tried to simply guard the hallway hoping for someone to try and cross, that left one at risk for being flanked.

In a rectangle, one had to keep two corners to retain cover. A game of _chicken_ and _turtle_ , in other words. Stay and hope they don't flank, or flank and hope they're on the other end and not waiting for you down the hall on the end you're at.

This was the point where game theorists and strategists would sink deep into mind games, ploys and counter-ploys. But Emiya had counted four probable enemies still up and moving, which meant that no matter how he sliced it, he was at an absolute disadvantage. They could cover and cross both hallways at the same time and the moment they knew where he was the opposite side could rush down for a flank.

Which is why he never played these games by the rules.

Normally, he would either trace back his steps and flank outside, go down another floor and shoot up through the floor or then simply force his way through by tanking the bullets with a projection or another.

Of course, now was no different, even if he didn't have most of his tricks to use.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

A rifle went off at the other end and he surged forward like a coiled spring, breaking through to the other end in a scant two seconds as he jumped to slide on the floor around the corner, below where he might be expected. He grinned, as he was greeted by the two enemies' backs, facing away from him as they were busy trying to return fire at Shepard who had just descended from the roof.

Some of the four had already fallen down, obviously having suffered a shot to the back by Shepard before Emiya had made it there.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

He put both down, their weakened kinetic barriers falling near instantly as he pulled the trigger. Both fell over stiffly and he scanned the hallway for the two others, only to spot them already down by the other side of the hallway, right where he had predicted they would be.

They had played a game of two choke points with four against one. He had been playing three choke points with four against two and made them forget about the first choke point just long enough for Shepard to do her magic.

He got up, dusting his shoulder and side from the dust on the floor. He grimaced at the scrapes he had gotten from the floor, but then put it out of his mind. It could be fixed later.

"Ho, there!" Shepard greeted him, peeking from the stairway.

"Hi, yourself." Emiya said, walking over the two men he had shot.

She grinned in response, looking around and peering into the darkness and gently kicking at fallen soldiers who grumbled up at her behavior. As Emiya stopped in front of her, she whistled at him, obviously impressed.

"Nice work." She said, pronouncing the word closer to ' _noise_ ' for emphasis for some strange reason.

"They didn't account for the both of us, it seems." Emiya said, shrugging. He kneeled down and began to fiddled with a rifle, taking it apart and ripping out the battery pack.

"Uh..." One of the men lying down, able to see all this and peering at Emiya suspiciously. "I know I'm not supposed to talk, but are you _supposed_ to be fiddling with the guns?"

Emiya shrugged, smirking down at the man. "They never told me not to."

Shepard grinned at that as he pocketed the battery and moved on to grab a pistol. The soldier merely raised an eyebrow before rolling his eyes. "Riiight, whatever man. Not my ass that's gonna get roasted."

Shepard kicked him lightly, then. Not really hard, but enough to nudge him a little. "Hey, dead men don't talk, remember?"

The soldier simply rolled his eyes again as others around them muttered complaints quietly.

Emiya walked over to the hallway and picked up his discarded omnitool, disengaging the light program and strapping it back onto his wrist.

"Alright, let's go. We're running late already." Emiya said and turned for the stairs as he pocketed the pistol battery. He wouldn't have time for putting them in, but it was a good idea to at least be prepared in theory.

"Right on, lead the way." Shepard grinned and followed after him with a skip to her step.

Their footsteps echoed behind them as they left, leaving the hallway cloaked in darkness and silence again.

"Fucking hell, what do they feed the new recruits?" Someone complained, but no one had a good answer to that as the two left had already left for the stairs. "Shit, we're gonna have to be here for hours until someone picks us up, aren't we?"

And they did; they were just _casualties_ after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: The quote by Awa Kenzo is actually two, which I threw together, one after another for editing purposes; it looks better and affects the flow less that way. So technically I'm butchering quotes like a savage, but fuck it.
> 
> Also, god damn this chapter bloated into a monster! I really should have cut it into two, but I promised someone to keep this exercise only going for another two chapters
> 
> FFnet version will be up shortly as well.
> 
> Thanks to:
> 
> **Zantakio, Amphidsf and Tactical Tunic of spacebattles**
> 
> **and PseudoSteak and guest reviewer (ffnet)**
> 
> For proofreading and pointing out errors.


	8. Going down?

She moved, jumping three steps at a time.

The way up she had been tense. She hadn't known what to expect from the way down. She had expected some disappointment, but strangely enough there seemed to be none.

Perhaps she was still just being overwhelmed by all of this.

Emiya stopped, Shepard halting four steps below and ahead of him as she noticed that he wasn't following. "What is it?"

He frowned, closing his eyes as he focused on something. "Someone is coming up the stairs. More than four people, at least."

She blinked, grinning as she hefted her rifle up. "We gonna fight them? We could set up a pretty good ambush here. You take one floor up and I'll take one floor down, get them from both sides again?"

He stared at her, for just only a fraction of a second too long. That meant he was rolling around fifteen different thoughts in his mind right then. _Aaaand, ping, done!_

"Waste of time; there's probably more downstairs. Let's find another way." Emiya said, turning around as he walked back up the the 25th floor that lay just above them. He walked in through the fire access to what had once been a regular hotel floor, looking around curiously while keeping his rifle ready.

"How are we gonna do that?" Shepard asked, jogging up to him. "Wouldn't it be quicker to just fight them?"

"We need to get to the RV as soon as possible and firefights can drag on forever. It'd be like back on the roof, only this time we were the ones being stuck in a choke point."

"Well, we could just flank them again like I said? Oh, right. We could just both go that way without fighting them at all. Right, makes sense." Shepard nodded to herself. "But then why can't we just let them run past us and keep going down the stairs?"

"You're assuming that they will walk past us. That they won't check every floor quickly or with a radar. Or that they won't call more people down below to start clearing the floors from below while they work their way down to find us. Also, they'll have blocked off the bottom floor most likely." Emiya said as he kept moving.

Shepard blinked, considering that with a thoughtful hum as she followed him. She already accepted that he was mysterious like that; being unable to follow his line of thought a lot of the time, but she had resolved herself to at least keeping a watch over what he did.

_I'll figure it all out, eventually. I just need to keep up with him_ , she thought.

They walked around, looking through the doors as they moved through the dark hallway. Already the sun had sunk so low, that it was shining directly through the windows, lighting up the inside of the hotel in a reddish-orange hue.

The dust and loose gravel beneath their feet cracked and ground against the bare concrete floor, being the only audible sounds around them as they kept moving. She kicked some loose dust, watching it flowing on the floor, almost like water.

"This place is a lot less interesting on the inside." Shepard noted, looking around with a slightly dissatisfied frown.

"They must have taken all the decorations with them when they left. It would look a lot different normally." Emiya commented dryly.

"Really? Huh, figures. So what are you looking for?"

He stopped and peeked quietly around the corner as he sliced the pie again, making sure to leave as little of himself visible as he did, while Shepard kept an eye on the way behind them. Finding nothing of note ahead, he slowly began to advance again.

"The elevators. I didn't see any other stairs, so the elevators are our best shot for getting down quickly and without being noticed."

"...You think you can fix them?" She asked, sounding impressed. _It's like there's no end to what he can do._

Emiya blinked, "Err... No. Well, you'll see once we get there."

"Huh, okay." She shrugged, not at all nonplussed. She still wasn't convinced that he _couldn't_ fix the elevators, either.

They continued walking around, as with the smaller rooms there was room for more than one hallway on the floor. Finally, at the other end Emiya discovered familiar looking steel doors at the end of the hall.

He shouldered his rifle and got his fingers on the two doors. Neither budged and the buttons remained unresponsive. "Power is off, which means we'll have to open it manually."

"Right. Need a hand?" Shepard asked, patting at her bicep with one hand as a boasting gesture. With the two of them, she was sure they could pry it open.

"No. I was just testing whether the locking mechanism was still engaged. Opening it by force is a waste of time. We'll need an elevator key to disengage the lock, first." Emiya said, backing off.

"Oh, well how will we do that? I don't think we're gonna find one around here—" Shepard began to ask, but then stopped as he turned on his omnitool and with a few strokes of his fingers had begun to design a simple looking latch-key. Ten seconds later, he pressed the haptic interface and the omnitool began to churn out a simple metal object. "—oh. I totally forgot about that."

She looked at her wrist, at the omnitool with something approaching confused awe and apprehension. She had been mostly using it as a wristwatch. _Will have to fix that. Gonna have to read, huh..._

Emiya looked up, "Hmm?"

"No, it's nothing." She shook her head with a light laugh.

Inserting the key into the slot in the frame, Emiya felt around until the latch fell down and found contact with the locking mechanism. He turned the level, "Here's to hoping it hasn't rusted shut..."

Something metallic made a deep sound behind the stainless steel doors, almost like a hollow hammer hitting the floor, but not _quite_ , as it all fell into place. Emiya made a satisfied smile as he muttered about "Good greasing, lasted all this time." patting the doors as if they had done a good job and then withdrew the key.

"Alright, on three..." He said, grabbing one of the doors on the elevator, motioning for Shepard to take the other. She moved up and took a hold of the door as best she could. There wasn't really anywhere to grab onto on the smooth stainless steel. "One, two, three."

The door resisted only for a moment, due to the piled up dust and rust, but it opened nonetheless. Making a deep creak as the grime and dust made the hollow door vibrate, the doors opened violently.

She didn't fall, blinking as she looked what lay beyond. Shepard gaped as she stared down into the yawning dark abyss before them.

If the stairs and upper floor had been dark, then what lay before them was truly the absence of any and all possible light. Small dots seemed to dance in her vision, as truly nothing could be seen in there.

A small loose pebble was struck loose and fell in as she took a step back.

It tumbled in, hitting a wall here and there, continuing to fall for several seconds before the faintest echo of it hitting the bottom could be heard. She swallowed, turning to look at Emiya. "That's... a long way down..."

He smirked. "Afraid of heights?"

She blinked, realizing he was shooting her own words back at her. Scowling, she took a step forward to look down into the dark shaft, before thinking better of it again. Noticing the rusted cables hanging in the middle, she looked at them curiously.

"We're gonna climb down on that?" She knew you could climb with rope, but she had never actually tried it. She felt a moment of hesitation, before resolving to follow Emiya regardless.

Emiya shook his head, taking a step forward and reaching into the elevator shaft. He searched the left side, reaching around into the darkness until he found something to grab onto. Then with a light heave and step, he jumped side-ways into the darkness and disappeared.

"Emiya?!" Shepard rushed forward, looking around the edge, only to spot the grinning Emiya staring back at her.

"Service ladder." He said, the teasing in his tone self-evident.

"A what now?" She blinked, before realizing that there indeed was a metal ladder right next to the doors on the inside of the elevator shaft. "Oh. Is that how you climbed up the first time?"

Emiya blinked, as if thrown off by the question. "Once or twice, sure."

"Cool." She grinned at him, throwing her rifle over her back as she moved to find the ladder herself.

Emiya placed his feet on the outside of the ladder pressing in at the sides, away from the rung as he held on with merely his hands. Then he began to relax his grip which caused gravity to take a hold of him, pulling down at a faster and faster rate.

"Emiya?!" Shepard cried out, as she stared down in surprise. To her it had seemed like he had suddenly just began to fall; her heart was in her throat at the shock.

He tightened his grip to slow down and then placed a foot on the rung again as he stared up.

"Take it as slow as you need to; I'll catch you if you fall." He said and was sure she could hear the smirk in his voice.

"In your dreams!" As she jumped into the darkness, swinging to grab onto the ladder. "Now get outta my way before I go through you!" She returned and he had to quickly resume his slide down to avoid being overrun.

Their ascent had taken minutes. Their descent took seconds.

As he looked down he turned on the flashlight, making sure to notice the approaching end as quickly as possible, before their sudden descent turned into an equally sudden stop at the bottom.

As he spotted something approaching below, he called out upwards and into the comm at the same time; "Slow down!"

Luckily, she heard one or the other and began to slow down by tightening her hold on the ladder. She could feel the heat through her gloves and for a moment she considered what would happen if there was a piece sticking out from the ladder.

At the speed she was going, it would rip through her hand instantly she was sure. She swallowed, realizing that was why Emiya had gone first. She shook her head. _I'm just thinking too much._

Emiya had barely enough time to slow down and move out of the way once he hit bottom, before she almost fell on top of him.

"That was _awesome!_ "

Emiya huffed, turning down the flashlight's intensity now that both were down. Shepard followed his example though she probably didn't get as much out of staring at the old rusted bits of machinery and the spools of thick steel wire.

It looked less like the elevators she knew and more like the bottom of a pit. She figured this was at the bottom of the shaft; not on top of the moving bit. Did that mean it was still above them? She looked up and suddenly the absolute darkness from before was dwarfed by the sense of unease she felt.

_If it comes crashing down, I'd never know._ She realized with a sudden thought.

"Let's go." He said, breaking her out of her thoughts as he reached for the ladder again. "This isn't the lobby. Good. We're in the basement levels, probably in the maintenance and storage areas."

Shepard looked up at him as he climbed up and reached over to disengage the elevator doors from the inside and then began to pull at the door. She looked up for a place she could climb up to as well, noting that there was a small ledge by the lowest door's inside. Jumping up, she grabbed onto it and pulled herself up, so that she could balance herself somewhat on the ledge.

Grabbing the other side of the doors, they worked together and with a grunt managed to open the doors.

Absolute darkness greeted them behind the door, as the light from Emiya's omnitool only lit a few meters ahead of them. She turned her own on as well, then. Dust and rubble was everywhere, as bare walls and floors of dull concrete surrounded them.

She could smell the vermin and the feces; the garbage and the rot. This place had been abandoned for ages and had turned into something disgusting, even by the standards of the place she had been to.

"We going up?" Shepard asked, curiously staring out. She had seen the elevator doors in the entrance hall, when they had first entered the building, which meant they should be somewhere right below where they had come in.

"No. There should be other exits, so let's avoid the way we came. It's probably still crawling with people looking for us. Especially since the squad at the top must have gone silent after our fight." Emiya said, hauling himself through the open doors as he pulled his assault rifle over his shoulder and began to scan their surroundings.

Shepard made a grunt of understanding as she shimmied herself through as well, taking out her own assault rifle and looking around as she turned on her own omnitool's light. They alternated, moving one and the other in the lead as they cleared the way forward through the dark hallways and rooms, weapons held at the ready constantly.

Emiya shifted to holding his rifle in a left hand grip, since it didn't really matter to him which way he held it, allowing him to clear corners to the right more safely while Shepard did the same with corners to the left. This way, they alternated in who cleared the corner while the other kept ready to pull them back in case they were shot suddenly.

After five minutes, they had found some service stairs, separate from the previous stairway and they made it to the ground floor in some back area. Then, quietly as could be they found an exit and sneaked out without raising any alarms or running into anyone on the way out. After a straight dash through the open ground, they found cover inside a hollowed out building adjacent to the hotel.

"Easy peazy." She grinned at him through half-closed eyes. The light was blinding again, but the fresh air was a definite improvement.

Shepard took point once more as they dashed through buildings and yards, though halfway through as they had acquired sufficient distance from the hotel and nothing had occurred, they threw some of the caution to the wind and began to pick up their pace.

Cracked streets and broken buildings surrounded them, looking almost like they were bleeding in the setting sun's red hue. As they approached the RV building, their omnitool's suddenly alarmed them quietly that they had received a message, each.

"What the...?" Shepard asked, slowing down as she looked at her wrist. She shrugged and dismissed it as she moved to keep going.

"Hold up." Emiya said as he opened the message. "It's Cassani."

"Huh? Why didn't he just comm us?"

"Read it for yourself." Emiya said, glancing back down at the mail he had received.

' _Picked up comm-signals and hacked in. They can detect and locate sources for ongoing comm-traffic. Six squads are looking around here for you. They don't know I'm here yet, but they know you left behind something here. They know you've disappeared at the hotel and they're looking for you. DON'T USE COMMS. -C'_

"Oh." Shepard muttered, looking up from her own omnitool. She frowned, looking back down. "So what should we do?"

She considered it herself, but wasn't sure what to make of it.

"If he's got an ear in their lines, we could use that. Maybe. Let me ask him..." Emiya answered as he began to formulate a reply. ' _Mail safe? -E'_ Emiya sent, before he looked up at Shepard. "Let's slow down. We don't have enough time left for screw ups."

She nodded and began to move again, keeping to cover and looking around twice before crossing any open spaces. Emiya followed after, keeping one eye on the omnitool. _Ping._

"Hold up." Emiya said again and kneeled down again.

' _Should be, they didn't seem to notice anything when either was sent, though I bounced it off of a satellite. Where are you? -C_ '

Emiya inhaled with a frown, and Shepard realized that there was more to this than just the mail itself.

"What's up?" She asked and he looked up, still frowning.

"Mail's too easy to fake. Can't be sure it's him. Could be someone else pretending, or he could be being held hostage. Could be a trap, could be real. Have to consider both and how to satisfy both conditions at the same time."

"...Oh."

' _We're still at the hotel; about to get a car and head back. Problems? -E_ ' Emiya finally wrote and sent. He looked up to Shepard and nodded, letting her lead again as they made their way forward. Though somewhere along the line, he began to point out the way, having been here earlier.

Shepard paused, kneeling behind a pile of fallen wall as she stared out into the street ahead. _I don't like this_. She couldn't point out what it was, but something was turning her stomach in knots.

It was a wide and long road, with a small park-like area in the median strip between the two ways. If someone had settled up into a tall building overlooking the road, they could cover it either way for a good kilometer, easily.

So if they tried to cross it, they might just be gunned down after their fourth step.

Emiya slowed down, settling behind her as he kept an eye out in the other directions around them.

She waited for him to say something; to ask her what was the hold up, to chastise her for slowing down. But he remained there, as if counting on her to handle it. Finally, she decided to speak up.

"We should double back. I don't like this." Shepard whispered, leaning back towards Emiya as she kept her eyes forward.

"You see something?"

"...No. But I don't like it." She insisted. Something about it reminded her of the open field where Cassani had been shot and the forest road where they had jacked the car. Her gut-feeling was telling her to avoid it at all costs.

She was sure he'd say something, but he merely blinked and then nodded.

"...Alright. I'll check with Cassani and see if he has anything to say." Emiya said, turning on his omnitool.

' _Can you tell me about the squads? Do you know where they are? What are they doing? -E_ ' Emiya sent the mail, tapping away for twenty seconds all in all.

Then, they waited. Shepard was fidgeting as she kept shouldering and moving around the assault rifle. It seemed like she couldn't find a comfortable way to hold the butt against her shoulder as she kept scanning the street before them.

Maybe she should just ignore her gut and go for it. She was probably imagining things...

' _You're on the move? Some of them got gunned down at a hotel apparently(you?), two are patrolling around sectors U8 and Y1, but some haven't reported in since I hacked into their comms. I think they're in wait somewhere, but they've been real quiet_. _-C_ '

Cassani could be telling the truth, or it could also be a trap. Then again, they _had_ _to_ cross this road to go forward. It essentially cut the city in two and if they did not get over it, their RV-location would remain unreachable.

' _Any near you? -E_ '

' _No, I don't think so. -C_ '

Emiya sighed and raised his omnitool. His fingers danced as he erased most of the local files and sending back ups to Shepard of the stuff he would need to keep.

"Uh...What's all this?" She asked, not looking away from the road even as she glanced at all the pop ups and notifications on her omnitool.

"I'm going to set up the omnitool as bait. It will tell us something in any case." Emiya said simply as he finished and took it off again, for the second time that day. Emiya shook his head, as if clearing his head from extraneous thoughts.

He set up a simple delay, which would give them two minutes before the call went through.

Shepard backtracked and they moved further north as quickly as they dared. Then she turned to move parallel to the road, until she found what looked like a decent spot. She lead them to where the distance between the two sides of the wide road was the shortest, with trees and bushes offering as much concealment from distant observers as possible.

This would be the best place for attempting a crossing, she reasoned and Emiya didn't disagree. Short of actually waiting for the cover of dark— _which might not help either, given that who knew what kind of equipment their enemies had_ —or going _all the way around_ , it was the best chance they had.

Already, time was running short and both were tensely waiting for the timer to run out. Their best hope was to wait for the call to distract and turn away the attention of anyone who was on the look out and then to rapidly make it for the other side and for the RV.

"Ten seconds." Shepard said, mostly for Emiya's benefit but also to psych herself up. Emiya nodded, probably having kept a running count inside his head as he prepared. This would be in practice nothing more than a 40 meter dash over two lanes and through some trees and low bushes.

But the knowledge that a sniper might be bearing down at them right at this moment, simply waiting for them to break cover still chilled her heart. She could almost imagine it; see the scope hovering right before her, two steps ahead.

It would punch through her shields and armor with ease, splattering her insides on the cracked and crumbling pavement. Like those she had seen before; dead and dying. She wanted to just turn around and go crawl into a hole somewhere to wait until it all passed.

That had always worked before; when you can't fight, you should hide until the danger has passed.

She shook her head.

This was different. It was completely different from that. _It's just a training exercise_ , she told herself. _And I can't back down anymore, others are counting on me_ , she thought as she glanced at Emiya. He was doing the slow breathing thing again, which he seemed to do whenever he was about to dive into something.

Maybe she would ask him about it, later? There were a lot of things she wanted to ask him about, but wasn't sure how to go about it. _Later_ , she told herself.

'Later' is how she felt about all things relating to him.

She would ask him, _later._ She would be able to do what he did, _later._ She would understand his thoughts, _later._ But that worried her. Because even as she kept moving forward, wasn't he doing the same?

_At this pace... I'll never catch up to him_ , She thought, looking forward with vacant eyes.

"Time." Emiya said, surprising Shepard.

Emiya burst into motion; like a loosed arrow he shot forward. His torso became almost parallel with the ground as he swung his arms from side to side, balancing himself with each and every step as his legs pumped for all they were worth.

Shepard was a mere instant behind him, her own gazelle steps not losing one bit to his powerful dash. But only at first. With his longer legs, slowly he began to gain distance on her. She had seen his back before; she had tried to catch up to him the first time. The second time she had relied on him and been supported by that back. After that, she had been content to simply listen to his ideas and to roll with it.

But that wasn't enough. If she accepted that kind of place, he wouldn't give her those funny looks. She needed to keep surprising him; matching him and challenging him.

Now...

Now, she wanted to catch up to him so that she could run alongside him. To pull ahead. To turn around and grin at him, to make him _catch up to her!_

She didn't even have enough time to get winded, as they crossed the road and passed by safely. Nothing had happened; no one had shot at them; no sudden burst of pain had pierced through her sides and the ground hadn't suddenly come up to greet her as her legs suddenly failed beneath her.

They had crossed the road successfully, she realized as her steps began to slow down. But Emiya in front of her kept going, she realized an instant later. A strange thought popped into her head; _I could have touched his back a moment before, but now he seems so distant again..._

Her perception of time seemed to skew as she stared at him.

It almost seemed like a premonition of some kind; that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to catch up to him once he disappeared from her sight. That he would always keep looking forward as he kept moving on, never once slowing down or looking back. That everyone who tried to keep up with him would always lag behind or eventually give up.

Somehow, in that moment, he seemed _lonely_.

"To—" She shouted, her voice lost to the wind as she ground her teeth to pick up her pace again. She wouldn't lose.

"—hell!" Not to him. Not anymore. "—with!"

Her legs pumped for all they were worth; her entire body turned into a machine that existed solely for the reason of catching up with that distant figure, blazing the trail before her. They had already run past a block, piercing through the second one and about to enter a third as they kept running at full speed.

The wind howled in her ears; this was the fastest she had ever run in her entire life. She knew it instinctively. She was on the edge of chaos; one false step and it would all disappear.

_Not anymore!_

Lungs burning. Legs weak. Cramping in stomach as the oxygen began to run out in her bloodstream. _Not him!_

Shepard reached out, her hand like a great blade cutting through that impenetrable wind that blew away all who tried to follow in his tracks. It felt like wading through steel; how every inch felt like an immense struggle. She shouted with all her remaining willpower, thrusting herself forward as she leaped, her fingers just finding purchase on his shoulder as she grabbed a hold of him. "THAT!"

Emiya almost wheeled around in surprise as he stopped, grabbing her arm from his shoulder and almost snapping her wrist as he suddenly _moved_ and had her pressed against a wall. He had moved through pure instinct and muscle memory at the sudden impact on his shoulder. He blinked, realizing what had happened and then looked at her almost sheepishly as he let go.

"What are you doing?" He asked as he breathed heavily, deliberately ignoring his own faux pas just now as he backed off.

Shepard breathed heavily as she turned around, grinning up at Emiya as he had her pinned against a wall in the sudden scuff. "...Caught... you..."

Emiya blinked, completely nonplussed and lost at her wide grin. There was something different to it, now. Like she knew something he didn't.

"What?"

In response, her grin merely grew wider as she pushed off from the wall and took the lead as she began to run again. She turned around and ran backwards, looking back at him as she shouted "The point position is mine inside the city, remember?"

Emiya stared at her back for a second, still not entirely sure what had happened before he sighed and moved to follow her. Shepard's grin didn't leave her face for a moment as she turned around and kept running, as she felt better than ever before.

The wind hadn't gotten any lighter, but her steps felt all the surer still.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya rose up using his legs as he held his back straight, his fingers crossed by his waist as he hoisted up the person in his arms. At the same time, Shepard grabbed onto the windowframe and jumped through, clearing the room with her rifle raised as she peered into the surroundings. She leaned back, half-whispering out; "Clear."

A second later Emiya jumped up, his fingers finding a hold of the open window as he pulled himself up and dragged himself inside. He had lent Shepard his shoulder as a foothold to more quickly get up, but for himself he had to simply climb in as Shepard covered for him.

He dusted himself off, drawing his rifle as he nodded to Shepard.

"What now? Get Cassani?" Shepard asked in the same half-whisper as before. They had made it to the RV building with five minutes left before their pick up arrived. They had no idea how long—if at all—it would wait for them, so they had to be careful with their timing.

Clearing a building, especially from the bottom up, could take far more than five minutes. In practice, you could spend an entire hour just clearing one floor of an apartment building of this size if you wanted to be as safe about it as you could possibly be.

"Has he contacted you at all, yet?" Emiya asked.

She looked up, activating her omnitool and then looking up to shake her head.

_So there are a few possibilities here. Cassani was the one who contacted us, but he didn't pick up on any comm chatter about us being detected for whatever reason, be it comm silence or some kind of ploy from a third party that has captured him keeping him from contacting us._ Emiya considered, then shook his head.

_Alternatively, it was someone else who merely contacted us while pretending to be Cassani telling us not to use the comms, perhaps because they would not be able to fake speech. But that is assuming the comm-detection was a bluff, which isn't all that certain. If they did have some kind of comm-detection, the omnitool I left behind should have pulled their attention away._

"Oh, Emiya. Something came." Shepard piped up, breaking him out of his thoughts. She raised her omnitool to show the message she had just received.

' _Where are you?-C_ '

Emiya considered the message. It could be Cassani getting worried about the time limit coming up? But the message was rather sparse, especially since Emiya had just done the one thing he wasn't supposed to do, though only to connect to an unreachable address that should have only realistically let someone detect the omnitool.

"Tell him... to ' _come down, we're right outside by the park_ '." Emiya said and Shepard blinked at him.

"What park?"

"It's just a trick question." Emiya clarified. "I stuffed him beneath the floorboards anyhow, so it's not like he can ' _come down_ ', either."

"Oooohhh. And he can't _walk,_ either. Clever." Shepard made a sound of understanding, before turning quizzical. "Why didn't you send that right away?"

"Well, assuming the first Mako's people were in contact with our pursuers, they _should_ know about his legs. But, if he was being held prisoner they would have found him which means that they would force him to answer suitably to keep fooling us, most likely. I wanted to know if they really could detect comm-lines more than anything else. This late in the game, taking risky moves is fine as long as it makes the opponent over-extend themselves; by the time they recover, we'll be on the shuttle." Emiya said with a shrug.

"Huh?" Shepard made a sound as she blinked at him, obviously losing the trail somewhere along the way.

"The first move is usually a feint or a fake out; to see what they do. Once you have a read on them, you can act irrationally to make their play go completely wide." Emiya simply said, when she did not let up with her quizzical stare. "Anyhow, it doesn't matter. Let's—"

The omnitool beeped again and Shepard pulled it up again, with Emiya standing next to her so that they could read it as one.

' _What the hell are you talking about? Are you coming or not? Time's running out, we need to go!'_

Emiya blinked, before smiling as he looked up to Shepard. "Well, what to do you know. It _was_ him after all."

Shepard nodded, still not quite getting what he had been talking about earlier but clearly weighing his words seriously as she took point.

They opened the door, clearing the hallway at the same time, both slicing a half of the pie as they advanced. Finding nothing, they moved quickly as Emiya guided them towards a room near the front entrance he had come through the first time.

It might have been guarded or watched from afar, which was why they had broken in through a window in the back.

"Cassani, you in here?" Emiya asked after clearing a single-room and noticing nothing out of place in particular. Aside from the floorboards that had been removed and all the dirt and dust that had been displaced by someone being dragged across the floor.

"Emiya...?" A voice from ahead in the hallway could be heard, as if someone was lying on the floor. They walked ahead, turning the corner to spot Cassani lying on the floor. He had his omnitool out and had been in the process of dragging himself forward with just his hands. "Shit, man. You scared me. Holy fuck. You keep telling me you're still at the damn hotel and then I start hearing sounds. And then you start fucking talking about a park? I mean, _what_? God damn. _Fuck_."

Shepard made an amused huff of laughter as she walked up to him and dusted him off with her hands. Emiya followed suit and together they got him up, so that he was sitting upright at least. Cassani nodded his thanks as he tried to wipe off some white-gray concrete dust from his hair, without much success.

"How'd it go? With the relay?" He asked, blinking some dust out of his eyes as he tried to look up at them.

"Probably a bust, but oh well. Let's go, we've got about three minutes to get up top." Emiya said, extending a hand and pulling up Cassani from the ground and onto his shoulders. "Shepard, lead the way. Stairs are to the right."

She nodded and took point, clearing the way again as Emiya kept up while carrying Cassani on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

"So what happened, with the tower?" Cassani asked, struggling to talk as he was jostled up and down on Emiya's shoulders as they went up the stairs, three at a time with Emiya's legs barely struggling to keep up with Shepard as she kept up a decent pace.

"The relay probably wasn't on the roof." Emiya said simply, shrugging.

"Well... Shit."

"You win some, you lose some. No point in getting hung up about it." Emiya said. "Point is to only do what you can, no more. Then even if you pull back, you won't have lost anything you can't replace." _A lesson I still don't seem to have taken to heart._ He thought, with a touch of annoyance.

"I guess." Cassani shrugged.

The rest of the way up was mostly quiet.

Shepard kicked open the door to the roof after having blasted through the rusted lock with her rifle and cleared the rooftop with mechanical precision. Emiya, laying down Cassani did the same to the other half, after which they took cover inside the stairs to wait for the shuttle to arrive.

It would only be minutes now, but still there was no point in being out in the open on the rooftop where they could be seen.

They sat in the stairs, quietly waiting as they could almost already feel the homestretch coming to a close. But it would not be, not that easily. Suddenly, a crash down below; someone kicking down a door on the first floor.

"Shit." Shepard said, standing up and noting that staying in the stairs would be terrible if a firefight broke out, since it lacked good cover.

She moved to get out and to lay down like she had on the hotel's rooftop, but Emiya halted her.

"Someone must have spotted us on the roof. The shuttle is already inbound; let's wait until the last moment." Emiya said, as he grabbed her arm. "If they have snipers scoping this building, if we go back on the roof they'll see us and call it in while shooting at us."

She nodded, realization dawning on her.

"Oh, right, they only know we went on the roof and then back inside, so the ones downstairs have to clear the whole building starting from the bottom like at the hotel."

Emiya nodded. "The snipers will also have to look through the windows on the lower floors, trying to find us, so until the shuttle arrives we should remain in concealment to buy time."

Shepard licked her lips, then nodded at his plan. She looked down at her omnitool, calling up a clock. "One minute."

Cassani drew his assault rifle, inhaling deeply as if he was already getting used to this as he settled a bead onto the stairs. The moment they were found, it would turn into a slaughter unless they could overwhelm anyone trying to get near the stairs.

The seconds passed, almost agonizingly slowly. The sound of doors being kicked down and boots echoing up the stairway, as shouts of 'clear!' and 'breaching!' along with numerous low booms could be heard muffled by the walls and floors between them.

"Heh, we must be really popular." Shepard noted with some grim humor, counting already the seventeenth flashbang going off as those below them rapidly cleared rooms and hallways.

"It's fine. Hear _that_?" Emiya asked.

A light thrum in the air, half-familiar and half-strange after the long day. It was the sound of a shuttle in the distance. Shepard and Cassani grinned at Emiya. Suddenly, there was a slight lull in the sounds below them, making him frown.

"Damn, the spotters in the distance must have called in the appearance of the shuttle. They'll be coming for the roof now." Emiya said, grabbing Cassani as he moved up to the threshold of the roof. He glanced left and right, staying low as he tried to figure out where someone scoping in on the building could be.

"Shepard, here!" Cassani said, half-turning around as he with an underhand throw passed along his assault rifle to her.

She blinked, then grinned up to him as she looked up and answered his thumbs up with one of her own while struggling to hold both assault rifles.

"I'll get Cassani to the shuttle while you hold this point. Once we're in, I'll cover you long enough that you can run in." Emiya said, turning around to look at Shepard.

She nodded, a determined look in her eyes as she settled down a little bit further down the stairs where she would have some concealment at least. It wasn't as good a choke-point as the one on the hotel, but she wouldn't let that bother her.

"I can see it!" Cassani excitedly half-shouted, pointing at the shuttle coming in. Luckily it seemed that no one was trying to shoot it down. Perhaps it was a rule of the simulation or perhaps shuttles had such strong kinetic barriers that ground doctrine advised against targeting them anyhow.

Whatever it was, their way out was coming in.

"They're in the stairs!" Someone shouted from down below, only for half of his shout be cut out by Shepard's answer.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

The sounds of a kinetic barrier failing and a man falling down could be heard, along with half a dozen shouts in response to that.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

Shepard gave another squeeze of the trigger, spraying the bottom of the stairs with bullets again. She was already in the zone, lining up shots and mentally managing the cooldown of the rifle as she kept shooting.

Right now it wasn't about racking up hits, it was about keeping anyone from getting a footing below them.

Emiya eyed the incoming shuttle, judging the distance and speed as he looked out through the door. At least, any snipers were not directly ahead of them as the open door would have given them a direct line of fire already. The closest suitable firing location for that was over six kilometers away, Emiya judged.

That placed it out of range for most snipers.

But that still left the sides and back open. Assuming the shuttle landed in the middle of the opening on the rooftop, that meant a reasonable line of fire still existed on the left side and from behind at an angle. Shooting at a target moving perpendicularly was more difficult than one that was moving away or towards you, especially at range as conditions affecting calculations piled up. But to a good marksman, it wasn't a very difficult shot to take as long as they were ready for it.

Emiya closed his eyes, picturing in his mind's eye the shot vectors available, cutting down the furthest and most limited, until finally in his head he had a clear picture of what would happen once he ran out.

He inhaled and held his breath for a moment; finalizing it all in his head as he exhaled. His heart beat at 40 beats per minute; far too low for this. He needed to _rev up_ ; his breathing became shallow and quick as he pumped himself up. In, out. In, out. Five entire breath-cycles in a single second; the bellows method was like a shot of pure caffeine into the veins; he could feel his heart rate jumping up to a solid 100 beats per minute.

The arrow was drawn; he eyed the shuttle that had just arrived. It hovered two meters off the roof, ten meters away from the rooftop access, closing off another firing vector and cutting it down to one. Perhaps no one was there, perhaps there weren't any snipers scoping the roof. He would not make it to his mark, but that was fine. As long as he knew he could not reach his target by himself, he could plan around that.

He played it by experience. And that told him to always expect the worst.

"Shepard! Ten more seconds and then follow us!" Emiya shouted as he took off, feet pounding as he began to run upstairs. As he broke out into the open, he could scarcely hear Shepard's acknowledgment over the rushing sound of the blood in his veins.

One step.

Two steps.

Three—he jumped to the side before he even felt the _intent_ , his kinetic barrier reporting its collapse in his HUD as the near miss still grazed him enough to cause damage—steps.

—boom! A distant report of a sniper rifle.

_This is fine_.

—boom!

He loaded up Cassani on his arm, taking the fourth step and throwing forward the man with all his speed and strength as the second bullet hit him straight in the gut. His legs failed him the moment Cassani was out of his hands.

They landed almost at the same time, Cassani with an _oomph_ of complaint and Emiya with a silent roll as he draw the bead on his assault rifle on the snipers.

"Pull yourself the rest of the way!" Emiya shouted as he pulled the trigger.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

The two snipers were on the same building, some four blocks away. Emiya wasn't trying to hit them, simply to put pressure on them. It didn't matter one whit at this point if they were taken out after all.

_Six. Seven. Eight._ He counted in his head as he noted them flinching and taking cover. All around him the reports of gunfire mixed together into a symphony of conflict. He couldn't move his lower body, but that was fine. He ignored the beeping HUD telling him about some simulated injury or another as he kept shooting.

Shepard came backing up the stairs as she fired both rifles from the hip. One of them overheated and as a heavily armored figure came running up the stairs, she threw it at his face which was just enough to trip him up and send him falling back down the stairs as she peppered him with the other assault rifle.

She turned around and ran forward as Emiya kept suppressing the snipers. She blinked, realizing he was still lying there, halfway to the shuttle even as Cassani had crawled all the way in. Emiya had one arm up and out, like a hook.

Shepard shot forward, grabbing Emiya's arm in passing as she dragged him with her while shooting one-handed suppressing fire down at the stairway while Emiya kept shooting at the distant snipers. She made it to the shuttle, where Cassani grabbed Emiya and pulled him in with one hand as Shepard concentrated on shooting at the stairs where three armored figures were already making their way up.

The shuttle door closed; the floor seemed to slightly lurch underneath them.

They were safe.

Shepard lowered her almost overheated rifle as she panted for air. Emiya and Cassani simply made do with lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling of the shuttle. Slowly, she began to laugh. After a moment, Cassani joined in and even Emiya had to crack a smile.

Emiya understood, even if he did not quite share their feelings.

The relief of it being _over_ was probably the sweetest sensation the two of them had ever experienced. It was not so much that getting to the shuttle by itself was such a positive experience, rather it was the contrast between a whole day of combat and contention and the sudden understanding that they had succeeded and could rest now.

That kind of high did not come easy and for that, it was all the more pronounced.

The two laughed for a minute, before they finally settled down somewhat.

Shepard looked down at Emiya, still grinning as her emotions ran high. "What happened to you? Did you trip?"

Cassani began to laugh again at that. Such was the post-exertion high one would often experience at times like these; any joke no matter how bad or awkward, would be enough to set one into a belly-aching laughter.

"Hmm, well. I was getting tired of carrying Cassani around and thought it only fair that I get to be carried around as well. I figured I'd just do it before you got any bright ideas." Emiya answered, somehow managing to sound entirely too dignified despite literally laying on the floor of the shuttle and staring up at the seated Shepard.

That was enough to set her off into another gale of laughter that lasted another full minute. She gasped for breath as she finally calmed down, kicking at him lightly as she smiled down at him. "You're such a jackass, Emiya."

He shrugged, not at all perturbed on the floor.

* * *

;

* * *

The ride was not all too long.

Simply flying over a nearby mountain until they reached the base camp that was in full cover, both from any potential stray bullets flying from the city that now loomed in the distance behind them and from view from where they had begun.

Unlike the mountaintop where they had started, here a massive camp had been erected. Both tents and small prefab houses had been erected in neat lines and columns, giving it a rather familiar appearance as they landed.

"It almost looks like a marching formation..." Cassani noted as he sat up.

Some minutes ago their suits had disabled all the wound simulations, returning to them their full mobility and functionality. Cassani had spent several minutes rubbing his feet and walking around inside of the shuttle, while Emiya had simply sat up and taken to a seat and put on the seat belts.

Finally, they landed and were ushered out by the pilot who had remained quiet until then.

There to greet them stood a stern faced man of Japanese descent, standing with his back straight and glaring brimstone and hellfire as he spotted them. Emiya jumped out first, taking point as his two teammates settled up behind him.

They jogged up to the Major who continued to judge them quietly with his arms crossed. Emiya took point and reported in.

"Sir, team Charlie-4 reporting in, informs Serviceman Emiya." Emiya said with a clear and audible voice as his eyes settled into a point in the distance, standing straight as he assumed the at-attention position as he raised a hand to his helmet's brow in salute.

Shepard and Cassani stood in a line, just behind Emiya as they assumed the at-attention position as well, with sharp salutes of their own.

The Major—the man they had been talking to earlier through the omnitool Emiya realized as he spotted the nametag 'Maeda' on his chest—did not ease up at all, rather his annoyed frown only seemed to deepen. There was a tense ten seconds as nothing happened.

This was probably on purpose, Emiya surmised.

One of the purposes of the at-attention position was that it not only made the one standing look rather impressive— _with the back straight, arms held at the side and the stomach held in and chest and jaw jutting out in perfect, ram-rod straight posture_ —it was also rather uncomfortable to stand in for long. It wasn't painful, but it was definitely not a natural position. With terrible balance and strict requirements for good posture, it could be surprisingly tiring.

Sometimes punishment could simply be to stand still for extended periods of time. It grew easier with time, of course. But after basic training it still remained a sharp reminder of when one was being disciplined.

Even if the physical side could be trained to become effortless, the mental side always remained. One's eyes were supposed to be locked straight ahead; no looking around; the face must remain perfectly stoic as one must stare straight ahead and only straight ahead.

Meanwhile, one's superior officer's could walk around you freely. They could inspect you and move all around you. The dissonance between being forced to remain still as someone else could freely loom over you was reminiscent of how prey animals instinctively freeze in place in the presence of predators. ' _Perhaps if I don't move, he won't kill me_ '-mindset, being instilled through the body into the mind and subconsciousness rather than the other way around.

It was simply another method for the military to enforce its chain of command.

"At ease." The Major spoke.

All three took a wider stance, their rigorous posture relaxing as they were allowed to stand at a somewhat more human position.

Emiya could almost feel the sense of relief shedding off of Cassani behind him while Shepard seemed something between annoyed and curious. She must have thought they had done a good job so far and that there would be nothing but praises for their achievements. Well, Emiya had guessed something like this would happen. Equivalent exchange, really. You broke rules, the rules break you.

It would a learning experience for them, if nothing else. Still, he was certain that even despite that their achievements would still gain the recognition they deserved.

"Serviceman Emiya." Maeda began, walking up to him with slow steps.

"Sir." Emiya answered, assuming the at-attention as he was being addressed.

"How do you think this day has gone. Overall?" The major asked, his polite tone masking the annoyance behind it quite well as he seemed to be calm.

"Most excellently, sir."

The major considered that, nodding to himself as he leaned back. Then he leaned forward suddenly, to the point where Emiya could feel his breath on his face. "Do tell, _what_ exactly makes you say that."

"We were handed a single objective which we successfully achieved while along the way we fulfilled as many side-objectives as possible, sir." Emiya answered calmly, keeping a deferential tone to his voice.

"Hmm, I see. I see. Tell me, Serviceman Emiya. How much do you think it costs the Systems Alliance to organize a field exercise like this, for single day?"

"A considerable sum of money, sir." Emiya answered without hesitation.

"Hah." The Major scoffed. "That is putting it lightly, to say the least. Which leads me to the question I am really dying to have answered... _Serviceman Emiya_ , how much money do you think your flailing about and reckless behavior has cost the Systems Alliance, just today?"

"A considerable sum of money, sir." Emiya answered again, his voice completely neutral.

"Do not give me lip, _boy_." The major was suddenly in Emiya's face again as he snarled out those words, staring right into his eyes and using his superior height for all it was worth for intimidation.

An absolute silence reigned around them, as a circle was beginning to form as others in the camp settled down to watch. There was nothing more interesting than seeing someone else get dressed down by a superior officer after a major fuck up, after all.

Maeda took a step back, pulling out his omnitool as he pulled out a list on the screen and showed it to Emiya. "Do you know what _this_ is? Do you, Serviceman?"

Emiya glanced at it, noting that it was a list of items and expenses. _Presumably for all the things we broke or appropriated. It will all have to be checked and repaired, which will require time and money_.

"Yes, sir." Emiya answered.

"Oh, I don't think you do, Serviceman." Maeda growled as he took away the list from Emiya's face. "This field exercise normally never accrues any material costs on the part of the Navy, beyond fuel consumption and ammunition blocks. Minor costs, really. A sum less than a rounding error for the Systems Alliance budget. It has been designed that way by the greatest minds the Systems Alliance has, after all.

"But now, we have this great big hole in our budget. Can you tell me what that means? Can you? I doubt you can. This is not the stuff of dreams and fancies we are working with, _Serviceman_! This is time and money that the Systems Alliance will be _wasting_ because of you and your little troupe of misfits! The crystallized result of the blood, sweat, tears and effort of billions of citizens! Down the drain because _you_ can not follow _simple_ _instructions_!"

The Major was shouting now, stabbing his finger into Emiya's chest with every word like a sword for punctuation.

Emiya remained calm and cool, staring straight ahead and noting that he hadn't so far been asked to address any actual questions or orders.

"But, sir, we weren't told about the rule—" Shepard protested only to flinch as the Major wheeled around to glare at her.

"You will only speak when spoken to, Servicewoman Shepard! Drop down and give me sixty!" Maeda roared, glaring at Shepard who blinked and then licked her lips, before realizing that she was supposed to be doing push ups when his glare did not ease up after a second.

She fell forward, palms touching the ground as she began to rapidly count out aloud with each repetition.

"Further down! Your nose should be touching the dirt, Servicewoman!" He shouted and after a pause she went deeper down with every push up, not even slowing down as she continued. "I can see that this is far too easy for you. Give me a clap with each push up!"

"Sir?" Shepard hesitated, not understanding his meaning as she stopped to look up.

"You will push up and clap in the air! Sixty! Repetitions! That's six times ten for you, if the number is too high for you little skull to handle! Fail that and I will ship you back into basic and have you scrubbing the privvies for six years just to make sure that you understand just how angry I am with you!" The Major roared and Shepard flinched, rushing to obey.

As she pushed up, her hands came free off the ground and she could clap before she had to rush to meet the ground and push up again.

Maeda walked back five steps, until he could see them all again. He inhaled, glaring at Emiya and Cassani who kept studiously quiet. For a minute, everyone around them stared in complete silence and Shepard performed the assigned physical punishment.

Finishing off the 60th push up, she jumped up and assumed parade rest once more as she struggled to control her breathing. The Major stared at them quietly for several seconds, before he exhaled through his nose.

"You say you did not know the rules. Hah. What a joke." He seemed almost to be talking to himself more than he was to any of the recruits before him. "Do you know why you are dropped down there, without any instructions and with wholly under-specced gear for this kind of conflict? No, don't answer that. Of course you don't. It's because it's _tradition;_ both this exercise and to keep you in the dark, that is."

Maeda walked up to Emiya again, staring straight in his eyes.

"You see, it's to make cocky new bastards like _you_ understand _humanity's_ position in the galaxy. It's the exact same as the situation back when all of humanity first stumbled upon the rest of galactic civilization, see? Alone, completely unawares of the rules and woefully unprepared. Make no mistake, humanity is a _very small fish_ in a _very large pond_ right now.

"You think that because you did not know the rules, you should be exempt from them? Hah! That sure as hell did not work on _Shanxi_ with the _turians_ and it sure as hell will not work with me!" Maeda shouted again.

Emiya had to prevent himself from smiling.

He understood this man now. It wasn't that the Major wanted to inflict suffering on them or to discipline them for his own sake, or even for something like the Systems Alliance's budget's sake.

This was purely for _them_. To help them understand what the world was like and to discipline them. _This man cares about the soldiers serving under him, that much is obvious._

After all, not a single on-looker was giving the Major critical or reproachful eyes. There was an expectant energy to the air, as those around them seemed to be smiling to themselves at the spectacle before them. Perhaps they had all been dressed down by the man, at one time or another.

A silence descended on the clearing again, though this time there was a much different energy to it; a strange charge in the air itself, as if everyone expecting something to happen. Emiya made a prediction; they had been given the stick. Now came the carrot.

For all that they had done poorly, they had ultimately succeeded in a number of ways.

"Therefore—"

"Now, now Major. Aren't you being a little too harsh?" A familiar voice broke through the crowd and Maeda paused in mid-sentence as he blinked. He turned around, staring at the newcomer with furrowed brows.

"Burnsfeldt." The Major ground his teeth as he saw the new arrival.

Emiya blinked, realizing it was the Lieutenant Commander who had first sent them out into the city. _What is he doing here?_ The man with a dark complexion walked through the encircling crowd and approached them with swaggering steps and an unfaltering smile. Three steps behind him followed another man who was nervously licking his lips at the stare he was receiving from Major Maeda.

"Gunnery Chief Thomas. What is the meaning of this?"

The nervous man flinched, making a strange expression before straightening up at being addressed directly by the Major. "Sir, I... I didn't mean to, but he somehow hacked into my feed and..."

Maeda furrowed his brows before ignoring the babbling Gunnery Chief and turning to glare at the smiling Burnsfeldt.

Emiya's eyes narrowed as he considered the situation. _This doesn't make sense; a Major is higher up on the System Alliance's ranks. What's with this tension?_

"Major Maeda, by order of Rear Admiral Sorensen I have come for Team Chalie-4. Here, I have forwarded the orders to your omnitool, _sir_." Burnsfeldt spoke, smiling smugly as he spoke. "Or rather, I will be taking all three of them off your hands now, _sir_."

Maeda looked down at his omnitool and then back up at the man before him, giving him a glare that could have curdled milk. Gripping his fist tightly before relaxing with a disgusted sigh, Maeda turned around and left.

Emiya stared at that back, not entirely certain what to think of this development.

"Well, now. Now that that old curmudgeon is out of the way, why don't we talk for a little bit? Oh, at ease, at ease. Come on, follow me." The strange Lieutenant Commander spoke, leading the trio away as he walked with relaxed steps. Off to the side, Gunnery Chief Thomas slipped off to follow Major Maeda after a worried glance at them.

"You've certainly made a mess of things around here, hahaha. I knew you'd be interesting once I saw you off. To tell you the truth, I'd been looking through your feed the whole time." Burnsfeldt said as he lead them to a tent. Inside were a desk, a larger computer terminal along with various items and pieces of weaponry and machinery in varying degrees of disassembly. "You've certainly managed to kick over an ant's nest or three in the past few hours."

He offered a seat with his hand for each of them and they all sat down around the table, Burnsfeldt on one side and them on the other.

"Then again, that's just the kind of spirit humanity needs nowadays. The Navy has been repeating this exercise for well over ten years now and nothing has really changed. Rather indicative of how _conservative_ a stance they have taken. Pity, that." Burnsfeldt kept talking, even as Emiya began to wonder what the hell any of this had to do with anything, he kept on talking. "See, it's a ' _tradition_ ' as they like to call it. Really, it's a way of keeping an old wound from healing over. To remind themselves of how poorly they handled it back then. He mentioned Shanxi, right? This entire city is just one big recreation of that battle. Did you know that?"

Emiya shook his head, as did Shepard. But Cassani seemed to be seriously considering those words, before he seemed to remember something.

"The siege of Xianji hill, sir?"

Burnsfeldt turned to look at Cassani, smiling widely as he praised the recruit. "You certainly know your history, serviceman. Well done. This entire team is full of nothing but impressive surprises.

"Indeed. You, as fresh recruits are the helpless populace of Shanxi that faced the invading turian forces with nothing but personal small arms and some outdated environmental hardsuits." He paused, indicating their equipment and pistols with a casual wave.

"Those who have already joined their particular line of service, often in the marines or in some of the other direct combat roles, get to play the part of the invading turians in hunting down the first-timers. Not just second-timers, but sometimes all the way to their fourth time here, they get to play turian and to crush all who oppose them with superior numbers. The Admiralty calls it an exercise in 'vigorous offensive tactics' despite the official doctrine of the Navy favoring the use of mobility and precision strikes. What a joke..." Burnsfeldt explained, scoffing as he explained.

The three recruits sat in silence as they listened.

"But then, who are they fighting? I mean, they weren't all just hunting us out there." Shepard asked, now that she seemed certain that this officer would not bite her head off for speaking freely.

Burnsfeldt smiled and began to tap at his omnitool, finally pulling up something that looked like a public profile of himself. He had underscored a part where a letter and a number had been noted.

'Fillion Burnsfeldt – N6 Engineer'

Cassani's eyes shot wide open and even Shepard looked suitably impressed. Emiya blinked as this situation began to make less and less sense to him by the second. _Why is a special forces operative pulling us aside like this?_

"Every year, we bring in some of the fresher faces over from the the _villa_ , and have them participate as the human military that had been stationed on Shanxi. Back then, they hadn't considered the existence of hostile alien forces, thus their equipment and weaponry was hardly any better than what the civilians had.

"Heavily outgunned and outmatched, their job is to find as many first-timers _slash_ confused and scared 'civilians' as possible and organize them into something resembling a fighting force. Their job is to mount a resistance against impossible odds and to fight until their last breath. Those who succeed... Get to join the N-program as _N1_." He finished with meaningful words as he steepled his fingers before his face, half-hiding his smile.

"Sir, I'm not quite sure I follow..." Emiya began politely. "What does any of this have to do with us?"

"Cassani. Mind recounting what you know of the siege of Xianji for the rest of us?" Burnsfeldt replied with a smile as he turned to look at Franco.

"Uh, yes sir. It was a battle at the end of the first half of the Shanxi conflict, where a turian destroyer had landed on a hill after suffering a malfunction. It represented the only hope of victory for the defending forces, in that it held the communications array that was used for commanding the entire turian ground force." Cassani began, recounting from memory as he spoke. "A team of volunteers set off on the mission, which had been deemed a suicide operation. In the end, none of them walked away but somehow still managed to disable the turians' communications for an entire day, allowing the humans on the ground to mount a resistance long enough for the reinforcements from Earth to come in."

Emiya and Shepard both listened with rapt attention, as neither had had a particular chance or interest before to read up on humanity's first contact war.

"An excellent summation. That water tower that managed to catch your eye... Can any of you guess what it stood in for?" Burnsfeldt said, smirking slightly and showing off his pearly white teeth.

"No way!" Cassani asked, his eyes widening.

Burnsfeldt pulled up a display through his omnitool, using the desk as an extension which improved the size and quality of the projection. In it, they could see the insides of what must have been the water tower.

Just as Emiya predicted, it had been packed full with enemies, all heavily armed and armored. The majority were combat drones and turrets, as only a handful of humans could be seen. And behind them lay what must have been the communications relay. _So it was inside after all._ Emiya noted to himself.

Shepard and Cassani must have realized this as well, as they sagged slightly after a second of looking at the video feed.

"Today, not more than two hours ago... The communications relay stopped working suddenly." The Lieutenant Commander said teasingly and in the video suddenly the machine seemed to show an error. "They tried to figure it out for well over an hour, finding nothing wrong with the machine itself or the software. In the end, one of the technicians thought to check the antenna extension on the roof... Can you guess what they found?"

"It... _it hit_?" Shepard suddenly asked, her eyes wide as she turned to Emiya obviously giddy with excitement.

"Wha—You're serious?! It worked?!" Cassani asked, his mouth hanging wide open in slack-jawed amazement.

"Indeed." Burnsfeldt said as he pulled up the video of the technicians having a closer look at a completely wrecked antenna that came through the water tower's roof. It had been shot through in the center, causing the entire structure to tilt over into a pile of twisted metal and crushed electronics.

It was the sort of damage that would take days, if not weeks to repair.

" _This_ , is the kind of spirit humanity needs to make it in the galaxy." Burnsfeldt said, leaning forward as he looked at each of them in the eye. "Not that humiliating crap Maeda spouts. _You,_ are exactly the kind of people that humanity needs. Sure, back on that hill it wouldn't have been possible to shoot out the antenna quite like that. But that's not what I'm talking about.

"It's the _spirit_ you have. The unwillingness to back down in the face of a challenge and the wits to _find a way_. I sincerely believe that had people like _us_ been on Shanxi back in the day, the galaxy would look a lot different today."

They looked at each other, all curious about what Burnsfeldt was saying. But Emiya felt something mounting. He felt like they were being guided; being railroaded towards a definite conclusion.

_So this was his plan_. He frowned, unnoticed by everyone else.

Burnsfeldt smiled again as he extended his hands outwards into a handshake. "Which is why... Jane Shepard, Shirou Emiya, Franco Cassani... Here and now on behalf of the _villa_ , I am extending to all of you an invitation to the N-school."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sat outside the tent, gazing up at the starry vault above.

Sunset had come and gone, bringing the chill and darkness of night. Even here, he could hear the fighting in the distance on the other side of a mountain.

He turned on and off his omnitool once more, checking how it worked again. It had been brought in by another returning team a few hours before, after he mentioned where it was. Emiya had handed back all the guns they had taken and afterwards he had been interviewed about everything he knew about guns by Burnsfeldt. There had been others, but the Lieutenant Commander had been the only one asking questions, which went on until several people finally seemed to understand what he had done and how he had done it with the rifles.

Now, they would be returning to their base as soon as enough of the fresh recruits had 'dropped out' or managed to get to their shuttles for the cost of a flight back be justifiable. As it turned out, the idea had been that they weren't supposed to actually make it to the RV, which would force them to get in contact with the N1 hopefuls, somewhere down the line. Of course, Emiya had thrown a wrench into all of that.

Apparently, theirs had been a run for the ages and all of it had been captured on multiple camera feeds from beginning to end. _If I'd known I was so easily excitable, I would have intentionally failed._ Emiya thought glumly.

Already three dozen people had come to ask him about how he could shoot so well and he referred them to the shooting manuals they had been given, which also linked to shooting other weapons. Entire groups would find him, just to ask him about how he made that last shot and he just told them it had been all Cassani's work and then excused him.

It had taken a while, but finally he had broken away and managed to find some place out of sight. There wasn't any meaning to him mingling, after all.

Once they were back, they would be finishing their basic course and graduating to E7, after which they would go through some ceremonies and then get shipped off to their next location for further training or actual service. It all depended on how well they had done so far.

Shepard had been over the moon, of course. Which was something, at least.

She was off with the 'dead and dying'; those who had been already taken out by the hostile reception in the city. They had become something of a curiosity to the top brass and a celebrity to the recruits. Having faced the brutal situation themselves, they felt a sense of wonder as they heard about how well Shepard and Cassani had performed.

Franco took to the sudden fame with ease, while Shepard shyly opened up and allowed herself to make friends. Most of her stand-offish self was gone already, as she felt quite comfortable regaling others of her exploits in the city.

It was good to see. Still, Emiya had excused himself rather early on.

No one had batted an eye at that; he had always been a quiet and distant fellow after all. They all knew him as the competent but unsociable recruit already.

_Something about this doesn't sit right_. Emiya thought as he mulled over the events of the day. He shook his head, closing his eyes again. Even so, he could sense to approaching presence before she spotted him.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark? Are you sleeping already?" Shepard asked, walking up to him.

"Yes." Emiya answered, without bothering to open his eyes.

"Ha ha, like I'm buying that." She kicked at his boots lightly. She stood there for a silent moment, before sitting down next to him. Not quite close enough to be right next to him, but still within arms reach.

They sat there in the quiet for a long moment, before she began to talk. "What a day, huh. Didn't know what to expect when we landed in Brazil, but this was not it."

"You had more than your share of fun during all of it, I noted."

She put her hands on her hips as she grinned. "Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It was pretty fun. Apparently no one's stolen a car before and everyone's going crazy about that. We've been watching how the others are doing; apparently we can go through all of the camera feeds on this end. They're betting latrine cleaning duty on how well people are doing. It's pretty crazy."

Emiya made a sound of amusement at that as Shepard kept telling him about what everyone else was doing. Even as he listened to her talk on, he thought about the car hijack. It had seemed a rather obvious thing to do, at the time. But considering the use of omnitools to lock out others from using them, to people of this time it must seem like a rather novel idea. Something which had drawn unnecessary attention to him.

He wondered how Shepard had used to steal cars, then. Had she used to steal the keys first? Or were there older models that lacked such sophisticated defenses? It didn't matter.

"Thanks. Again."

"Hmm?" Emiya opened his eyes, looking at her. "For what?"

"A lot of things. Really." She admitted, turning to look at him as she rested her head against her knees. "But mostly for the stuff you said while we were driving."

He blinked, not quite understanding what that had to do with anything.

"I've never really... _connected_ , that's the word, right? ...Connected with people, before. It's funny... Today, I just started talking to them. About anything. Everything, really. And they just... _open up_. It's so mysterious how _easy_ it actually is. I mean, I just _get_ them now. Talking and getting along with people. But I could never do it before."

He stared at her quietly. He definitely had no idea what she was talking about now, but perhaps he should just keep quiet and let her think what she wanted of what he had said. He certainly hadn't expected something this grand.

"I didn't do much, but you're welcome nonetheless." He said, gruffly.

"Heh, you're always like this." She smiled at him.

He hesitated, not sure what to make of that. "...Like what?"

In response, her smile only widened as she was obviously not going to say what it was that she found so amusing about him. He huffed, deciding that he didn't need to know which only seemed to make her happier.

"' _Shirou_ ', huh. That's a weird name. Why'd you never tell me about it?" She asked, then.

"I could ask you the same thing, ' _Jane_ '." He deflected.

She blinked at that. "Oh, _that_. Well, it's my birth name or something. It was on some records apparently. But no one ever called me that. I was always just Shepard. _Fifth Street Shepard_." She said quietly, hugging her knees. "Jane just sounds weird. I don't think I like it very much."

"Hmm. Well, no one's called me Shirou in a long time, either. I wouldn't know who you were talking to, so stick with Emiya, alright?" He said.

She looked at him, before smiling coyly.

"Well, you can call me Jane if you want, as long as I get to call you Shirou." She said to that and he merely made an annoyed grunt in response, which made her laugh lightly.

They sat there, for another extended period of silence simply staring up at the night sky.

"Don't trust Burnsfeldt." Emiya finally said.

"Hmm?"

"I don't know what his deal is, but he's up to something. Just be careful about him."

Shepard frowned at him, then. "But he gave us a pass into the N-school? I mean... I, he got us out of that jam with that jackass from before..."

"Major Maeda wasn't wrong per se, don't be mistaken about that, either." Emiya cut in.

"But— _but_ , he was such an asshole! He's just like all those guys I saw back on the streets! Pushing others around and shouting at them all the time, thinking that as long as no one talked back that meant they were right!" She got up on her feet, now shouting at him. "Why should—Why are you defending him?!"

Emiya stared at her for a moment, considering how to put it into the terms she would understand best.

"Yes. He is pretty much the same as those guys in a lot of respects. But how did those guys treat their underlings? The guys who were in their gangs? Their innermost circle?" He finally said. She blinked, nonplussed by what seemed a completely random change of tack in the conversation. She hesitated, opening her mouth and closing it. But Emiya continued. "Maeda is like that, only he considers most everyone in the Navy to be a part of his 'gang' like that. And like I said, he wasn't wrong, about what he said before."

"But, that's...You're _always_ like this." She glared at him, then.

"That's not to say we were entirely in the wrong, either. But you should still consider what he said. There are going to be a lot of guys like him in the Navy, I think. Unlikable, but not wrong. At the very least, I would say he's more trustworthy than Burnsfeldt." Emiya said, looking away again.

She remained silent after that, sitting back down after a few moments to mull things over with a frown. It was more of a pout, but she would have hit him if he said that out aloud. Finally she seemed to mentally shrug off the topic as she looked at him again.

"Well, I won't have to worry about that, will I? I mean, you can handle all the worrying for me in the future, right?" She grinned at him, obviously looking to fix the mood.

Emiya blinked and looked away, inhaling slowly. As he did, Shepard seemed to realize that something about what she had said wasn't ringing true.

"...Right? I mean... We are both going to N-school... _Right_?" Her eyes seemed to be pleading for him to say yes. To dispel all her doubts and fears. She had finally found someone she could truly call a friend and now he was telling her he wouldn't be staying with her.

He hesitated for a moment.

_I didn't tell her before_. _Was it because I was afraid of her reaction? How pathetic am I?_ He cursed his own weakness. It had been an obvious conclusion to him, all along and he had never exactly hidden the fact that he was going to Mars. But had he ever _told_ her?

He had admitted it to himself already. That he had been enjoying his time here immensely. But with that realization had also came the fact that he could not stay. Had he been avoiding the topic, all along?

Emiya frowned, deciding to tackle the subject head on.

"I'm going to Mars." He said finally and the crack that appeared in Shepard's hope was almost physically visible as she flinched at those words.

She swallowed, not knowing what to say as she leaned back, away from him.

"That's... I mean..." Shepard hesitated, her words dying in her throat as she stared at the ground. "...Why? I mean, I thought you would..."

"Since the first time I opened my eyes and stared at the stars, I knew I needed to get to Mars. It's why I enlisted, to be honest. The simplest way to get there, is all." Emiya said, getting up and looking at the night sky.

Out here, far away from civilization the light pollution was minimal. In fact, he could _just_ see Mars as a small red dot in the night sky.

"But, we only just..." She began, but cut herself off as she looked down at her feet. Her mind was in chaos; what could she say? What _should_ she say?

It had felt like she had just opened up some new magical power, which allowed her to understand and to convince people. Before she had known how to intimidate most people into doing what she wanted, but this had seemed different. Like she helped them realize that by talking to her they could gain all that they wanted.

Yet here, she fell short again. She felt as lost and helpless as she had on the first day when faced with a sea of strangers in boot camp. What could she say to make him—What did she even want from him?

Emiya sighed, feeling like he had to say something. Finally, he decided on the truth.

"For the longest time, I've felt like I've been _stuck_. I look back at my life, and I wonder where it all went wrong. What was the nature of my mistake? Was my life from the very beginning simply a sham?" Emiya continued, looking up and exhaling. He turned around, looking down at the sitting Shepard; their positions from earlier overturned. "But that's changed since I met you. Strangely enough."

"...What, what do you mean?" She asked. To her, he had always seemed like an implacable, unmovable rock. A constant that could take on anything and remain unfazed by all the world itself.

What had _she_ done?

"I know I've been... A little _overbearing_ at times. But to be honest, it's been reaffirming spending time with you. It's been good. I've gotten clarity on who I thought I actually was. Perspective. Perhaps I don't need to dwell so much on the past anymore." Emiya smiled for the first time in many years without even a touch of the usual bitterness or weariness, almost feeling a strange sensation coming off of his shoulders at that moment. "Thank you."

Shepard blinked, looking up at him. She stared at him for several seconds with large eyes. He could almost see the countless stars reflecting back from them as she looked up at him. She swallowed, before adopting a troubled smile of her own. "Yeah. It's kinda been like that for me, too." She admitted with a light laugh, before adding in a small melancholic voice; "I guess we won't be staying together after this, then."

"Well, at least we managed to get you in to the N-line." Emiya offered with a chuckle.

Shepard actually laughed properly at that. "Half of that was me just refusing to lose to you, really. But now I find out you're heading to Mars? What the hell is even on Mars? I don't remember any of the training lines being there."

"General engineering, G-line. Really, I'm just interested in the Prothean ruins there." Emiya admitted with a shrug as he sat down again.

"Geh, what the hell. Why would you _even_ —Never mind. I knew you were _weird_ , but this really takes it." Shepard shook her head, making an exasperated sigh of disgust.

He chuckled at that and she laughed along. They settled into a silence, staring at the night sky together.

"I guess dreams just are like _that_. I always just wanted to leave behind the place I'd been in, but now that I'm here... I'm still not sure what I should do." She was almost whispering now; keeping her voice so low only the two of them in all the world could hear. "But I'm going to start with going to N-school and seeing what happens from there." Shepard spoke, then extended a fist towards Emiya. He looked at her, raising an eyebrow curiously at her gesture. "So you go to your dusty ruins. The next time we meet, I'm gonna be the one blowing right past you and you'll have to work on keeping up. Got it?"

Emiya smiled, tilting his head back as he playfully mocked her with his eyes. He extended his own fist at her. "Oh, certainly. I can't wait."

She punched his shoulder instead at the smug superiority in his voice, before they settled back into a companionable silence looking at the starry vault above together.

* * *

;

* * *

" _How interesting_. _The report you sent me hints at great promise._ " The voice on the other end of the comm-line noted. The voice was rich and dark; a tone only possible to acquire after years of whiskey and cigars. The kind that gave it's owner a unique charisma, and one that the voice used well. " _Do keep an eye out for them. Approach them, if you can. But do not push it. Let them bloom in peace, so that we may reap the harvest at its richest._ "

"Yes, sir." Burnsfeldt acquiesced as he listened to voice on the other end with rapt attention.

He had secured the perimeter twice and then run a priority-security line for this conversation. It was thrice encrypted and being re-routed through several hubs, along with being masked under a pre-recorded conversation.

Anyone who actually managed to crack in and listen, would most likely be satisfied with the rather incriminating conversation of Fillion Burnsfeldt buying red sand in bulk from an off-world contact. It was a piece juicy enough to ensure that no one looked _deeper_ , into the actual conversation.

For the sake of all humanity, he was willing to take any punishment as long as it would extend no further. He would martyr for his cause, without hesitation.

Such was his loyalty to this man, to whom he was reporting right now.

" _You have done well. I expect nothing less of our most valuable asset in the Systems Alliance Navy, Operative Burnsfeldt. Remember, that each of your actions serve the future, and walk with pride._ "

"Thank you, sir." The Lieutenant Commander spoke and the line cut after that.

He stood up, feeling satisfied and proud of himself. His head felt light at that moment, his whole body abuzz with the feeling of his success. He knew what he needed to do and how to do it, but he would have to take great care henceforth.

After all, it would not do for anyone in the Systems Alliance to realize where his true loyalties lay.

"This is all for the good of humanity."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Gray Walker, M23M42, PseudoSteak and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.


	9. Unwinding

"Well then, this time's Shanxi-exercise was certainly a doozy! One for the annals, I say!" The man in front of them spoke, seemingly happier than they had ever seen him before.

Emiya vaguely remembered him as the man who had given them the original introduction speech, when he had arrived at this base. They had just returned an hour before. They had performed maintenance and check up on all their gear, gotten what was broken turned in and made lists of everything that was missing or in need of repairs and then gotten the rest squared away.

Most had been exhausted at this point.

Unexpectedly, they had all been brought back as one group, so Emiya had had plenty of downtime while waiting for a ride back.

In theory, anyhow.

In practice, he had spent most of the time avoiding people who wanted to make friends with him, as he simply tried to find things to do to pass the time. At first, he was dragged off before half-a-dozen technicians to show exactly how he had done what he had done with the weapons. Then, after proving that it hadn't just been a fluke and that he _could_ do it on demand, he had to explain in exacting detail what it was that he was doing and how he had come to the conclusions he had.

It was the longest two hours of his life.

A lot of heads had been scratched during those meetings, as Emiya tried to get across how simple his hack had been. It wasn't until one of them understood it and began to talk about it in terms the others understood, that any progress was made.

They apparently read completely different manuals than he did.

Finally, he was given a pat on the back, a bonus to his salary and been made to sign an NDA to keep him quiet until the Alliance figured out a way to prevent what he had done from being repeated. For now, there were talks of a software block in the systems, but it was a hackjob at best.

Having nothing else to do, he had looked around for things to spend time on afterwards.

Things which kept him out of sight and let him be in peace, as apparently everyone had questions for him about the things he had done. Finally, he had managed to worm his way into the field crew that was repairing the vehicles and through pretending to feel guilty about wrecking another Mako, they had accepted his presence there.

Mostly they had had him standing by and fetching things, but ever so slowly he had wormed his way into a larger and larger role.

Shepard had found him at one point while he had been up to his waist in a Mako's engine, covered from head to toe in dirt and grease. She had taken one pointed look at him and then walked off while shaking her head with a smile.

Most of the technicians had laughed it off, until an officer showed up and shouted at everyone for letting an untrained recruit come into contact with Systems Alliance property. He had been given a slap on the wrist and told to go somewhere else after that.

At that point, most of the people around had calmed down and he could sit in peace for five minutes without interruptions.

When finally the exercise was concluded, they were all shipped back and now here they were.

Most were still utterly exhausted, their time under the N-line cadets had been more than a simple walk in the park. The fighting had gone on for days, apparently with no end in sight until casualties mounted so high that the simulation ruled that a ceasefire had to be pursued. He hadn't really cared about the rest of the exercise, but apparently the communication relay's destruction had been a godsend and this year had gone considerably better than most.

"When I first saw you, I saw nothing but soft and useless whelps! But I knew you had potential. Potential to reach heights never seen before! I said to you on that first day that only once you have graduated to E7 will you be worth a damn in my eyes! Well, that has changed. I have been utterly and completely proven wrong and I have never felt prouder of that fact! My expectations for you were completely blown away! E7? Hah! Already we have some among us who will be joining the hallowed ranks of the _N-school_! You have done me proud, boys!"

Which of course meant that the brass wanted to make a speech. It wasn't a bad one, really. But the timing was entirety _off_.

Most of everyone gathered here just wanted a hot shower, warm food and a soft bunk to fall into. They didn't give a damn about any of this; not right now. Looking back, they might feel good and proud about what they had accomplished. But right now, they were simply annoyed at being held in formation while having to listen to a man talk for an hour.

"Which is why I have decided, that in honor of your hard work, that you must all be rewarded! Effort and results ought to always be followed by equal exultation and reward! So do I say!"

That finally got some people's attention, as they seemed to perk up and stand straighter again. Some had seemed to be already sleeping upright.

"This coming weekend, I shall be granting all of you two days of additional leave, for a total of four days starting tomorrow morning! Now, get yourselves in order, for the last thing in today's schedule shall be the pre-leave check ups! Tomorrow morning, you shall all be leaving, first thing. Therefore all preparations for leave will have to be completed by tonight! I do not want a single shirt out of order in your rooms! You have all earned this vacation and I intend to give it to you, but only so long as my beautiful facility is left in flawless order in your absence! That will be all, NCOs, handle the rest!"

With that the officer crisply saluted them with all the gusto he could muster, while staring proudly at the formation, and then he waddled off.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya settled down onto his bunk.

All around him, recruits were organizing their cabinets and gear. A few hours from now, the NCOs would perform the final checks; noting that everything was squared away in their lockers by regulation. That meant everything they had been given and would not be wearing when they walked out would have to be visible and in proper condition. Essentially it was to keep control over gear. From making sure no one kept sweaty or wet clothes in their lockers, where it could mold and smell over the weekend, to making sure no one grabbed all of their apparel and took it off-base and then late requisitioned for more.

Apparently, some of the poorer soldiers at one time had made some side-money by stealing and selling their underwear on their leave and then asking for replacements. Which was why they now were expected to fold and have visible every article of clothing and gear that they had in their lockers. Including their underwear.

That people wore their clothes when they left and returned was also checked, but through omnitool scans for some measure of privacy.

Most of them had been expecting that they would have days until they had to worry about it, thus the sudden rush and craze. That they had their first leave soon had been widely known and talked about, but the additional two days had changed everything. Everyone was running around like headless chicken, trying to get their clothes dried and folded up in order as they packed up their belongings in a hurry.

Emiya always kept his locker in order and he didn't have any extraneous belongings to worry about, thus his relaxed state on top of his bunk. He was an island of peace in the middle of a storm of chaos.

Beside him, Shepard was struggling with trying to fold one of her exercise one-piece suits into the shape and dimensions necessary to make her locker presentable for the inspection later. She looked up at him, for the _n_ th time that day.

He ignored her, keeping his eyes closed as he simply _smirked_.

She sighed, remembering his answer from earlier. ' _I'm not your mother. The manual's right there, if you don't remember how to do it'._

Emiya continued to catnap, waiting for time to pass. At this point that was all he seemed to be doing. With most of their time in basic training done, soon enough they would all be shipped off to their next destinations.

It was plain to see on everyone. There was a sense of accomplishment and purpose to them, even through the rush and rumble of trying to get all of their gear in order.

Even so, their NCOs found time for lectures. They hadn't had any off-base free time, yet. So that they _ought to_ _behave_ despite being out was being drilled right into their skulls, repeatedly at every possible instance. Everything they did out of the Navy, even when not wearing a uniform, would reflect on the Systems Alliance Navy.

' _No drugs. No alcohol. No doing anything stupid. If you think I'd make you do laps for it._ **Don't** _._ **Do** _._ **It** _. Gentlemen. If she says no, that's your cue to back off. You fail to understand that simple word? I will personally hang you by your balls. That goes for you too, Shepard. I'll find an extra pair, just for you if I have to._

_'No touching Susie. I assume you all know who I mean by that. Understood? Good. You'll all be taking urine tests when you come back, so don't think you're going to be able to pull a fast one on us. And drinking floor cleaner does not fool the urine test, either. Don't try it, for fuck's sake. Fuck this up and I will skin each and every single one of you motherfuckers alive and wear you as a poncho. Understood?_ '

Personally, he had thought it a little much, but given some of the boasts and plans for the weekend he was hearing, he was sure that it had been entirely necessary and that none of it had sunk in into half of the people who needed to hear it.

Returning to base would be _interesting_ , to say the least.

Cassani came walking up to them with his hands in his pockets as he approached. "Heya."

Shepard looked up, nodding her greeting to the man, as she went back to trying to fold her jumpsuit. Emiya opened his eye and looked at him, making his own greeting with a nod.

"So... uh... Whatcha guys thinking about doing on leave? I mean, for the first time in like... _forever_ , we can just go do whatever!"

Shepard looked up at him. "Probably just gonna stay here. The NCOs were making such a fuss about me being a woman, saying I had to remain at all times with two others. Might as well stay here and just relax if it's such a huge deal. Why?"

"Well, the thing is, Rodriguez is being a little bitch right now, so he's ignoring me. So I thought, whether you guys might want to come hang out at my place. Well, I mean, it's my grandmother's place since I sold my apartment when I enlisted... But there's plenty of space and food. I could show you guys the city and stuff, yeah?" Cassani spoke, beginning to ramble.

Emiya blinked. It seemed that aside from each other, the two troublemakers hadn't really managed to make any friends among the recruits. They had that air of dismissive superiority that turned to passive annoyance and aggression when someone tried to talk to them.

They were just childish, in Emiya's mind. They'd grow up fine; there was nothing wrong with their personalities, so they would turn into fine adults sooner or later.

Shepard looked up, thinking about it. "Yeah, I guess. What about you, Emiya?"

He looked at her, considering it. Finally he shrugged. "Fine."

Cassani grinned at that. "Awesome! Yeah, it's gonna be great! Let's uh—you have any rides?" He turned thoughtful, considering something as he scratched his jaw.

Shepard shook her head while Emiya considered that, finally shaking his own head in the negative.

"Yeah, yeah! Okay, right. You should have enough money, since neither of you ever spends any of your credit on anything from what I can tell. After they let us out, just come find me and I'll get us squared, yeah?"

"Sure." Emiya shrugged.

"Yeah, okay. Mind helping me with this thing?" Shepard repeated, looking up as she raised the tangled jumpsuit and undoing all of her efforts so far in trying to fold it up nicely.

Cassani blinked, before raising his hands and laughing as he backed away.

"Nah, you keep that thing away from me. I've just used the one and kept the other two spares folded up the entire time so I don't need to think about them. Good luck, but I ain't touching another of those."

Shepard scowled, before considering what he had said, looking at her locker.

"No." Emiya said simply, having already closed his eyes again.

"What?" Shepard asked, looking up from her thoughts.

"You are not doing like that idiot and only wearing one suit. That's _disgusting_. I'll break into your locker and unravel all of your clothes if I have to, so don't even think about it." Emiya said.

She blinked before scowling at him. Though it looked more like a pout. Emiya smirked as he kept his eyes closed. "You'll have to learn all that stuff sooner or later, so you might as well learn it now."

"I _hate_ you." She grumbled, throwing down the suit and going back to trying to fold it up. Cassani laughed and walked away, back to his own bunk.

* * *

;

* * *

They stood in a formation, just in front of the base gates. Mere minutes away from their leave. That did not mean that their NCOs let up at all, though.

"Repeat after me; _I will not drink!_ " They repeated, some shouting, some in a normal voice and some only moving their lips as they rolled their eyes. "I will not partake in any use of drugs I do not have prescription for, be it for recreational purposes or otherwise!" They repeated again and again, everything that was spoken to them. This was the fifth time since they had been told they would be receiving prolonged leave, already.

"And if we have to send out the military police to bring you in, may God have mercy on your souls for I sure as hell will not! Now, dismissed!"

As one, the organized formation scattered in complete chaos. Recruits rushing for the gates and grouping up, finding their friends and buddying up.

Emiya and Shepard were no exceptions, finding Franco in the throng and walking up to him from behind.

"Freedom!" Cassani shouted, raising his hands up into the air. Behind him, Shepard and Emiya stared at him with blank eyes; judging him. He turned around as he noticed them, blinking at their reaction. "Come on, guys. Four days of shore leave? Why aren't you excited?"

"Well, four days is four days. I don't really get the difference." Shepard said, shrugging.

Emiya didn't bother to even say that much, simply looking around bored.

"Fine! Whatever, be like that. Come on. Follow me." Cassani huffed and began to lead them away.

Reaching a large shuttle, they bought tickets and entered. Shepard seemed fairly familiar with the idea, leaving Emiya as the sole odd man out. _I guess it's public transportation. Like a bus. Cassani must live close by, then_.

He nodded to himself at that, sitting down in one of the seats. It looked like bus—or an airplane—too. With that, he opened his omnitool and settled down to read while ignoring the surroundings. Finally, after an hour Cassani notified him that it was time to get off. Emiya closed the omnitool and closed his eyes to wait for the bus to stop.

Overall the whole trip had been rather pleasant.

As they exited the shuttle, Emiya blinked as he looked out. He had expected them to have traveled perhaps some hundred kilometers at most. Looking up at the sun's position and noting how long they had been traveling, he noted a dissonance with that.

That, and the distinct architecture ahead.

Emiya turned around to look at Cassani.

"This is Barcelona?"

"Uh... Yeah?" Cassani blinked at that, as if it had been obvious.

Emiya blinked, realizing they had gone around the globe in less than an hour. Suddenly, he felt foolish for not having looked out the window during the flight. Had they gone to orbit or had they flown through atmosphere that quickly?

"Alright then." He said, accepting that. With eezo, even if did not reach FTL-travel, incredible speeds were still commercially available and possible to use, he realized.

Somehow, he wasn't sure if that had made the world smaller or larger.

They took a cab after that; a regular four-wheeled car that ran on the ground. Even as technology and progress marched on, old methods did not always fall away entirely. Apparently in old cities such as these, flight was relatively restricted.

Something about upholding a public image and maintaining the heritage sites Cassani explained.

Which meant that just as they had in the 21st century, the streets of Barcelona were still jam-packed with cars and pedestrians. Time hadn't changed the city much, as the old buildings and streets had been preserved as faithfully as possible.

Having gotten most of the way, Cassani suggested walking the rest of the way and they agreed, paying the fare and hopping out.

Cassani seemed right at home, not noting anything unusual as he navigated the street and Emiya had been to old cities such as this many times before. But to Shepard it was obviously an entirely new experience.

Unlike many of the metropolises of the 22nd century, Barcelona was a very spread out city. A lot of the time, they could see either the beach and sea or many of the old churches and towering structures in the distance as they continued walking.

There was little rubbish and refuse on the streets and what little grime existed seemed more like patina than anything else.

Cassani re-assured them that it was only a little further several times, but Emiya could tell he was taking a roundabout route, where he could show off all the best sights. He tactfully did not say anything, choosing instead to maintain the relaxed mood.

The mood among those walking around was relaxed and laid back, the warm sun and refreshing sea breeze keeping everyone outdoors in an energetic but serene mood. It wasn't quite so hot that people grew lethargic and sought the refuge of shadows, thankfully. A side-effect of the sea wind probably. They passed street vendors and performers, which seemed like utterly alien existences to Shepard as she gawked, tried out some of the local food in one of the parks and looked at the various sculptures around as they kept walking.

Winged angels, prancing horses, beautiful women clad in flowing dresses, bare-chested men with flawless bodies; all had been captured in stone with precision and skill that even Emiya could admire without hesitation. To Shepard, it must have seemed magical, as she tried out all the things they had bought and stared at all the marble statues.

She particularly enjoyed the _jamón ibérico,_ a local style of cured ham made from the local breeds of pig. Served in thin slices along with _manchego_ cheese, she had to go back for seconds and thirds before they could pull her along to keep going.

After the long way around, they finally arrived at an old looking apartment block. Gray stone, some six stories tall and with a hundred tales to tell, just judging by the sounds of life and chaos they could hear from the steps.

Cassani grinned as he lead the way inside. "Watch out for kids; they'll run right into your knee if you're not careful."

Shepard blinked at that, only for a troupe of six kids to run through the hallway from one end to the other in two seconds flat. The sound of screeching and laughter echoed as they disappeared somewhere down the hall.

"Huh."

They continued up along the stairs—made out of wood and much narrower than in Brazil, with wrought iron rails, Shepard noted with fascination—until they made it to the third floor. There, they made it to an old wooden door that looked like it was older than all of them combined.

That was Emiya's honest and impressed appraisal of the oak door.

Cassani knocked on the door and stepped back. A long silent while passed, until finally the door was opened with a soft creak of dried hinges.

Inside a grumpy-looking, wrinkled little old lady stood, staring up at them through the haze of tobacco smoke, a cigarette in her hands. She glanced at each of them before settling on Cassani.

"Franco. I should have guessed. Your mother still won't let you back home for running off to play soldier-boy?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Cassani laughed lightly at that. "Ahahah, grandma, you know me so well. Mind if we stay here for a few days? Me and my friends have leave and I wanted to show them the city."

Between words, he peeked at Shepard and Emiya who were both raising an eyebrow at him. _He didn't tell anyone we were coming over? Perfect._ _I don't know what I expected of him._

The grandmother sighed and began to close the door as she turned away, Cassani leaping to put a foot in the door as he began to plead. " _Grandmother_ , you can't just leave us out here!"

"It's warm. Find a park bench and hope the police don't come to bother you." She said curtly, taking her cane to prodding at Cassani's foot, looking for his toes so that she could cause enough pain to make him pull out.

"But, grandma... _Look_ , we can't have a girl like her sleeping outside!" Cassani tried, this got the cane to stop. She opened the door again and peered at Shepard who suddenly seemed nervous at being the focus of the little old lady's attention.

"Uh... Hi?" She waved her hand, trying not to look away.

Grandma stared for several seconds, looking Shepard up and down as she squinted. Turning to her grandson, she asked, "Is she your girlfriend?"

Cassani blinked, licking his lips and hesitating for a moment.

She took this for all the answer she needed. "Good. She's too pretty for someone like you. Come in and close the door behind you."

He made a nervous little laughter at that, following her inside as he motioned for them to follow with a thumbs up. Neither looked impressed but they followed him in nonetheless.

* * *

;

* * *

Having found a place to sleep and letting Cassani drop his stuff, they decided to get back onto the city streets. Grandmother did not apparently care one whit as she sat down by a recliner and glared at anyone when they walked within her sight.

"Hey, don't you have... Anything else to wear?" Cassani asked, sheepishly looking at the two others. He had taken off his dress uniform, getting on something more casual and light for the rest of the day.

Shepard blinked, looking down at her dress uniform. It was a neat and presentable suit; all show and no comfort or practicality. Looking at Emiya who hadn't changed out of his clothes either, she frowned.

"No?"

Cassani paused at that, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something but did not know where to begin.

"Shopping it is, then." Emiya said shrugging.

Shepard started at that. "Why? I thought these would be fine?" Motioning at their uniforms.

"We'll be the centers' of attention wherever we go." Emiya countered and Shepard couldn't disagree; they had gotten a lot of looks on the way here.

"Fine. I guess." She shrugged and Cassani nodded, thinking for a moment before he lead them away.

"You guys should have plenty of cash, right? I mean I never see either of you buying anything. No sweets, no cigs, nothing." Cassani asked as he lead them away. Both merely shrugged at that, saying they didn't have anything they really wanted to ever buy. "Well, it's fine. Let's get you some clothes."

They entered a street boutique some blocks away, filled to the brim with colorful and light articles of clothing of all kinds. Shepard looked around with raised eyebrows, touching fabrics here and there as she became overwhelmed with the selection presented to her.

Emiya simply found a simple pair of beige trousers and a light gray dress-shirt, buying several pairs after haggling for a moment.

"You've had these in stock for well over three years; no one is buying them from you old man. Just let me take them off of your hands to save space for more popular styles of clothing. I'm practically doing you a favor here. 20 credits for the whole bunch."

"You wound me, sir! I have a family to feed; you can't do this to me. Ah, ah... Martina, I can see the light at the end... 50 credits, I can't go any lower, sir. _Please_..." The old shopkeeper seemed to swoon, and take support from a wall at Emiya's words, but strangely enough Shepard could spot the smiles on both of their faces.

_They're playing a game, aren't they_? She realized, before going back to try and find something she could see herself wearing.

She continued to look around, until finally Emiya got the deal he wanted as he came back wearing the light trousers and the gray shirt. He had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top buttons undone, letting him enjoy the warm day fully without fear of sweating overmuch.

On his feet, he had flip-flop sandals and in his arms he had his uniform and other clothes folded neatly into a small bag. She blinked, noticing that he didn't look half bad.

"Huh, a little out of style, but not bad. How much?" Cassani asked.

"25 credits for all of it, plus sandals and..." Emiya began, reaching for a pocket and whipping out a pair of sunglasses and put them on with one hand, finishing with a smirk.

"Okay, that's pretty good. How about you Shepard? Found anything?" Cassani turned around and asked.

She made a nervous little laughter, not quite willing to tell she hadn't found anything yet. "No, umm... I don't think I like dresses very much."

"Huh? But it's the best season for them?" Cassani asked, looking out to the street where dozens of flowing skirts and dresses could be seen.

"It's just, I don't think they're very practical." She protested weakly.

"That's not true." Emiya stated, far more firmly than either would have expected. They turned to look at him, blinking. "Skirts and dresses are plenty practical. Depending on the cut, of course. But that's true for all clothes, really."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at him as Cassani blinked some more.

"Mind... elaborating on that?" Cassani asked.

"Well, you can run and kick just fine in a dress. If you get wounded, you have plenty of good gauze and bandaging material on hand. Usually the more costly fabrics work better, too. If you're worried about it getting caught in things, mini-skirts work well too. Well, they show a little bit too much leg for my liking, but each to themselves." Emiya finished weakly.

Shepard and Cassani looked at each other, both knowing what the other was thinking but afraid of asking it out aloud. Finally, Shepard decided to have the guts and just _ask._

"And this is from... _personal_ experience?" She seemed unsure as to how to approach the subject.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind." Cassani hastily added.

Emiya blinked, suddenly realizing what they were thinking even as Shepard seemed to be intently looking at his waist and legs. _She's imagining what I would look like in a mini-skirt, isn't she?_

" _Second-hand_ experience." He clarified.

"Ooohhh..." Cassani nodded at that, seeming not entirely convinced.

Shepard meanwhile was simply staring at him, considering his words carefully. She looked back at the rows and rows of clothing arrayed in the store, in all colors and cuts.

"So... dresses are practical?" She still seemed skeptical.

"Sure. I mean with tight-fitting clothes like _these_ or _those_ , it would be difficult to hide a weapon, for example." He nodded at his own apparel and Cassani before he continued. "With a long dress you could hide an entire shotgun underneath it. Or hell, strap a shotgun to one leg and an assault rifle to the other. Even tight dresses allow for small weapons to be hid in easily reachable but difficult to search places, allowing for some surprisingly dangerous moves." Emiya said with a serious look, rubbing at a spot on his throat as if remembering an old scar.

" _Personal..._ Experience?" Cassani asked again, peering at Emiya who seemed to realize what he had just said.

He cleared his throat, before looking away. " _Second-hand_ experience."

Shepard shook her head. "Maybe later. I'll just get something comfortable for now."

Emiya shrugged, not entirely sure how they had gotten into this conversation in the first place now.

* * *

;

* * *

After the shopping trip, they had gone and thrown back their stuff and then set out again.

They had walked around all day; already the sun was beginning to dip into the sea. At Cassani's behest they had visited several more modern establishments, where the most advanced of omnitool and VI technology was being presented and sold.

At Shepard's request they had walked around and tried the various stalls of street food once they got hungry again. And finally, at Emiya's urging they had visited several sights in the city. The two others soon realized that he was apparently quite impressed with Antoni Gaudi's architecture after seeing the _Sagrada Família_ up close.

It was a massive basilica; a cathedral that had taken lifetimes to build. Gaudi had reportedly answered to the question of what he thought about having designed a building that would not be completed in his lifetime, with 'my client is not in a hurry' as well. At least that was what they were told by a local guide.

No matter the case, it had been declared a UNESCO world heritage site long ago and faithfully kept in good condition.

Shepard had thought the massive basilica quite overwhelming and even a bit haunting, but Emiya had enjoyed the tour both outside and inside so immensely that they decided to go see some of the famous architect's other works in the city.

Strangely enough, he also seemed rather interested in the clergymen for a while as well, until all of his interest vanished after talking with them for a short while. They toured the city some more, until they finally decided to head back.

"Tomorrow we could go to the beach, or even take a cable car to Montjuic. The castella is pretty cool, too."

As Cassani had taken a key with him, they didn't have to knock this time.

As they entered, they could smell a strange scent in the air. They walked in, finding grandmother in the kitchen. She seemed to be preparing something, glancing up at them and giving them a nod and a grunt as a welcome.

"Ah, do you need help, grandmother?" Cassani asked as he leaned around the corner into the kitchen, as if he was afraid of actually entering without permission.

"Set the table. You're not good for much else."

Emiya looked in, considering the kitchen for a moment. Not saying anything, he simply looked on with crossed arms and furrowed brows.

She looked up, brandishing a knife at him as she shooed at him with the flat of the blade. "Go somewhere else, you big lug. Dinner will be ready when dinner is ready."

"May I assist? I'm not entirely unfamiliar with seafood." Emiya answered, lowering his arms.

She merely frowned at him, before shooing him away again with her knife. "Away with you."

Cassani leaned in, nodding at his grandmother. "She doesn't have an omnitool. So no translator, you know."

Shepard who had been sitting by the table to try and stay out of the way blinked at that. "So she hasn't understood a word we've said since we showed up?"

"It's fine, it's fine. She doesn't much care about other people." Cassani reassured her as he began to set down some glasses on the table.

Emiya considered that, before shrugging. " _Can I help? Handle squid well. Sorry, I do not speak any Catalan."_

She looked up at him, putting down the knife as she walked up to take a closer look at him. Under the glare—or perhaps _over the glare_ , as she barely came to his chest in height—Emiya did not flinch as he waited for her answer.

Finally, after ten seconds of scowling, she nodded at him to come into the kitchen and shooed him at the knife she had been using before.

"You speak spanish?" Cassani asked, looking both impressed and confused.

Emiya smirked as he took up the knife and looked back. "Just a little. And yes, I understood most of what you said in the showers then, when you thought I wasn't wearing an omnitool."

Cassani laughed nervously at that. "A joke, man. I didn't _really_ mean it—It was Rodriguez who started it, anyway!"

"Your mouth still writes checks it can't cash, Franco." Grandmother said, scowling at him again and he seemed to wilt at that.

Shepard laughed at that and Emiya had an amused glint in his eyes as he began to prepare dinner. He noted the knife's condition before he began to cut. Even after a break of over a century from cooking, it all came back when he wanted it to.

He smiled again as he began to cut.

* * *

;

* * *

Overall it was a pleasant fare, if a bit simple. As Cassani's grandmother settled for the night after telling them to keep it quiet, Emiya considered whether he should go shopping tomorrow. If he bought more materials, he could surely try out new and interesting cuisines as well.

They walked around the dinner table, preparing some _churros_ for dessert.

"I didn't know you could cook." Shepard noted as she helped clear away the last of the dishes from the table.

"Why not? Eating is the basis for a healthy life, after all." Emiya answered, as he put loaded up the washing machine, receiving the plates from her.

"Well..." She hesitated.

"No, I'm curious about that, too. You were like... _Skin and bones_ when you first showed up. Normally you wouldn't think someone like that had a chance to learn how to cook. No offense or anything." Cassani butted in.

Emiya started at that, straightening up as he looked at them with narrowed eyes.

Cassani pulled back, raising his hands. "Sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"No, it's..." Emiya blinked. Then, as if considering how to admit it, he spoke; "I just forgot. I wasn't always on the streets."

Shepard looked up at that before nodding as she looked away. "Sometimes I forget, too. It's weird. The Navy kind of just... drowns you in itself, so much that you forget about everything else."

"Huh, I guess they do. The immersion is pretty deep. I guess that's why they don't let us out until the end of basic; to make sure we're at least mostly conditioned before they let us out of sight. Hell, I changed my clothes earlier and automatically tucked my shirt in my pants like regulation says, without even thinking about it. That was kind of scary..." Cassani added his bit to the conversation.

Emiya sighed, drying his hands. This topic was getting too heavy and it was straying into a direction he did not like. He had been revealing a little too much for comfort, now that he thought about it.

"I was thinking about going shopping tomorrow for some more foodstuffs and try to make something more. Would your grandmother object to something like that? I don't mean to take over the kitchen, or anything."

"Huh? Nah, as long as she gets decent food, she's fine with just sitting by in her chair and smoking all day."

"Hmm, well then, I'll ask her tomorrow just to be sure." Emiya confirmed.

"Should we be going to bed soon? It's getting pretty dark already?" Shepard asked, looking out through the open window.

Cassani shook his head. "Not unless you want to deal with jet lag. We're a couple hours ahead in time, so we should be really waking up at noon tomorrow, to keep the biological rhythm."

Shepard blinked at that, before realizing what he meant. "Oh, right. _Timezones_. So what are we gonna do now, then?"

"We could go clubbing?" Cassani suggested, grinning widely.

"Eh..." Shepard protested, not at all feeling enthusiastic about that.

"Come one, we could go dancing and have a good time, eh Emiya?" Cassani tried to find some support in Emiya who was nursing a cup of tea now.

"I don't dance." But Emiya's statement cut that attempt in the bud. "I think I'll just settle down and read for the evening. The moon is quite pleasant, tonight."

Shepard blinked, looking out the window and noting the pale orb in sky just rising for the night. Somehow, Emiya's gaze seemed peaceful and conflicted at the same time. She hesitated, wondering if she could bring up _Mars_ and try again...

_No, I can't do that. But maybe they won't let him go, either. Then we could... What am I thinking?_ She shook her head.

"I guess I'll go lie down. Don't really feel like anything right now. G'nite, both of you." Shepard said, standing up to leave. Emiya looked up and made eye-contact with her, before nodding.

"Good night."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya inhaled.

Usually he took off his omnitool before going to bed, but for now he would need it. He wasn't sure what would happen once he went back to base, but it was good to prepare for the eventuality that things might not go his way.

He closed his eyes as he began to focus.

Within the hedge mage circles and among the freelancers in the moonlit world, had existed many tricks and useful cantrips that had been shared and sold around for anyone with the connections or coin for it.

One of those was a method for dispersing your consciousness, to fall into a deep sleep that was very near a coma. Favored among those who often visited battlefields, it was a good method for dispersing mental stress quickly and getting back into the fighting. The usual was that one could stay up for thirty or so hours and then fall unconscious for two and wake up mostly functional and continue for another thirty.

Of course, it did have its downsides. It did nothing to physical exhaustion, beyond the two hours rest itself, and during this state one could not be woken up at all. It would leave the user rather vulnerable, but many still favored it in shifts, allowing them to maintain vigilance while a portion of a group or squad rested.

Emiya had rarely had need for such techniques. His sleep had always been strange, ever since the fire. He did not dream so much as he remembered things from his past or visited that realm within himself. If he wanted to sleep for just two hours and function mostly fine the next day, then he would simply sleep for two hours and wake up when he needed to.

His usual day, even before setting out on his quest, had been one that allowed very little sleep. He would train his magic for several hours after it got dark, often well past midnight. Then, each and every morning, he would wake up at sunrise to make breakfast.

Such a rest cycle often left him with less than five hours of sleep every night, yet it never seemed to slow him down much.

There wasn't even a need for an alarm clock; it was simply a matter of acknowledging that he had to wake up at a certain time, before he went to sleep and the rest took care of itself. Emiya felt that there was a certain weakness; a degeneracy to relying on such things, actually.

But right now, he would doing something a little different. Usually during his time in training, he would let himself fall either unconscious or perform breathing techniques for the whole night, making sure to take off his omnitool in case it kept unwanted records of his nightly activities.

Now however, that was exactly what he wanted. He had looked into it and he was fairly certain that their omnitools did in fact keep a constant record of their bodily functions. _Which sort of negates the necessity of the urine test they threatened us with_ , he thought as he began to feel himself falling into an unconsciousness that resembled sleep.

Two hours passed and he began to feel his conscious mind returning.

He began to control his breathing; subtly and slowly raising it. He began to heat up his body, raise his heart rate and slowly his blood pressure as well. He raised it to levels where his body was sweating, as if he was running for his life.

Then he gasped, kicking off the blanket and jumping out of bed as he gasped for breath.

His bed was soaked; his heart was hammering so powerfully that he could feel it all the way in his head. His eyes felt like they were covered in sand and the sound of rushing water was in his ears. Without using the actual effective methods through breathing control, he slowly calmed himself down, until he took off the omnitool.

_Night one, three more to go._ He thought as he got up and went to take a shower. He would also wash the sweat-stained bed sheets; it was the least he could do after all of this. He might as well clean up the place while he was up.

There was a trick to cleaning new places; you didn't want to affect anything that could annoy the owners, so you had to sort of _read_ how everything was organized and understand the person. It was actually rather similar to his Structural Analysis, in a sense.

You could tell a lot about a person's room. Even more if you could see their entire home. Cassani's grandmother was certainly a little grouchy, but going by the pictures adorning each wall of the house, it was obvious she had lived and loved a long and happy life. He guessed her annoyance mostly stemmed from her weakening body and inability to continue living as she had before along with the fact that most of her offspring seemed too busy to visit her.

Which meant he ought to be subtle about his housework. She took pride in it, he reasoned.

He could do that. Keep her from realizing until days after they left that someone had cleaned. Walking along the steps others tread was something of a specialty of his, after all.

"Might as well go buy some foodstuffs for breakfast later as well. Or lunch, as it will be." He nodded to himself.

Time seemed to go by in a blur, as he handled everything he set out to do in a quiet manner. His old home had been an old Japanese manor with its own charms and challenges, so he enjoyed learning about other old households. They each had their own charms and challenges as well, which made for interesting work.

Before he knew it, dawn came and he was offering breakfast to Cassani's grandmother. She frowned at him, but did not complain at the food he presented her.

A few hours later, Shepard woke up and Cassani soon followed after.

"Heya, good morning, or rather noon—Whoa, who made breakfast? Or is that lunch? Brunch?" Cassani asked as he entered the dining room.

"Guess." Shepard said, looking up as she munched on some baby squid with fried eggs. She had been skeptical about it at first, but now she had to admit it was _delicious_.

"Sit down. There's fresh orange juice and food. I went for a walk, so I borrowed your key. I hope you don't mind. It's by the table there." Emiya said, popping his head around the corner from the kitchen.

"Uh... No problem. Didn't even hear you." Cassani said, blinking.

Shepard huffed. "Well I sure heard _you_. You snore like a truck."

"Heheh, sorry about that." Cassani grinned in a manner that told he was anything but.

"I was thinking about taking another trip to the _Sagrada Família_. And to check out some of the other Gaudi sites." Emiya said.

"Huh, again? What about the beach? Or taking the cable cars?" Cassani whined.

Emiya shrugged. "Maybe later. You can go without me, if you want."

"We can go to the cathedral again, sure." Shepard answered, before Cassani could ask her.

"...Are you sure you don't want to go to the beach? It's pretty nice."

"Eh, it's fine. The beach can wait, you won't." She shrugged.

He licked his lips then, as Cassani looked at the two not quite following the conversation. He threw up his hands, shaking his head and muttered something about going to the tech-store himself alone, then.

"Yeah, alright. Let's go after, then." Emiya compromised and Shepard smirked at him. He figured he might as well do as she wanted, even if her attempts at subterfuge were paper thin.

He'd be gone soon enough, anyhow.

* * *

;

* * *

"So are you Christian?"

Emiya looked down at Shepard. He had been admiring the vaulted stone ceiling of the church they had found. Each stone here told him a story; a lifetime. It was actually rather fascinating. Most of his progress in the field of magic had come in places that rarely had enough historical sites like this for him to really try it.

Certainly, he found an occasional statue or wall in the deserts, but given that those who he had been fighting at the time had been going around and smashing such things, he rarely had the time to fully analyze or look into them.

"Not really. I had some... acquaintances who were Catholic, however." Emiya replied as he turned to look at the hooded sisters walking down the street, some dozens of meters away.

"Were you close?" She asked, tilting her head at him.

He hesitated, before sighing.

"Not really. With a few, sure. But mostly I worked together with some of them and... fought occasionally. I wasn't really friends with most of them." He admitted.

"Tell me about them?"

Emiya looked at her then. Was there any harm in telling her? It had been from his life. His 'first' life. But then, he could just keep it vague enough that it wouldn't matter.

"I had a friend and mentor who was Christian, but she was more of the ' _I'll appear faithful when it's useful_ '-type, than a real believer. The only thing she really believed in was money and personal ability, I think."

Shepard blinked. "She sounds like a real character."

Emiya huffed, letting a small smirk. "Yeah, she was. We didn't stick together for long. A fundamental difference of values, I think. We parted ways rather early on."

"Difference of values?" Shepard repeated, not quite sure what he meant.

Emiya shrugged. "She said she believed in ruthlessly winning by any means necessary, even as there was a contradictory kinder side to her. I'm something of a pacifist, really. So we had some arguments and we parted eventually without reconciling those differences."

Shepard laughed at that, ignoring his look. Considering all that they had done, there seemed to be a rather poignant irony to him calling himself a pacifist.

"Do you miss her?" Shepard asked, she could see he had liked that person.

"Hmm. Who knows. I hadn't thought about her in... forever, so I can't honestly say I do. But I do think back on those times rather fondly." He turned to look at her. "How about you? Any friends you left behind?"

She blinked at that. "Umm, not really. Sorry, I didn't mean to pry..."

"Heh, as long as you realize you're doing it."

Shepard smiled at that, as he continued walking. They went through narrow streets and wide open plazas.

Trying out the street food, they compared the _tapas_ and _jamón_ from this vendor and that stall, debating the merits of each.

"The second was a rather curious man. I still don't think I fully get him, but if pressed to say what I thought of him, I would say that I despised him while still finding him fascinating. He was also the earlier friend's guardian, due to some deaths in the family. A rather _sordid_ affair, that."

Shepard blinked and paused, before realizing Emiya was continuing where they had left off earlier. She hurried to keep pace with him, wanting to keep listening.

"I ended up having a fist fight with the guy at one point. Never saw him after that." Emiya continued talking, making sure that what he said was _technically_ true, at least. "Well, some months later his daughter showed up and started hounding me. Prickly one that."

"Another girl?" Shepard asked, frowning at him.

"Hmm? Yeah, daughter, like I said." He said, blinking at her.

"Never mind. What was she like?"

"A real weirdo. A sadist and masochist all in one; a heart of gold but with a tongue like a thorned whip. Just like her father, she enjoyed needling people with their deepest darkest thoughts, though the motivations between them were vastly different, I think." Emiya shook his head, smiling ruefully. "We didn't spend a lot of time together, but it was still something of a friendship. I think she saw me as a lost cause, but still wanted to do something about me."

He shrugged.

They continued walking, making it to the boardwalk adjacent to the beach. Neither had bothered to acquire any swim wear, so they simply sat down in the shade beneath a tree and looked out.

"Huh, looks way different than I remember."

"Yeah, the sea is everywhere, but it's always different. I wonder if space is like that, too." Emiya mused.

Shepard looked at Emiya again, frowning at what he said. He would keep dropping hints like that; that he had seen many beaches before. But that didn't make any sense, given who he was. Who she distinctly remembered seeing the first time.

Was he lying to her? No, she couldn't believe that. She realized he wasn't telling her the whole truth, but she hesitated. Could she just ask? Straight up and without holding back?

She sighed, shaking her head and looking back out at the sea. She just had to accept that he was mysterious like that.

"There was one more, but that was mostly a working relationship."

"Hmm?" Shepard looked up.

"Then again, I guess she was my last friend all things considered." He made a little laugh at that, yet it didn't sound happy. Not at all. More like grim amused. She didn't like the sound of him, then.

"...Last friend?" She asked.

"Mm, most others left me before that. She was really the last honest friend I had. She was an extreme, like that. In a lot of other ways, too. She was something of a... _missionary._ Traveling the world and solving problems wherever she went. She really liked some of the food I'd made, too. She said I made the best curry she had had in ages." He shook his head. He remembered a shroud; something he had received a long time ago.

_'You may be an gullible fool, Shirou... But, that's not a bad thing really. The world could use more people like you, to be honest. Well, they tend to die for a reason. I hope this will stave off that for a few years, at least. Wear it while remembering who you are, always.'_

Emiya huffed at that memory. She had loved to lecture him, treating him as something like an underclassman and showing him the ropes when they worked together.

"Sorry, didn't mean to talk about inane things. Just airing my thoughts, a little."

"No, it's fine. I didn't mind." She said. "It's interesting, actually."

"Hmph, well I'm glad my life is that, if nothing else." He groused, standing up. "Let's head back. We can loop around by the open markets before they close down for the day and get something to eat for tonight."

"Sure. Wanna race?" She asked, raising a challenging eyebrow at him.

He huffed in amusement, shrugging at her in defeat. "The stand with the chocolate dip _churros_?"

She nodded and he took that as his starting signal, dashing off.

Behind him, he could hear her shouting about that being cheating.

* * *

;

* * *

Before they knew it, leave came to an end.

They did just about everything, taking the time to visit the castella on Monjuic and returning to the boardwalk to lie around on the beach. None of them had bought swimsuits, so they didn't bother swimming. Emiya had suggested teaching Shepard how to swim, but she had apparently already known how to.

Something of a surprise, that.

But even with Cassani's insistence, none had felt like going to buy swimwear and taking a dip.

But though four days was a long leave on paper, in practice the days seemed to go by in a blur. Emiya visited several of the churches in Barcelona, making a point to take routes that would take them by various food vendors, open air markets and other notable locations. They tried out all the dishes they could find, blowing a month's wages from their basic on nothing but food in just two days.

Cassani's grandmother glared at Emiya once she realized he had been doing far more than she had realized at the house, but had found nothing to complain about so ultimately she hadn't made a fuss about it. Cassani himself had gone over to talk to some of his relatives, leaving them for one day alone to relax.

Still, on the fourth day they began to prepare for their return to base.

By six in the evening—base time—they had returned and reported in. After that, they still had some free time left for the evening so they settled back into routine and waited for the day to end.

As more and more people trickled in, it became somewhat obvious that not all had listened much if at all to what the NCOs had been saying. Many looked quite hung over, others still swayed in their steps as they settled down in their bunks.

More than one had apparently smuggled in pizza in their pockets, slowly and silently suffering as they ate away at the cold and greasy food.

Tomorrow, according to schedule, they would be beginning to conduct interviews and processing where everyone would be going afterwards. They had already filled some quizzes before the final exercise, but those were mostly general questionnaires rather than anything binding.

But Emiya guessed a good portion of that might be pushed back for doling out punishments for those who had obviously been having too much fun on their leave. Rumor had it that the Military Police had had to pick up more than one recruit from some local jail around the planet.

Emiya actually felt it was the brass' fault, for letting everyone out so soon.

Letting them out into the wild immediately after the Shanxi-exercise was just asking for this kind of chaos. Drained and tired from the fighting, any and all thoughts of restraint would be so weakened that the results were obvious, really. He would have liked to say that it wasn't his problem, but given that he would be standing in formation while someone shouted at them for an hour tomorrow, he knew that wasn't true.

Well, hopefully it would not push back the other schedules _too much_. Then again, the longer he had to wait for his interviews, the more he could pile up 'sleepless nights' to use. Hopefully he would not have to, but he had no faith in that right now.

The system was based on a credit system where you could apply for different lines. The higher your credit, the higher priority you received for that line. This was to keep recruits motivated, so that in theory the best suited and interested could apply for the positions they were most needed in. In theory, nothing should have prevented Emiya from getting to Mars just as he wanted, but he still had his doubts.

Which was why he was once again waking up, covered in sweat and panting as he rolled out of bed. He had repeated his _two hours of troubled sleep_ -trick every night and so far nothing had gone wrong.

He breathed heavily, enjoying the cool floor as his burning body calmed down slowly. His head pounded in sync with his heart, as he felt like blood would pour out of his eyes any minute now. _This time I went a little bit too far..._ He glanced at the omnitool on his wrist; it was his trump card once things came to a head.

Replicating the effects of those nights, back when he was a child and still vividly remembered the fire, wasn't entirely too difficult. He remembered waking up in the middle of the night and finding his adopted father, to ask for some sleep medicine.

They'd sat and talked in the middle of the night, staring up at the moon often in silent hours.

"...Emiya?"

He looked up, cursing in his mind as he stood up. He had thought he had been quiet enough; back in Barcelona no one had noticed a thing. "Sorry, Shepard. Didn't mean to wake you."

She sat up, staring at him with furrowed brows. Even in the darkness, it was obvious that he was soaking wet from sweat.

"Are you okay?" She finally asked as she got out of her bunk. Before he could say anything, she placed a hand on his forehead, he could see a frown on her face. "...You're burning up."

"Yeah, just woke up. It's fine. I'll go take a shower and then go back to sleep, so don't worry about me." Emiya said, standing up straight and exhaling slowly. He felt woozy, but that was to be expected.

It would pass.

He turned to his locker and began to take out the things he would need, while Shepard peered at him in the dark. As he turned to leave...

"Emiya."

He paused, not turning around. He inhaled, turning around to look at her with a relaxed look. "Don't worry, I'm fine."

"I... Okay. It's nothing. Never mind." She whispered after a moment.

"Alright." Emiya said, leaving. For a moment there, he wondered what he would have said if she hadn't hesitated at the last moment.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya let the recruit walk past him, noting the smile on his face as he walked out. Obviously he had gotten the posting he had wanted. Emiya hoped he would have similar luck.

"Next!"

Hearing the shout from inside, he walked in. He was the next in line and all. Closing the door behind him he walked up and saluted before settling at-attention before the desk. Four of the instructors sat there, all looking through various files on their omnitools and datapads.

"Serviceman Emiya, good to see you. Have a seat." One of them offered and Emiya obliged.

It seemed like a courtesy, but he found it amusing how the desk hid that they were sitting on taller chairs than he was. It would make them seem taller than him. With this, he would be sitting alone in a bare room and looking at four people who all had been ordering him around for the entirety of his stay at basic. For most recruits, facing a situation like this when they had mostly been with one or two instructors at a time and often hidden in a group, it would be a rather nerve-wracking experience.

The constant power play tactics were beginning to grow a bit annoying, Emiya felt.

In theory, he was allowed to choose where he would serve as his next posting, but it remained to be seen what practice was.

"Well then, it says here that you want to apply for..." The female instructor who had been the one teaching them trigger discipline and walking around with guns said, as she looked up at him. "The Technician vocational line over at _Mars_..."

"Haha, I'm sure we can cross that over for now. I'm sure you've re-considered your prospects since then. It is fine and good to be humble, but to underplay your own ability is no good either. After all, with your invitation to the N-school, all of this is just a formality—"

"Actually sir, I'd still like to apply for the G-line." Emiya cut in, keeping his voice neutral, injecting just a touch of nervousness.

The room went silent, as all four instructors blinked at him and then looked at each other.

They hesitated for only a moment before continuing.

"I'm afraid that is not possible, Serviceman. With your performance report and the recommendation of the N-school recruiter, at this point in time you will be going to the Villa. Having someone of your talent and ability apply for Mars of all places? No, that would simply be impossible." The oldest among them, who had mostly remained as a technical instructor spoke. "Looking at what you achieved in a few hours in Brazil; seeing your resourcefulness and _outside the box_ -thinking, we could not in good faith let you go to waste at such a place."

Emiya kept his face carefully controlled, even as he mentally sighed. _As expected. You want to play? Fine, let's play._

"But sir, I do not want to go to N-school. I've wanted to go to Mars since I first enlisted." Emiya objected, keeping it just a tad above a whine.

"It is admirable that you knew from the beginning what you wanted to do, but I do not seen any reason for the Navy to throw away a man of your capabilities on such a posting."

Emiya gave his final objection. "But sir, on the the enlistment contract the method was outlined as per page—"

"I am aware of the contract, however as per paragraph two-hundred thirty six, sub-section three, when the special forces are concerned the general enlistment protocols are exchanged for contract six-C standards, which was stipulated in your contract." He continued despite Emiya's attempt at an objection.

Emiya hadn't actually known that, since he hadn't been able to read all the fine print documents after the first level of attached documents. It wasn't a matter of him not being given access to it, but simply the fact that they threw so much paperwork at him that he hadn't even been aware of the possibility.

The enlistment contract was not simply a single piece of paper; it was an incredibly dense and well-packed network of documents and attaches, of which it would be impossible to gain an understanding in short order. This was how organizations like this operated; with enough bureaucracy, red tape and filibustering they could get what they wanted, since they set the rules for the engagement. With centuries of time, Earth's militaries had refined such practices, until there was nothing an individual could be do about it.

In fact, he felt that this was a perfect showcase of how _blue teams_ and _red teams_ respectively functioned, mentality-wise. The concept was at this point rather old, but in his time it had been the modern standard. The Alliance Navy was a large organization; it had the money, manpower and time to prepare for most every eventuality.

Such as this; a recruit who felt less than giddy about being railroaded into serving in the special forces. The Navy needed and wanted all those it could find to at least _try_ , which meant that as long as there was a chance of him accepting this set of events and then perhaps even staying in the N-program, they had won.

If he went in and then failed to meet the standards somewhere down the line, that was another thing entirely. For the four instructors in front of him, that wasn't their problem; it was the problem of whoever had to deal with Emiya down the line. That was the power of manpower; specialists could handle almost every eventuality.

Just for this eventuality, they were willing to prepare and position themselves so that he would have no option but to accept. The paperwork had all been prepared for these kinds of events decades prior; the instructors knew how to handle these kinds of objections; the system was in place to swallow up the individual and turn them into a useful part of the system.

But that did not mean that he as the _red team_ could not win. As an individual, he had many advantages that they lacked.

He could adapt quickly and freely, without having to worry about being bound down by other things. He could plan and enact tactics that they could not. He did not have to worry about his plans and methods being leaked out. He had read up on how the Alliance Navy strong-armed enlisted personnel.

_They_ could not do the same to _him_.

"I—I wasn't told about _this_...!" He added a little crack to his voice, intentionally forgetting the 'sir' as he began to increase his breathing.

They had him cornered as far as the situation went. But that was fine; he still had arrows left in his quiver to loose. Already he could feel the _pins and needles_ -sensation in his legs and the cramping in his stomach.

"If you wish to contact a military lawyer to consult about this, it can be arranged." The female instructor cut in, attempting to sound placating. But Emiya knew that would achieve nothing. As long as he played by the rules, he would lose.

_Placate._

"But I think you should think this over, Serviceman. Getting a crack at the N-school is a great honor. In fact, I think we could arrange for you to be assigned directly under Lieutenant Commander Burnsfeldt, since you have shown such a great interest in tech." The oldest instructor spoke again, tapping at his omnitool.

_Negotiate._

"Yes, that would be similar enough to the _G-_ line, wouldn't it? Only, with better pay, better healthcare and advancement options. Humanity honestly needs people like you. You've the potential to go far and the Alliance would certainly help you with anything you want to accomplish along the way. With just ten years of service, you could—"

_Distract._

They had all the tactics down for this game. So that meant he shouldn't be playing it at all; he should simply flip the table and change the game entirely. Emiya felt the level of oxygen in his blood rising; now was the time to act. _Hypocapnia_ was nigh.

"No! No! I can't... I can't go back! I—" He stood up, jerking right up as he shouted. Combined with his heightened blood oxygen levels, the effects were immediate.

He blacked out instantly.

Or well, his brain did anyhow.

Somewhere inside, he still felt his consciousness existing and keeping track of everything going on. It wasn't like sleeping, where his attention was turned elsewhere as the brain handled the information gathered during the day and organized it while resting. This was more like having his screen go black, while everything else still continued working.

He hadn't ever personally done anything like it, but he had occasionally seen some of his schoolmates try to get an oxygen high through _Hypocapnia_. They called it the _fainting game._ By crouching down and breathing rapidly for thirty seconds and then suddenly rising up straight, the level of carbon dioxide in their blood would fall so low that the brain could not get enough oxygen, causing a blackout.

This happened due to the elevated affinity of oxygen to hemoglobin, the _Bohr effect_ in other words.

The trick was to make it seem natural, hence his shaken up and angry act.

"Serviceman!" One of the instructors shouted, getting up from their chair. "Serviceman! What is the meaning off..."

Someone rushed to his side, raising him up as he had fallen over. They raised his face, opening his eyelids to look at his pupils.

"Get him to the doctor! Right now!"

He was carried on a stretcher; he could roughly guess where they were going, even through the haze of his brain slowly waking up. He'd gone there before himself, after all. He remembered getting Shepard that ice pack, again. They were heading for the infirmary.

They laid him on a bed and a person began to touch his wrist and neck, taking scans with an omnitool before turning around to talk to someone else, some meters away from where Emiya had been lain down.

"It was just hyperventilation. A panic attack, I think." A new voice said, one which Emiya recognized as the base doctor as the rest of his senses began to return slowly. Blackouts like this usually did not last long, as natural breathing restored the body to a natural state, allowing the brain to recover. "What exactly happened?"

"We were in the middle of conducting the interviews when he suddenly became erratic and then stood up, before falling over. I don't know what happened." One of the instructors spoke. It appeared more than one was present, as they made their murmurs of assent known.

"Well, that's unusual. What were you talking about?"

"We were merely discussing his prospects for joining the N-school. He was objecting, but we didn't think it was anything serious..."

The doctor made a sound of understanding and the sound of an omnitool being turned on was faintly audible. "Hmm, well, I'll just take a look at his biological outputs in the last..."

The doctor went silent, as there was a pregnant pause. Then suddenly, his fingers began to move like crazy as he began to investigate what he was seeing on his omnitool more thoroughly.

"What _exactly_ have you been making this recruit do?" He ground out suddenly, with vehemence that made even the instructors take a step back.

"We have not—What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? His records are all over the place! Look at _this_! He hasn't slept more than seven hours in the past five days! He's been suffering panic attacks every night! What the hell have you made him do?!"

"But... But, the recruits were on leave, we haven't..." Someone tried to protest.

"Shit... The Shanxi-exercise?"

"But he did so well? I saw the footage."

"That doesn't mean he couldn't have taken it poorly."

"Poorly is putting it lightly. For God's sake, the man has nearly been going into cardiac arrest every night for several days in a row, now!" The doctor spoke in a tone of voice that was close to a growl. "I don't know what the hell you have been doing, but I will be making a note of this in the reports. I have seen thousands of recruits through basic and I've never seen anything like this before."

"Well, that's..."

"And I will be taking him off all combat rosters for the foreseeable future, effective immediately. This man should be seeing a therapist, not being heckled to join the special forces of all places! Do you people have nothing inside those heads of yours or are they there just to hold the jars you call helmets?! Well?"

Emiya almost smirked then as the doctor continued to chew them all out, loudly, for the next ten minutes.

He had given them the possibility of letting him go to Mars, twice. But they had played themselves into this mess. The doctor's word would weigh heavily on them; giving a recruit shellshock was not something anyone would want on their record.

Especially someone who had been seemingly slated for N-school, days prior.

_Check and mate; Mars it is._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR KUDOS to **PseudoSteak** & **shadyxlr** & **Zantakio** & **Tactical Tunic** for proofreading and helping out.
> 
> Just watched Presage Flower. Was pretty awesome; hit all the right notes. Except for Sakura. Before I began to write this story, I thought around about what kind of ME cross I'd like to do. One of the prospective ideas I had was Shirou, Sakura and Rider hopping onto an earlier Manswell Expedition and settling in Alpha Centauri. It had potential, but now I'm glad I didn't write it, because the movie managed to sour me on Sakura all over again. Hope the last movie manages to make me like her again.


	10. Rust

After that, time passed by in a blur.

That had seemed to a recurring phenomenon in the last weeks.

It had felt as if time had been passing much slower, when he had been _out there_ again. But now, somehow he would wake up and go back to bed before he knew it. The days would run past, almost at dash. His sense of time seemed strange now.

Was it the contradiction he felt between enjoying his time here and knowing it would be coming to an end, soon? He didn't know.

As expected, after the interview debacle, he had gotten his way. The Mars posting was a non-combat role and he had been already rather insistently applying for it anyhow. He had also been forced to attend some therapy, but he had played it off with being slow to open up so far. On paper, he would be attending regular therapy for the foreseeable future, leaving him in a position where he was not even cleared to so much as _look_ at a pistol, much less use one.

Shepard had been rather confused once she had heard about what had happened, but upon Emiya's reassurances that he was fine, she seemed to calm down somewhat. He told her that as long as he would get to Mars, it would be all fine.

Something in the way she looked at him changed after that. A distance between them seemed to erupt; a great gulf. She didn't any longer try to push him or challenge him, as if afraid that he might push himself too far. He had considered telling her the truth, but finally decided that it was fine this way.

She had come a long way and didn't need him any more, so an ending like this was fine.

After that, the instructors had treated him with silk gloves, taking every precaution and care with him. They were in deep enough shit as it was so none of them had any fight left in them to argue with him.

As long as he had the sufficient grading, no other higher-ranking recruits were filling up the spots and he wanted to apply for the G-line, there wasn't anything they could do about it. Not really. In that sense, having over-performed in the Shanxi-exercise had been rather good for him. After all, there wasn't a single recruit with a higher grading than him right now.

Then again, it was the source of his problem in the first place, so he could hardly credit it for the solution at this point.

He had his pick of any non-combat position, as outlined in his contract. The original contract, as his new medical condition strictly cut off any possibility of joining the special forces. That he wanted to apply for Mars when he could have picked anywhere else in the galaxy, didn't change any of that.

The Systems Alliance was rather strict about the adherence to basic humanitarian rights, thus in this situation they had very little wiggle room. In theory the system was set up to encourage the best to work hard so that they could get exactly where they wanted while the rest would be sorted out on an as-needed basis. In practice, he had utterly and completely flipped that system on its head.

To their peers, Emiya had become something of an absolute absurdity.

He had always been distant; the strange guy who never talked to anyone, but didn't drag down anyone either. Then he was apparently the hottest stuff since the discovery of eezo, as far as their instructors were concerned. And now he was treated as if he would shatter at the softest touch.

Like Shepard, Cassani had suddenly no idea how to behave with him, which caused a rather abrupt and total cut off in all contact between them. Nothing new to Emiya, he had gotten used to the cold shoulder over the years.

Cassani had gotten pulled along into the rumor-mill as well. It made sense, given that he hadn't ever been the best at anything, but had also been given an invitation to the N-school along with Shepard. The recordings hadn't been made available to any of the recruits, not even to the team itself. But people still talked and knew the rough outline of what had happened.

As a result, it seemed that Franco and his friend Marco Rodriguez had had several arguments along with a rather boisterous re-kindling of their friendship after a week of constant feuding, since their return from leave. Something about a mutual promise to apply for CIC-duty aboard starships so that they could make use of the unlimited extranet bandwidth in their off-time, or something.

Already they were back to making their usual and awful jokes, often in the vein of "hey man, it's great we're gonna be E8 soon, eh?", "but it only goes up to E7, though?", "that's cuz I'm gonna be E-eighta here!" and the like.

Emiya merely shook his head at the two, while continuing to ignore them which seemed a rather common solution among the recruits.

Emiya still talked with Shepard and even as she suddenly didn't know how to behave around him during exercises and training, she still seemed to enjoy his attention during the off hours. She would come talk to him, asking strange and seemingly inane questions deep into the night, often to the annoyance of others who were trying to sleep.

Asking questions about anything and everything had seemed to become something of a habit to her, now. Well, it wasn't really harmful so Emiya hadn't commented about it.

But all good things must come to an end, eventually.

"See you around." She said, carrying with her all that she had not turned in. Today, along with Cassani, Shepard would be leaving for Brazil again. Neither of them had been told anything new about what they would be going into, but that hadn't dulled their interests at all.

"Sure." Emiya nodded, having nothing more to say to her. There were no more words to be exchanged.

There was a silent moment between them, lasting only a second before she finally turned and left. A strangely anticlimactic end for a friendship that had started as explosively as theirs.

Somehow, he had expected a more bittersweet parting.

That had been a constant in his life; meetings and partings, usually more bitter than sweet. Perhaps he had learned something after his death, after all.

The shuttle would not wait and she had already resolved herself for weeks for this. _It wasn't what I had envisioned when I first enlisted, but I suppose it will have to do_ , he thought with a nod as he watched her walk away.

It was the rare parting for him that had been on good terms, after all.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya was beginning to get used to the way space-time warped with eezo fields. It was somewhat disconcerting at first, but he was beginning to be able to sense them rather well.

He still felt rather listless, all thing considered.

It was similar to how he had for as long as he could remember been rather sensitive to the World around him. It hadn't been helpful all the time, but in the case of overt bounded fields and trying to locate leylines it had been a godsend back when he had been alive. He presumed it had something to do with Reality Marbles, since he had a certain affinity for the things as he had later learned. Being able to sense a warp in the _fabric_ , so to speak, was rather interesting.

The shuttle lurched, landing on Mars. The mass effect field powered down, leaving him with a strange sensation of lightness. The gravity was only a little above a third of that on Earth, so it made sense.

Still, in SERAPH; the serial phantasm virtual worlds connected inside of the Moon Cell as a simulation of reality, gravity had been the same as on Earth so it was a definite first for him. He had done many strange and unusual things, but leaving Earth's atmosphere in a starship had been a definite first this time around.

He hadn't had a window to look out through, but he could _feel_ it when he left Earth's atmosphere. It was one of the many small things which compounded as he began to get a handle of the situation. The feeling that he was out of place. Still, it didn't change what he was doing.

Then again... There was a simple method for him to confirm it all. A voice inside of him pleaded for him to simply do it, but he ignored it. Even if _it_ was true, he was still dead. He had no right to walk among the living.

Shaking his head, he walked out onto Mars. His hardsuit had been cleaned and repaired since Brazil and he had done a thorough check before leaving. It would not do for him to be done in by a suit breach at this point, now would it?

After all, Mars lacked a breathable atmosphere.

He frowned as he looked around. It looked almost _familiar_ , though he shook his head at that. Then again, it was rather fitting as Mars had been the God of War in antiquity. That the rust-colored world reminded him of _that place_ was unexpected, but not ill-fitting.

It was often spoke of as the red planet, but here on the surface it looked more like the wastelands he had been familiar with for a long time.

"Welcome to Mars, kid!"

"Sir!" Emiya saluted the portly man before him in a face-concealing hardsuit. Still, the markings on his shoulders and chest clarified him as a Lieutenant, which made that point moot.

"Haha, no need for that, uh, Emiya. We're all techies down here, no one cares much about rank here. You can just call me Henrik—most everyone here does—or Patterson if you prefer." The lieutenant spoke with a laugh, the short-range comms giving his speech none of the usual lag or distortion this close.

With atmospheric pressure at literally less than a single percent of Earth at sea-level, sound did not travel very well. In fact, beyond his helmet and suit Emiya could not hear a single sound. In comparison, his breathing and beating heart—the creaking of his bones and the coursing of his blood all could be heard so clearly it might have been maddening.

_thud—thud_

"Understood, Sir." Emiya replied politely, masking his disinterest.

"Hah, serious one aren'tcha? Well, that's fine. Come along then." Henrik laughed, turning around to walk away and motioning for him to follow. "See that there in the distance?"

Emiya looked at the outstretched hand, following it to the large city in the distance. It looked rather fantastic; the blued steel and white plastics of the jutting towers and walls creating a colorful contrast with the dull butterscotch tan of the planet's soil and sky.

Apparently, the planet only looked red due to the floating dust in the atmosphere.

"That right there is Lowell City; the capital of Mars. There's a couple of other cities around, too. But they ain't much bigger either." Henrik explained as they walked towards an open airlock. The base itself wasn't much to look at, little more than a squat rectangular box slapped down into the ground just outside the city itself. "Still, plenty of things to do there once you're off duty, so don't worry about being here. Mars might be a bit of a backwater, but we still got most of the important creature comforts right here. And lemme tell ya, the girls over there love a man in a uniform. Fresh meat especially."

He laughed boisterously at that.

"That's reassuring, sir." Emiya humored the man, able to tell that he was exaggerating a little in an effort to cheer him up. Presumably most of the technicians sent here were the ones who did not actually qualify for more demanding roles like dedicated starship engineering or even combat engineering roles, while still having the intellect and necessary skill for a technical job.

Most of the people who washed up here were probably little more than rejects, burnouts and washed up recruits. No wonder the mood was so lax.

They entered the airlock, the door behind them closing off the view behind them. Air was pumped in as decontamination took place. As the green light chimed along with a beep that could be heard outside of the helmet, they knew that it was safe to remove their helmets.

Emiya lifted off the onyx helmet and inhaled, noting the gassy and acrid scent of sulfur to the air, along with a slightly chalky—almost sweet—overtone to it. _Huh, what an interesting scent_.

Then the fans began to suck out and exchange all the air, running it through a filter to catch all the airborne dust. A common problem was that the dust got _everywhere,_ therefore special measures had been taken to cut out the worst of it.

Henrik removed his helmet with a wide grin, revealing bushy black hair and a full beard, causing Emiya to blink at the appearance that most certainly did not fit regulations. He had bright blue eyes that seemed to almost shine, piercing in their joviality.

"Hahah, welcome to Ares Station. We're not much, but we're glad to have you here." Patterson laughed, offering a hand as he held his helmet under his other arm. Emiya did not hesitate to grab the offered hand, gripping tightly as they shook hands. "That's a good grip you have, kid. I like you already. See, good custom, that. Proper to do it without a helmet, too. You get a good look at who you're greeting. Get a real _feel_ for them."

"As you say, sir."

Henrik shook his head at Emiya's continued politeness before the inner door opened. The fluorescent lighting reflected off of metal walls and floor, giving the hallway ahead a strangely clinical and inhuman feel to contrast with the more personable mood of his reception.

"Well, then. Let's get you situated and proper. Come along now." They began to walk as Henrik explained about the facility itself. "Usually, there's three to four times as many regulars here than actual fresh recruits. This is more of an Alliance repair station than a proper training facility. See, there's that asteroid ring right between Mars and Jupiter, rich with all kinds of valuable resources. But it's a real risk trying to mine there—not just cause of the danger of flying in, but also cause even if ya find something good there, there's no promise you'll find your way back there—so no big corporations want to take a crack at it. So the Alliance incentivizes a lot of new and brave entrepreneurs to take a shot at it."

"Hmm, what's the problem with finding your way back? Dropping a signal beacon should take care of that, right?" Emiya asked, mildly curious.

"Yeah, maybe for a while. But since everything's crashing and tumbling around out there, it often ends up being broken or jostled loose sooner or later. Usually sooner. Anyhow, big corps prefer to mine H-3 on Saturn or Uranus if they can help it for their profits. But since there's a lot of good stuff there anyhow and it is cheaper for the Alliance to buy it locally, they want to get as many folks into that ring as possible."

"...I'd thought the asteroid ring had settled down, long ago. It's been there for billions of years." Emiya raised an eyebrow.

Henrik seemed to grow sheepish, looking away and rubbing the back of his head. "Celestial objects are rather delicate things. On places like Earth and Mars, where the celestial body has a definite atmosphere, the air resistance helps 'cushion' against sudden impacts and to slow it all down eventually. Like meteors making entry; most of that stuff is burned out before it even hits the ground. Not so out there—problem is that the quickest and easiest way to check up an asteroid and to find out if there is anything inside, and then to get your hands on it, is to just _crack_ it open. Some people use small mass accelerators, other used shaped charges. The results are usually the same. It's like a billiards table up there, that only never stops."

Emiya blinked at that and Henrik must have sensed his reaction as he shrugged.

"But... The asteroid field is _huge_."

"Yeah. _Yeah,_ it is. But humanity's been on Mars for over half a century now."

"No, I mean, the amount of matter in the ring is less than the entire moon. Spread out over a much wider area. I don't see how that's possible." Emiya frowned.

"...Look, you're a smart kid, so if anyone asks, that's the _official story_." Patterson half-whispered. "See, there's a lot of less than wholesome folks who just sit and wait, looking for someone who hasn't good cybersecurity, so that they can swoop in and get a slice of the pie when they leave. But since that kind of behavior is skirting the border of piracy and theft, and with the legalities of the asteroid ring being what they are..."

"So it's basically an all-out brawl up there, but the Alliance can't be bothered to deal with it?"

"Pretty much." Patterson mused with a hand rubbing at his cheek.

"But people still go there? It's worth the risk?" Emiya asked, pulling the Lieutenant out of his thoughts.

"Hmm? Oh yeah. Even with decades of industrial mining, it's still a treasure trove up there. Nowadays the big thing is to just find a nice juicy rock with modern sensors and to pull it back into Mars' orbit and work it slowly there. Still a lot of people breaking their backs, here." Henrik said, the grin obvious from his voice.

Emiya nodded. "And ships get busted up and broken, which forces them to come in for service. Service which the Alliance provides while reaping all the benefits possible?"

Henrik grinned at that.

"Sharp one, ain'tcha? That's about right. Alliance has this service running pretty cheap, gets a minor profit, has a good place to train folks for all kinds of stuff and then also gets to buy minerals for cheap. Pretty good deal, huh?" Henrik said, before stopping after a long walk through the nondescript hallway. "Well, here we have the mess hall. You'll find the kitchen personnel rather grumpy so I do recommend avoiding talking to them. They're here to make grub and not much more, hahaha."

And like that, the explanations continued as they toured most of the facility.

Overall, it was a rather large place. There were numerous open hangars and smaller workshops. Tools and storage rooms were everywhere and most people seemed rather relaxed and languid. The only armed people he could see were some patrolling military police personnel, who handled the security of the facility. But given how low priority the place was in the grand scheme of things, it seemed that they too seemed rather laid back.

Which suited Emiya rather well, since he was only biding his time until he would be shown to his bunk. No point in putting off what he needed to do.

After the tour was over he was put to work almost immediately, being handed off to another gruff looking technician. The old man grumbled when told to explain to Emiya what he was doing while they were doing their repairs, but did as told. They began with fixing an old model omnitool that had been brought in by someone.

The day went by rather slowly, as Emiya held himself back as he resolved himself to only listening and 'learning', rather than simply getting his hands on the things around him. He was growing rather curious, almost feeling that old tinkering spirit roused as he beheld the piles and piles of old equipment, gear and tools.

He almost felt like that kid again, sitting in that dark shed on the floor while trying to get a microwave working. It was strangely nostalgic, but he quenched those thoughts as he pretended to listen while the technician droned on about how to run a diagnostic and a checklist for errors, how to find out what kind of resource or manual he should be referring to and how to figure out if someone had tampered or fixed it before without adding in to the logs a notification about it.

A lot of the time, the technician simply complained about the job; doing his best at what seemed like trying to dissuade Emiya from the line altogether.

"When the lights stop working, who do you think they send to crawl in the damn pipes? Us. It's tight, hot and you get scratches everywhere. And the dust. It's everywhere in the pipes. You think _outside_ is bad? You like clean clothes? Too bad, get used to being dirty all the time. And _that's the good part_ about this job. It's the people who are the worst. Every- _damn_ -time something breaks, they look at you. Don't matter if it's lunch or off-duty, they all expect you to just jump up and get to it and with a smile on top of it all.

"Doesn't matter what it is, either. I'm a damn certified eezo welder; I make a hundred-and-fifty-K a year. I could work literally fucking anywhere in the galaxy. But people still come over and ask me to reset their damn extranet routers when they see me. No respect. And hell, don't get me started on the brass. This one Admiral would always send someone to wake me up in the middle of the damn night when his extranet stopped working. ' _Oh no, my extraflix subscription ended!_ ', ' _I was logged out of extube!_ ' and worst of all was that one time where he went ' _I keep getting this picture of a sad panda on exhentai, what am I doing wrong?'_

"God fucking damn it. I hate this shitty ass job so fucking much. Hand me the fucking pliers over there, yeah? Nice, got it in one. Right, like I was saying—"

Overall, while the subject interested him somewhat, the droning voice of his teacher left him rather disinterested. Then again, his thoughts were elsewhere for the most part for the whole day. He doubted he would remember any of it later.

* * *

;

* * *

"Lights out!" Was announced over the intercoms and a second later the lights dimmed until it was dark.

Ares Station followed a 24 hour cycle, almost the same as on Earth, which meant that just like back in training they would all be ushered to bed and sleep on schedule. Even with the laxer discipline here, that much hadn't changed.

Emiya laid down onto the bunk.

Unlike in basic, he had gained some privacy here as he had a closed off room. Unlike on starships, space was not quite as valuable a resource, thus it was entirely feasible for people to receive private quarters. However, as the youngest member, he was still forced to share sleeping quarters with others.

A rather spartan room with four bunks and four closets, one for each creating pairs. However right now, only one other serviceman was sharing the room with him, which left it only 'somewhat lacking in space' rather than the full blown ' _sardines in a can_ -experience' in terms of personal space.

Emiya closed his eyes, inhaling once. And he stepped out of his body.

The body he had been in was nothing more than a corpus, after all. He could still act outside of it by expending his magical energy, in the capacity of a manifested Heroic Spirit. Which meant that right now he existed as a spiritual body that through its core could also create a physical body for itself.

An near-application of Heaven's Feel, in other words. As expected of the Moon Cell.

_It's been a while._ Emiya noted, inhaling and able to smell the air even in his astralized state. As the sudden appearance of a tall, dark stranger would be more than a little cause for alarm in the facility, Emiya settled for his astral form. He opened his eyes, eyeing the body in the bed.

It almost appeared to be sleeping; the subconscious processes taking care of it. Really, it was closer to a coma or a vegetative state. The body lacked a mind and a soul right now, after all.

"First things first.—Trace, _on_ ,"— _begin synchronization,_ he spoke, awakening the power within himself. Running od through his body, he tried to see if anything unusual happened. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he continued.

Then, he performed a simple Reinforcement on himself, seeing if everything worked as it should. Finding no issues with anything, he closed off his circuit and let his body normalize. "No problems."

There had been a minor worry that due to the foreign soil, he might not be at his full potential. Magi family could lose all of their carefully hoarded power if they were careless with things like that, for example. Of course, due to his reality marble being the internal foundation for his magic, that exact issue wasn't really a worry for him.

Even in the era of waning mana, he had continued to use his magic without problems. In his lifetime it hadn't been enough to attract notice, but had he lived for another decade it would have surely raised some eyebrows.

But it seemed like Mars did not possess an awareness of any kind, nor an Ultimate One to worry about. It made things simpler in the short run, but it raised some worrying implications. It nearly confirmed all of his suspicions right there.

_Not the time_.

Emiya turned around and walked out of the room, straight through the wall. He thought for a moment as to how he should walk out of the facility, before shrugging and simply leaping through the ceiling and appearing outside on the roof.

As the day cycle was nigh-identical to Earth's, it was similarly dark now outside. Aside from the muted night-lights of Lowell City in the distance and some of the watchmen on patrol inside Ares Station, it was the dead of night.

Emiya looked up at the night sky, half-expecting to see Luna as he looked up. Instead, he spotted the two moons. Phobos and Deimos, he half-remembered before shaking his head. There were other things, too. Such as that Mars was smaller than Earth and lighter as well, having a much lower atmospheric density as well as gravity.

He had wondered what it would be like to stand on another planet as the shuttle had first taken off, and he had been disappointed when he had walked off it. Even now as he extended his senses, the world felt muted and dead to him. Another stark reminder of what he had been ignoring until now.

Looking at himself, he considered his apparel. His alternating diamene weave equipment; the black pants and armor vest, his reinforced jackboots which were as much steel as they were laminated resin-infused graphene plates.

His red mantle; the holy shroud that was bestowed upon him by a friend, long ago.

_I wonder, is_ she _still alive? I doubt she's here, anyhow_... Emiya thought, a sudden melancholy filling him then.

Emiya shook his head, turning south and jumping off the roof of the facility. _This task... This isn't something worth wearing it for._ He thought, storing away the red mantle that adorned his arms and waist as it had been flapping against his skin.

It was as much symbolic to him as it was something he wore for practical reasons. While this task wasn't disagreeable in and of itself, it wasn't proper for him to be wearing that for something like this. A mere courier job for a guy like Archimedes. Not like he would need it either. Though he was now bare armed, it hardly mattered even on the surface of an inhospitable planet.

He wasn't wearing any kind of breathing apparatus either, for one.

His light leap casually cleared a distance of over a hundred meters; shooting through that distance nigh-instantly and landing softly, he continued his movement through the air with another leap. His destination was the subterranean Prothean ruins, located near the south pole of the planet.

Specifically somewhere near the Deseado crater.

Emiya started out slow. It took some getting used to movement here.

He had been slowly adapting to the gravity that was about a third of that on Earth. Upwards motion behaved entirely differently, to the point where even a regular human could do things like one handed hand-stand push ups for double digits. Well, as long as their balance held anyhow.

He could only guess at how much it would affect conventional warfare.

Usually it was a matter of staying low or in cover and acquiring a target. If possible, flanking or advancing was performed by dashing in and out of cover, possibly by running steps and jumping prone if nothing else was possible.

With gravity this weak, such a jump could end up being far longer than one expected, overshooting where you had intended to land or causing you to stay airborne for so long that you were shot before you landed. A person's 'airtime' on Mars would be thrice that of on Earth, after all.

On the other hand, climbing and moving vertically was much, _much_ easier.

Which changed how cover, terrain and obstacles had to be considered. On Earth, one could hide behind a house and scan around the corner and that was most of the time enough. On Mars, you also had to keep an eye on the edge of the roof right above you, as anyone could simply get on top of the house and shoot down at you while you were busy slicing a pie.

Not that it mattered right now.

Lowell City, the capital of Mars, was located near the equator of Mars. Based in Eos Chasma, the distance to the south pole was in the magnitude of a thousand kilometers. He had done some rough calculations, based on the information he had found and he estimated that in a straight run it would be at least 4000 kilometers one way.

For the trip and back, he would essentially have to travel the distance between the north and south poles of the planet. He had considered taking a shuttle during a day off or something, but after running the rough numbers in his head he had come to a rather startling conclusion.

He could just run all the way and have plenty of time to spare. Of course, Mars and Earth were not the same size, but the idea that he could run from somewhere like the Mediterranean Sea to the Antarctic was a rather unusual one.

Emiya landed again, this time he inhaled as he focused and he put actual effort into leaping forward. He wanted to minimize upwards movement; keeping it in a straight line forward would minimize the waste of motion. Not that it would be a problem. In his astral form, the expenditure was minimal even as he began to pick up the pace.

Had he had a physical body, his steps would have shattered the rock foundation he walked on and kicked up immense clouds of dust. He was casually breaking the sound barrier, after all. Well, he would have been if Mars had a proper atmosphere.

_thud—thud_

His heart beat in his chest, like a hammer on an anvil. A calm, harmonic rhythm. _This isn't even an exertion_ , he noted as he leaped again to clear a small hill. It must have been over a hundred meters tall and three hundred wide.

Emiya cleared it with a single leap in less than a second.

The biggest challenge really was keeping his airtime as short as possible. Not because it would slow down his speed through the air, as the planet lacked enough _air_ to cause drag—which would not even affect him in his spiritual body, anyhow—but because with his physical ability, the height of the arc would add tremendously to the distance he traveled.

It was strange, realizing that he could essentially run around the entire planet in less than a day. Less than half a day. Less than less than half a day. Hell, during the designated lights out time on Ares Station, he could run entire laps around Mars. _Around the entire planet_.

It felt like such a ridiculous thought, that realization. He had had to fight in this form several times in SERAPH and he had gotten somewhat used to it with enough time. But this...

This was something else. The direct contrast to his standards from his life. Even inside of the Moon Cell, in SERAPH he had never had cause to really push himself like this. _Push myself? Hah_ , he thought as he increased his speed twofold again.

He landed with a crouch, coiling like a spring and exploding forward like a rocket. He soared through the air for several seconds before landing again without leaving a single mark on the ground. Had he had a physical body, the crater from the impact would have made even a car crash look like a child's accident in comparison.

_thud—thud_

Occasionally, he stopped and looked at the night sky above.

He couldn't bring along an omnitool or a map, but that wasn't really a problem. He only needed to look up at the stars to keep his heading as he kept moving forward. He had memorized several satellite photos of Mars before and as long as he could spot one or another landmark in the horizon he could tell where he was at the moment.

A mountain range stood before him, yet he did not even bother to look for a way around. He simply went over it, in three lazy leaps. Shepard had liked the view on top of the hotel. Now he could casually leap ten times that height with a single bound. _I wonder if she would like this view?_

He scowled at that.

This world. He did not like it. The crimson sky, covered in stormy clouds. The dull brown sands beneath his feet. The rusted _swords_ planted into the ground—Emiya wheeled around as he came to a complete halt, looking back.

He blinked. There were no swords.

Emiya looked around, blinking as he shook his head. There weren't anything around him that could even be mistaken for swords. He resumed his running.

The valleys and hills, the dead world around him, the dark sky. He was thankful for the last part, as he wasn't sure if he could tell the difference between the two if it were day.

He ground his teeth. He did not like this planet. At all. It reminded him of _that place_ all too much. He landed and took three steps to slow down, the first crossing a hundred meters, the second fifty and the third twenty before he came to a halt.

Emiya looked around.

Left and right; the desert and cliffs extended as far as the eye could see. He closed his eyes; almost able to see the cogs in the ever-burning sky and the rusted grave markers planted into the barren earth. He opened his eyes again, the night of Mars greeting him yet failing to dispel the similarity in his mind.

_thud—thud_

He grit his teeth, materializing then.

His boots sunk into the topmost layer of Mars, as he stood there. He looked up at the sky, looking at the stars for a long time. The lack of an atmosphere wasn't all that much of a bother he noted distantly.

Aside from the complete lack of sound.

The wind was picking up, tickling his bare arms and moving his hair. No, that was wrong. Lacking an atmosphere for something like wind, this was something else. It wasn't gas moving around, but thousands of small dust particles. It was a dust storm in the horizon, he realized. A massive front; a dozen times larger than even the biggest hurricane he had ever seen before. A true monster, at least when it came to size.

But since atmospheric pressure on Mars was what it was, it was nothing to be concerned about. Even for continent-spanning storms, top wind speeds might reach a hundred kilometers in an hour, but in reality a lot less _stuff_ was being moved which meant that it was something of a paper tiger.

He stood in place, looking at that massive monstrosity rolling in towards him in the distance. He would have to go through it anyhow, so there was no point in trying to avoid it. Great bolts of lightning arced and raged about, as friction charged the behemoth as it moved forward.

The flashes of light, the jagged arcing bolts, looked like massive teeth. Something that befitted a monster such as this storm.

Emiya distantly looked as a bolt of lightning arced through the air, well over a hundred kilometers long before it struck the ground.

There was no sound. _No thunder._ Only _—thud—thud_

He grimaced, gritting his teeth. It would not stop.

That infuriating sound. In the absence of all other sounds in this nigh-vacuum, sounds that traveled through other mediums could be much more easily heard.

Mediums, like his blood and bones. Sounds, like his heartbeat.

_thud—thud_

He roared then, telling it to shut up. To be quiet. That sound which denied his rationalizations and resolve. But no sound escaped his throat; his cries stolen by the void. That nothingness which told him he wasn't dead also laughed at his weak denials. The storm rolled in, standing well over a hundred kilometers tall, it loomed far above like a tsunami before an ant.

Emiya did not move, tiredly staring up at the storm front. Listlessly, he wondered why he felt so exhausted.

This dead world of rust. He closed his eyes, _seeing_ his internal world. The burning sky; the giant cogwheels hanging high above; the countless rusted and tarnished swords planted into the dead ground. The kingdom of rubble inside of him. Grave markers for all those who he had failed and betrayed with his weakness.

_thud—thud_

His eyes shot open, as he had to look away. A bolt of lightning struck some hundred meters in front of him in that moment. The light was blinding, yet there was no thunder. Emiya stood unmoved.

In his life, he had never called out that _name_. His internal world; his reality marble. He had always wielded it as his strength; since he was a child and first begun to put his father's teachings to practice, it had been what had been there right alongside him and growing with him. But he had never actualized it in his life.

_Unlimited Blade Works._

Perhaps it had been a lack of magical energy. Perhaps it had simply been the lack of a final resolve to finalize his mantra; to speak aloud those words which would set in stone _who_ and _what_ he was. Whatever it was, this was the vision he saw on that last day, as he had walked up before that crowd. He had dreamed of that place inside of himself, for decades. But only when he stood alone on that gallow, did he truly understand what that place was.

_thud—thud_

Perhaps in accepting that deal with the Moon Cell; in accepting his death at the hands of those he had saved, had he finally completed his reality marble. Perhaps it still hadn't been wholly completed, as he had never had cause to call it forth.

Whatever the case, he suddenly remembered that day clearly.

_One step. Two steps. Three steps. Hands bound by rope by his stomach. Rough cloth on skin, the cheap garb of a dead man walking. A crowd assembled to watch. The hanging noose before him, looming. Fourth step, onto the pedestal that would be kicked beneath him as the sentence would be carried out._

No. He'd tried to avoid thinking about it. He didn't want to remember _this_. He didn't want to remember—

_Looking through the noose. Seeing those faces. Some familiar. Many strangers. They looked at him with distant eyes. Fear. Mistrust. Hope. Disgust. Hatred. Excitement. Accomplishment. Satisfaction. None would stand beside him; none would have spared him. He was a strange creature; a useful tool that had broken its leash and lashed out on its own. An 'indiscriminate demon of justice' as that friend had called him right before he set up a trap to turn Emiya in to those they had been fighting before._

He had accepted his death as a natural consequence.

He had killed and killed. His hands were drenched in the blood of countless; guilty and innocent alike. He had grown drunk on his ideals and worked himself to the bone. He disparaged the strong and defended the weak. He cut down the corrupt and reached down to all those who had been trampled upon, as he continued to delude himself.

It was natural that people would grow to shun him. Natural that they would rally against him, even as he represented the justice they all believed should have existed.

So he accepted their judgment and did not fight back.

_Emiya could see him there, in the crowd, now. A partner. A friend. A confidante. Resolved. Certain. Serious. Lacking regret even as he mourned the loss his friend to the gallows. Emiya had considered what to think of that. He had been betrayed, after all. Yet. Yet there had been a strange feeling in his chest. In those long hours in isolation—both in his cell and during the trial where everyone was too busy playing their roles to pay attention to him—he had thought strange thoughts._

Even now, he could remember it.

That final moment; so painfully clearly. It wasn't just the resolve to accept the sins cast upon him for killing all those he had. It wasn't just the understanding that he would serve after his death for a greater cause still, as a guardian. Those thoughts had come and gone long before he had walked out. Even before he had been dragged before a kangaroo court and made a patsy for political gains and convenience.

He could remember the moment clearly, yet that last thought...

_He pushed his head through the loop of rope, feeling the coarse material tightening around his neck. He inhaled, feeling his throat pressed against the restrictive material. He looked at that sea of faces, all intently gazing at him. At his final moments._

He remembered a _smile_.

Lighting struck him, throwing him back a step as the shock ran through him. He fell on his back; thrown back several meters. Hands grabbing onto the red sand, his eyes almost certain that he was once again fallen over in a sea of blood and a mountain of corpses.

Drenched to the bone in death and suffering, just like he had always been.

_A thought. A realization. A resolve. An absolution. He accepted his death. He accepted their hatred and fear. He hated no one here; he thought no ill and wished no retribution upon any of them. Thus, he had to reflect that truth in his heart. He realized that —-—-—. He looked out at them, one more time and he_ smiled. _He closed his eyes and then the chair beneath him was kicked out. He fell. The rope went taught, the sensation strangely distant and slow. His neck broke instantly. Emiya Shirou died._

He gasped for breath, even as there was nothing to inhale beyond dust and the scream that would not escape his throat. He remembered that _smile_ , but he could not understand it anymore. Why had he smiled in that last moment? What had he forgotten? _Why_ had he smiled?

Grabbing for his head, he squeezed at his temples.

_Why?_

As a thousand lightning bolts ravaged the world around him, Emiya screamed into the void. His fist pounded the bloody sands beneath him, not losing out at all to the continent-spanning rage of the storm enveloping him.

Yet no one could hear him as the void denied all sounds. All, but—

_thud—thud_

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard chafed in the dress uniform, but held back from letting it show too much.

She found the seeming lack of discipline a bit odd, but as she realized that for all the lack of overt order the expectations placed on everyone there dwarfed anything she had faced before. Everyone was competent enough that tight regulations over everything were presumed to be unnecessary henceforth.

Shepard wondered whether she would be able to keep up here. Already, wearing a new dress uniform and expected to attend this party, she was feeling out of place again. She hesitated for a moment.

_No, that's not right. If he was here, he'd be wearing his usual stoic face while thinking about something completely irrelevant_. She couldn't help herself then; she smiled. But it quickly disappeared. _Or would he? He had been suffering that much and he didn't tell me. Or anyone. He really didn't want to do any of the stuff I asked of him, did he?_

She shook her head, trying to dispel the memory of waking up to find him on the floor next to his bunk. He had been drenched in sweat; he looked like he had been on death's door. Had she really pushed him that hard? Had he felt that he had to do all that, even with the consequences they had had.

Then she had been told he had been taken off of combat rosters due to excessive mental strain from the combat. He had told her he was a pacifist, once. She had laughed at him then, thinking it a joke.

Emiya had reassured her that he was fine. But she wondered.

"Well, you've listened to me ramble on enough. How about we bring in one of our most esteemed graduates, instead. Listen, and listen well! This man stands at the forefront of humanity, as a symbol of what all of you should be striving for here. The first N7 to graduate from Arcturus Station and one of the most decorated officers in all of the Systems Alliance Navy; a man who needs no introductions!"

Shepard continued to ignore the talking man up by the stage for the most part, even as he brought out someone and everyone began to clap up a storm.

She had more immediate concerns, such as trying out all of the proffered foods. There were long tables, garnished in beautiful white silk tablecloths and decorated with dozens of silver plates, all full of food. She had never ever even seen half of this stuff, but she was damn sure that she would at least taste all of it now that she had the chance.

_I mean, half of it's been pretty tasty already..._

She looked up, glancing sideways at the robust man walking to the stage where the speaker had been talking into the microphone for a while now. Somewhere along the ten minute mark she had lost all interest, earlier.

Sure, she was honored and happy and humbled and lots of other things to be here at the N-school, but most importantly she was also _hungry_. Besides, no one seemed to be very strict on protocol here anyhow, so she figured it was fine to eat while listening.

Some of the serving staff in fancy clothes had thrown her dirty looks, but she'd walked up to them and looked them straight in the eye until she could smell the fear on them. Then she'd said the food was great and thanked them for the service while walking off for more.

"Well, I've never been much of a talker. But I'll see what I can do for you all. At least, I will keep it short, so don't worry about that." the guest of honor in a crisp blue uniform said as he laughed. Judging by his shoulder markings, he was a Staff Commander; one rank below a Captain. A lot of her new peers seemed to be rather intently listening in, so she figured it might be worth half of her attention as well.

More than that wasn't going to happen though; there was food to be tasted.

Overall, the man didn't look like much for a supposed legend. In good shape, but hardly _that_ tough-looking. _I could probably take him. Emiya would eat him for breakfast_ — _whoa, this is goooood!_

She turned to look at the new server, who seemed to be on the border of sneering at her. "Hey, what's this stuff? It's like, really, _really_ good."

The server sniffed, his oiled black hair glistening in the light as he considered her for a moment over his up-turned nose.

"It is _foie gras_ , madame."

"Fire grass? _Awesome_. I love it." Shepard said, taking several more and stuffing them in her mouth as the server blinked at her in total and complete confusion.

She continued eating and drinking, enjoying the 'shindig', or whatever it was. Some of the others had used that word, so she figured it meant whatever this was. It was nice, but she couldn't help but feel like it could have been better.

Her appetite soured a little at that.

_I'm sure there could have been something I could have said back then. Maybe I could have helped or... No. I don't know anything about what he had been going through... Maybe I should have gone with him to... No. No way. I don't get any of that techie stuff._ She sighed explosively at that, setting down her small plate and taking a glass of the sparkling, yellowish drink. She chugged the whole glass down, feeling the bubbles burning her throat at that and fighting back the tears as she set down the glass.

It was still _damn tasty_.

Behind her, the server sighed. She turned around and gave him a suspicious look, but he studiously pretended to have seen and done nothing.

"Well now. Look who we have here." A strangely familiar voice spoke up and Shepard blinked.

She turned around, spotting the source of the voice. Lieutenant Commander Burnsfeldt approached her, wearing a fine looking textile two-piece and carrying a glass of the yellow-ish sparkling water in a long glass of his own.

"Sir." She blinked, almost greeting him on reflex before his smile told her it wasn't necessary.

"In events such as these, it is generally considered fine to ignore the trappings of rank. For the most part. This party is organized for _you_ , anyhow. What fun would there be in a party where the heroes of the hour are made to jump hoops?" Burnsfeldt spoke, settling near her as he looked around.

Shepard blinked. "For me? Oh, you mean all the new N1's?"

He nodded at that, smiling as he took a sip of his drink. He looked around, taking in the many faces around them as he listened to the music. Shepard had found the group sitting in the far corner carrying around a bunch of weird items to be quite suspicious at first, but as they began playing she realized they were there for entertainment.

It was a rather novel realization and she had to admit that the music wasn't bad.

She could also tell just by looking at Burnsfeldt that he was an old hand at events like these. The way he could move through the crowd; how he looked around and made eye contact for seconds at a time and knew just when to nod as a greeting when he was spotted; how he seemed to ignore everything she found fascinating about this place as if it were the dirt beneath their feet...

It reminded her of what Emiya had said about him. She realized that this man was from such a different world from her, that she had absolutely no frame of reference for him. He could have told her 'good morning' and lied twice and she would not be able to realize it until she looked out the window.

"Oh my, where are your companions. While you won't be able to rely on them throughout the training, making connections and maintaining friendships at this point can be very useful. There are a lot of people who would love to meet you three here, after all." Burnsfeldt said, smiling kindly at her.

She blinked. He didn't know?

"Umm, sir. Emi—Serviceman Emiya didn't come here."

He froze utterly for a second, then. He blinked, looking at her like she had suddenly grown another head and begun to speak in tongues, summoning forth demons with every syllable.

"Pardon, what did you just say?"

"Err... He went to Mars, sir. To _general engineering,_ I think." She said, peering at him as he seemed to rock back at that.

Burnsfeldt blinked again, before inhaling deeply to reassert his calm. "What? But... That's..."

Shepard hesitated, wondering whether she should do something as he did not look entirely well right then. Burnsfeldt then looked at her sharply, before relaxing and assuming his former, casual and relaxed mien.

But there seemed to be a crack in his mask, now.

"Well, more the fool him. _G_ -line? Really now..." He said, huffing with amusement.

Shepard frowned, feeling her heckles rising at that. This man, regardless of what he had done for her did not have the right to insult Emiya. No one did, not right to her face. She ground her teeth.

"Well, perhaps he simply grew afraid and decided to settle for something easier. No matter, I suppose." Burnsfeldt continued as he regained himself, scoffing.

"That's not true." Shepard said forcefully, now aware of the fact that her fists were clenched and she was glaring at him.

"Hmm?" He murmured, realizing that she was in fact rather upset at him. He blinked, confused at that reaction for just an instant.

"Making friends as usual, Burnsfeldt?" A new voice broke into the conversation and Shepard wheeled around to look; if she was going to punch Burnsfeldt, she had to make sure no one would be standing behind her. She wouldn't let anyone stop her, her anger doing nothing to dull the tactics and lessons she had observed from Emiya budding in her head.

The man who had been introduced before on the stage said as he walked up to them. Shaking his head and giving Shepard a polite smile as he settled next to the two to complete the three points of a triangle. He had dark skin and short hair, with a wide nose and naturally frowning mien which contradicted the placating smile he wore at the moment.

"Don't take Burnsfeldt's words too seriously, miss. He's known as something of a firestarter." The Staff Commander said, taking a sip from his own drink.

Shepard blinked, realizing that he wasn't on Burnsfeldt's side per se. For a moment, she wondered whether she ought to salute this man; he was pretty high up on the food chain as far as she could tell. The last guy around this rank she had met had been Maeda, and that guy had been pretty hard about protocol.

The Staff Commander smiled at her, not merely politely but gently. _Oh, he doesn't mind._

Realizing she needed to calm down, she centered herself. She inhaled counting to five, holding her breath to a count of five and then finally exhaled to a count of five. Just like she had seen Emiya do.

The N7 seemed to realize what she was doing, then. "Box breathing? They sure do teach interesting stuff to the new recruits these days. Jane Shepard, was it? I heard a lot of talk about you in the last few days."

She blinked, relaxing as her temper subsided a little. _Box breathing? What?_

"Ah, umm. Thank you sir."

"Staff Commander, a pleasure as always, sir." Burnsfeldt offered his greetings, seeming much stiffer all of a sudden, which Shepard noticed and noted immediately.

The older man looked at the Lieutenant Commander, huffing slightly at that but nodding a greeting in return nonetheless. But it was obvious that there had been something much less polite on the Staff Commander's mind for a moment there.

Burnsfeldt coughed, clearing his throat.

"And as I was saying, anyone who turns down the chance at the N-school is a fool. Even if you do not intend to continue, it will be nothing but a glowing recommendation on your service record to have even been attending on a _single_ exercise. It takes a special kind of man to be too cowardly to even fail, there." Burnsfeldt continued and Shepard felt the heat return.

What had she been thinking, before? Defending this man to Emiya? And she had questioned _his siding_ with that Major?

"Emiya was absolutely right about you, after all; you are an asshole." She said.

The Staff Commander, who had been in the middle of drinking, snorted then. The bubbly drink sprayed out through his nose, causing him to cough and laugh at the same time as he raised a hand in panic to his face to wipe away the dripping liquid.

Burnsfeldt on the other hand looked like he had been sucker-punched in the face. At first he seemed merely surprised, but upon seeing his senior's reaction, his face began to turn red.

The N7 got himself under control again, wiping away the drink from his shirt and chin with a tissue as he laughed. "She's got you there, Lieutenant Commander."

That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back, as Burnsfeldt scowled and turned on his heel, stomping away. Shepard blinked at the exit, before looking sideways at the older man. She felt bad about the timing of that now. She hadn't expected him to react like that, but still.

"Sorry. About the... I mean."

He laughed then. "No worries. A little champagne through the nose never killed a man. Rather refreshing, actually. I might have to take it up more often, to spruce up these occasions. Never was one for stuffy parties like these, but at the same time the N-school has something of a special place in my heart."

"Oh yeah, you were some big shot, right?" She said, before realizing her mouth was running on its own again as she clamped it shut. She looked at him with wide eyes, hoping beyond hope she hadn't shot herself in the foot.

He laughed again, seemingly lighting up at her candid words. His refreshed smile almost made a few of the wrinkles on his face disappear, as if years had sloughed off of the man's shoulders.

"Something like that, I suppose. David Anderson." He offered a hand to her.

She blinked at it, before accepting the handshake. Anyone who didn't like Burnsfeldt had to be a decent guy, right? "Shepard. Jane, too, I suppose. Though no one calls me that."

She made a slightly sad face at that last part, realizing she might never hear him call her that. It was a strange thought. No, that wasn't right. She would meet him again; she knew it. She smiled up at Anderson, who had been watching her rather intently.

"It's great meeting you, sir." She said with her best grin.

* * *

;

* * *

How many times had he walked these wastelands?

One step after another. Just continued moving forward, one foot at a time.

Once, he would have had to worry about food. Water. Heading and distance left. Regardless of the spirit, the body could only do so much. Now, he could keep performing at full potential until the moment he simply ceased to exist.

Visibility was nil; the storm raising the density of dust particles in the air to such that the world turned to rust.

Only occasionally a red bolt of lightning would streak by somewhere in the distance, lighting up the sandstorm in a haze. There was no thunder, even now. But he could feel the impact through his skin as particles of dust seemed to sway away from where lightning struck in a rippling shockwave.

He walked on.

He felt empty inside.

_I want to go back_.

He questioned his own motivations for coming here.

_Why did I come to Mars?_

He questioned his purpose all along.

_Why did I accept this job?_

He questioned his own weakness and hesitation.

_At this rate, staying behind and rusting in the Moon Cell would have been better than this._

He walked on.

The endless desert; the illusionary wasteland of blood-soaked sand beneath his boots. There were no answers here. Only questions and doubts.

He sped up, seeking to leave it all behind. But even as he shot through the storm like a bullet— _gathering static electricity and causing great arcs of light to explode off of him_ —none of it would leave him be. He would forever be hounded by that question. He had once questioned his origin. He had weighed whether he was a mere sham of a man. A worthless fake, walking along in the footsteps of another, never having questioned his own beliefs or thoughts.

But he had realized somewhere along the way recently that there had been an ideal and it had been something he had personally found beautiful. It was not something he had merely picked up, blind to its faults and shortcomings to patch over his own inadequacies as a human being.

No, Emiya Shirou had understood and believed that _ideal_ fully. Had accepted it wholly and completely. All the way to the _end._

He had realized this eventually; overcoming the doubts and hesitations that had plagued him in the decades after his death. But in the process...

He remembered a _smile_...

In the process he had forgotten something he had learned at his end. Why had he smiled, then?

Emiya leaped forward again, putting all of his strength into his feet with every step. The very earth beneath him shattered and exploded instants after his passing, as if someone had been carpet bombing ground with thousands of bunker busters in a straight line.

He increased his speed twofold. Threefold. Fourfold. There seemed to be no end to his physical might.

Clearing the storm, he exploded out of the dust storm in a great gale. Like a balloon that was pierced, the side bulged outwards and exploded as he cleared it in a single leap. He landed, the ground cracking as he leaped forward without slowing down even a bit.

He continued for another 40 kilometers, slowly bleeding off his speed before he stopped.

He came to a halt, on top of a small mountain. Looking around, he considered his location. Looking up at the stars above and the valleys below, he referenced his mental map. Emiya frowned, realizing he had been turned around, thrown completely off course by the storm. Or more accurately, by the storm inside of him.

He gazed out into the horizon; having traveled at ridiculous speeds, he had gone off course towards the east. Far towards the east. Had run through the night, literally. Towards the rising sun. He had been moving for a little less than two hours, he judged.

The sun that had only just set in the west when he had gone to bed in his body, scarce hours before.

But here he stood, on the top of a mountain and witnessed the sun rising from the east to herald a new dawn. The burning horizon; the cloudy sky; the rusted landscape all around him. It all served to remind him of his internal world ever more strongly.

He sighed, shaking his head. What a mess.

_thud—thud_

Something that simple and minor had thrown him off so much. How pathetic. He spoke, but no words came out. But that did not matter, since he was speaking to himself.

" _I am dead and gone. I should not be walking on this earth. Even if this beating heart would deny all of that, it does not change that fact. Those who are dead have no right to walk among the living._ "

He shook his head once more, smirking wryly at his own foolishness. It was an ugly, crooked thing adorning his face

Dismissing his selfish thoughts, he astralized again and disappeared from the mountaintop. Only the dust that had clung to him, dropping down suddenly as he vanished, remained of his presence for a moment longer as the winds erased even his footsteps from that hill.

* * *

;

* * *

He soared through the air, invisible and presenceless. The skies above were dark; so dark that the ground below looked more like ash than rust, now. A change which he actually _preferred_ , somewhat.

Emiya leaped once more, landing on the cliff lightly. Not a single speck of dust was moved out of place. The difference between staying astralized and running physically wasn't very large, but it was something he noted. Compared to a fight, where he would have to actually strain himself, continuously running at high speeds was nothing.

Lacking a proper anchor for his existence aside from the _Independent Action_ skill which allowed him to manifest for a single day, he could still function somewhat normally. But it was still better to remain astralized.

Not that this weariness he felt would be affected by either state.

He beheld the facility in the distance. Squat, blocky looking buildings built around a canyon of sorts. White prefab walls and chromed steel, with large reinforced windows and airlocks adorning the sides. A rather boring looking place; something he doubted he would have any personal interest in if he did not know it was the research station built around the Prothean ruins.

It was utterly dark here. The ruins were located to the east in relation to Lowell City, so it made sense. Night arrived here before it did at Lowell City, as would dawn eventually.

No, that wasn't right he realized. This was already within the polar circle. Just as on Earth, due to the tilted axis of the planet, on both the south and north poles existed a single long day and night. On Earth, within the polar circles the sun only rose and set once a year.

A winter of unbreakable darkness. A summer of never waning light. It was a strange and magical place, at times.

Here on Mars, he realized he knew nothing of how long it might take for the sun to rise this far down south. He knew that a Mars' year was 687 Earth days long. He also vaguely remembered that the tilt to the axis of rotation—which facilitated the changing of seasons on both Earth and Mars—were mere single degrees in difference. Would this research station thus be coated in darkness for over an entire Earth year's time, every Mars' year?

He sighed, realizing that he would not be able to assume that everyone inside would be already asleep. Then again, with his astral form it might not really matter. Probably.

Emiya leaped forward, reaching what looked like the front entrance to the facility. There was a clearing for shuttles and starships to land right outside, from the looks of it. A large ramp lead to an airlock just as wide, presumably to allow supplies and machinery to be transported with greater ease.

He walked casually through the airlock, not even feeling the difference between near-void, solid or pressurized internal artificial atmosphere as he moved forward.

Looking around, he spotted a guard booth nearby. A man was there, sitting and looking at his omnitool while monitors continued playing footage from around the facility. A clock on the wall told Emiya that despite his detour in the storm, it had still taken him only three hours to get here.

Continuing to walk around, he eyed the insides of the research station with disinterested eyes. It was similar to Ares Station, in how dull and how lacking in personality it all seemed. Something about the prefab plastics and steel simply did not speak to him in design or purpose.

Walking through the entire facility, he realized there was a tram system to continue to another building. He understood then that this was an external facility, probably meant to separate the researchers and support staff from the site itself. Keeping control of access to such a historic site was most likely a grave concern.

Emiya leaped through the walls, clearing the entire tramway in a single bound. He sailed up through the walls, arcing over the tramline and phasing through the wall on the other end. Looking around he advanced further.

There were some people around, but less than he'd expected. They must have been following something resembling the normal Mars day cycle here, then.

He continued walking until he arrived in a large room, where in the center was a ring of reinforced glass. Inside this massive tube of sorts, was a strange looking rock formation with large glowing patterns on top of it.

Emiya frowned, looking at the numerous teams of researchers, poring over their displays and screens while nursing cups of heated beverage. He took a whiff, recognizing it as the modern equivalent of instant coffee. He huffed with amusement; there would always be those who would burn the midnight oil for their passions.

He had been a man like that himself, once.

But right now, it was an annoyance. What little he had gleamed of the codecast's function, he knew it would not be so discrete as to remain below these men's notice. Even as occupied as they were right now.

Sighing he walked around, looking at the artifacts in the center of the great room. It appeared they were some form of data cache, based on how computers seemed to be hooked up to them and the lines of light running through them seemed to pulsate in rhythm and synchronization with the researchers' actions.

It still looked like a huge rock. He considered for a moment whether the data cache was constructed of photonic crystals, like the Moon Cell. But he dismissed that idea immediately.

"Ridiculous. This facility already houses all that could be necessary for a research team of Protheans, dated long before their disappearance fifty thousand years ago. We found numerous starships and caches of eezo and technology here which are dated to that era as well. If they were researching humanity in our earliest days, what possible use could they have for a second facility, buried _even deeper_ at some _later date?_ Even assuming they returned after the date of their dated disappearance, what reason would there be for a _second_ facility?" A man raised his voice, scowling at another standing in the circle.

"Yes, yes. But the infrastructure and energy distribution net suggests that it was modified much later to facilitate such a reconstruction. That the second facility was built after the original Prothean research team abandoned this outpost is just a possibility since the dating suggest that, but it's not conclusive of anything. What we should be doing is attempting to find out _if_ there really is a second facility." The second man argued back, just as vehemently.

"Hah! And for what reason? Preposterous. Besides, your theories would require us to uproot half of the current facility and to bore through numerous layers of the existing ruins, which could cause untold damage to the priceless sites!"

Emiya did not bother listening anymore, having heard enough. He looked down and stared. Willing himself to fall, he went through the floor.

He fell through the ground, as if he had been falling through the air and for a moment he wondered what would happen if he fell all the way to the planet's core. Picking up speed, he continued to fall. Already he must be at least a kilometer below the surface. How long would it continue?

_Maybe I'll get to rest in the Martian underworld since the Moon kicked me out._ He chuckled grimly at that thought, but then shook his head as suddenly he was out of solid and back into an atmosphere.

Stopping, he landed on flat surface on all fours while looking around.

It was pitch black, even to his senses. He could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. Either this was a cavern some hundred meters below the facility above him, or he had found the second ruins they had mentioned.

Either way, it was dead.

Still, there was a strange _intent_ to the air. He frowned, trying to understand it better even as it eluded him. Just beyond his senses, dancing at the edge of nothingness. It felt familiar, yet wholly _strange._

He shook his head, focusing on his physical senses.

Nothing existed here, he judged as he materialized with his arms crossed. He noted how cold it was, but was not bothered by it. He was rather near the south polar cap, after all. Temperatures could drop to -150° C there. Even this deep underground, without artificial warming it could be rather deadly to humans.

Emiya thought that he had read about Mars' possessing a molten core, but its must have been much smaller. He knew the planet lacked tectonic plate movements and that there had been no volcanic eruptions on the surface in eons. In any case, the endothermic warmth of the core did not seem to be reaching this place deep though it was.

He inhaled, controlling his breathing to warm himself up in response. It was unnecessary, given that his body could handle it just fine, but it was a habit he had learned from operating in cold climates. Raise body temperature to expend more energy but to survive with less clothing.

His bare arms still went to goose-flesh and he scowled.

"—Trace, _on._ " — _begin projection,_

A sword appeared in his hand; it glowed with a warm yellow light, throwing back the darkness sufficiently for Emiya to look around.

A dull hallway; empty, dark and lifeless. But smooth and geometrical in construction.

_Artificial; constructed_ , he judged instantly. Though the architecture was slightly strange, which helped him realize that this indeed was a facility of alien design. He shook his head and continued to walk forward.

"Codecast: _Archimedes' program._ "

The blue ball shot out of his hand, vibrating and then exploding into a million smaller lights that shot off into every direction. Like a great cloud of blue fireflies, they flew off into every direction and began to map out the facility.

Emiya continued to walk, observing the codecast doing its work silently.

He frowned, looking down at his bare arms. He wasn't cold, but something in him—perhaps some of his old human sensibilities and nothing more—was telling him to put on something more to ward off the chill. He considered his shroud but dismissed the thought; this still was not a duty worthy of that.

The circuit inside of him flipped to life again, as he synchronized with the gear he was wearing.

_Alternating diamene weave_ ; once the top of the line when it came to Earth's materials, as far as he knew. Now, he hadn't bothered to check. It was mostly based on graphene, a material which soon after it's discovery gained fame as the wonder-material that would revolutionize _everything_.

As soon as people could figure out how to reliably and affordably make stuff out of it, anyhow.

The easiest way to acquire the material was to take a chunk of graphite—the material used in pencils, for example—and to use sticky tape to peel off a single atom-thick layer of the material. What you would get on that sticky tape, would be graphene.

In his time, large pieces of graphene had been superbly expensive to create and he had actively sought after samples to work with, until he could reliably Project the material himself. It wasn't like he could simply take a piece of sticky tape and peel off some small piece of graphene from graphite to work with if he wanted to create armor. He needed a proper sample to analyze, something which had required him to break into multiple laboratories, more than once each.

The trick hadn't been to get inside; it was to get inside and out without anyone noticing so he could keep track of their progress and always come back again.

But once he got his hands on some workable material, _everything_ changed. With his methods, he had been able to jump ahead in the development curve by decades, easily.

He had worked long and hard with the stuff, until he had armor that could handle his needs without slowing him down. It had been the result of over five years of research and effort, until he became able to make and use the stuff effectively.

His vest; his trousers; his boots and all the other protective gear that wasn't metal was made of the stuff. Right now, however, he simply wanted longer sleeves. So he would just Project the parts he wanted and weave them into his existing clothes so that they were essentially as if they had been sown together from the beginning.

"—Trace, _on._ " — _begin projection,_

Overall, the entire set was rather impressive. Or so he thought, at least. The sleeveless shirt-looking vest was a special design worthy of praise, even in comparison to his other gear.

But it was not suitable for his sleeves as a material, thus he would settle for the fabric he used for his trousers. Half as thin and lacking some of the more esoteric properties, they were still extremely tough and protective.

Adding sleeves, he did not settle for an open wrist, rather he continued with the material as if he were adding gloves to the end. This left him with a snug layer of protection that extended from fingertip to fingertip. He also extended the collar upwards so that it covered his throat and lower face to keep back most of the chill.

_'Always wear a scarf during winter, that's how you get sick!_ ' A memory of long ago flashed by. A taller woman with short light brown hair had said as she leaned down over him and put her muffler on him, years ago.

He remembered almost drowning in that puffy pink scarf, back then. Both the warmth and scent had been unusual on that cold winter day. He exhaled and shook his head, letting the hot air out in a snaking, streaming cloud of steam.

Observing himself in the light of the glowing sword, he nodded. The shirt looked now like a skin-hugging polo shirt that had been pulled up to cover his face, with individual fingers and hands contained in the same piece instead of open sleeves at the wrist. It would do, he noted as the worst of the chill seemed to fade.

Since the material wasn't stretch or elastic, it had to be precisely the right size. Getting it on the normal way would have been nearly impossible, but that was fine since he simply directly projected it onto himself.

He actually had made casual clothes in the same manner, before. A black dress-shirt and pants combination, which he felt looked sufficiently smart casual to get him by in most places. He hadn't ever gotten around to making that full _secret agent_ -tuxedo he had thought about, though.

It wasn't like he went into places where he needed one often enough to justify the effort required.

Emiya looked around, noting that most of the codecast 'fireflies' had disappeared, moving onto the deeper parts of the ruin and leaving him behind, though it had been mere seconds since he activated them.

He sighed as he realized he had gotten completely lost in his thoughts again, moving on to follow the way they had disappeared. He was fairly certain nothing would happen, but if something did appear and broke the codecast he would probably have to return to the Moon Cell to get a replacement.

Which would be less than optimal.

Moving further in, he looked around as he took in the scenery. His first impression was that it was rather spartan and simple. This had been the work of pragmatic craftsmen; someone or ones who valued function over form. It left interesting implications for why they had been so near Earth.

They must have been here for a purpose.

* * *

;

* * *

"What the hell did you do?" Burnsfeldt ground out as soon as the comm-line went through.

" _Sir, I—_ " The voice on the other end tried to protest.

"No, shut your trap you incompetent _idiot!_ How the hell did you screw up something this simple?! I thought you told me you would _handle it?_ He was on the fast track to N3, for fucks sake!" His shout echoed and a server walking by with a large platter glanced his way for second.

But at Burnsfeldt's angry glare, the server hastily moved on before trouble found his way.

" _Sir, we tried to tell him, but then things changed. Did you receive my mail? We can't actually force anyone to—_ "

"Of course you can! Did you tell him about the salary? About the benefits and care packages? Or about his prospects following that? About the fucking pension?! How the hell did you screw the pooch this fucking badly? You let him go to Mars? _MARS?_ We send drunks, morons and retards to fucking Mars!"

"... _Of course we did, sir! But that's not going to work anymore!_ " The drill instructor said. " _Not until a therapist clears him for combat duty!_ "

"...Therapist?"

Burnsfeldt let out an explosive sigh, rubbing his brow as he considered the matter.

He pulled out the mail, which he hadn't had time to read until now with everything going on as it had. Making preparations on his end and handling all the complaints rolling his way, while trusting those at the basic course to handle that end.

He had under the pretenses of the rifle hack discovery gotten paperwork signed by a Rear Admiral to immediately get his stake claimed on the trio. That meant that no one else could try and muscle in, allowing him to claim priority on everything and anything related to them, and forced everyone to forward all requests pertaining to that event and team to him.

He had been busy beating away people with that paperwork, as if it were a big stick.

Several times a day, someone or other would call in and tell him they wanted Emiya or Shepard or even Cassani for something or other. And he would always rebuff them, directing them to take it up with the famously stubborn Rear Admiral whose backing he had. Having deep pockets was very good like that, sometimes.

It should have allowed him to keep a close eye on them, once they made it to N-school, where he could slowly grow closer to them, until he could get a good feel for them. That way, he could influence and convince them to commit to _the_ _cause_.

Except that Shirou Emiya had gone off the rails even before the first day of training. Completely and utterly. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Cleared for non-combat duty only. _G_ -line. _Mars._

"Fucking Mars...?" He muttered again under his breath, still unable to believe it.

" _Sir?_ "

"Never mind. I'll handle it." Burnsfeldt hung up the comm on the instructor.

He shook his head, trying to understand.

"What the hell did I miss...?" He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms.

There was no way an ordinary recruit would pass up a shot at N-school. It just didn't happen. It was the stuff of legends, even among civilians. They had made dozens— _hundreds_ of action and drama vids about them already. The Systems Alliance propaganda arm was working day and night and their N7 stuff had always been popular.

The populace gobbled that stuff up; no one thought bad of them. Who the hell would pass on up the chance of becoming N7?

He pulled up his omnitool, bringing out the footage from the Shanxi-exercise again.

This time he focused only on the camera feed from Emiya. He had been there and had followed it live, but at that time he had been only able to pay attention to it half the time, since he had technically still been working. That and he had been switching between the feeds of all three, as he tried to keep an understanding of the whole picture.

Plus the occasional rewind from another person's perspective.

_And_ the effort it took to get in touch with the Rear Admiral and convince him to help out.

But now as he looked at it with fresh and suspicious eyes, things seemed to pop out in an entirely different fashion. At the time he had dismissed it having only been paying attention to the rough events, merely following along in the heat of things and letting it all play out while holding the Gunnery Chief from cutting anything short or trying put a stop to it.

He had been drunk at the prospect of recruiting them. So drunk he hadn't considered all the possibilities. He had predicted that there would be a massive interest in them by everyone who was anyone, thus he applied for the Rear Admiral for support before anyone else could accomplish anything.

Support that had hinged on the promises of certain conditions being fulfilled. Conditions, like making use of them properly and directing them later down the line into certain positions. Promises, which now hung around his neck like a rock as he was being thrown into the metaphorical sea by the waves Shirou Emiya was making.

If he didn't handle this, it would be exploding all over his face.

_I need to have this checked._ Burnsfeldt called up someone, then. Sending over the clipped out piece of footage, he asked. "What do you think?"

" _Hmm? As a sniper, you mean?_ "

"Yes, obviously as a sniper. What do you _think?_ " Burnsfeldt insisted.

" _...He one of your new batch? Prime N-material right there. Must have had some damn good training; his sniping is top notch. Hell, I could probably ask for some lessons. His crosshair doesn't waver sideways at all and his breath control is perfect. Hell, looking at his bio-output, I can see he's riding his heart like he's been doing this for decades. Could probably snipe off my mum's nose-hairs with that rifle with skills like that._ "

Burnsfeldt started at that. He hung up the comm-line.

He was _right_.

He had missed something. Something huge. Shirou Emiya wasn't some fresh recruit. It was obvious in hindsight, but he had been so drunk on excitement and riding on the praise he had received that he had stopped thinking at the crucial moments.

But who the hell was this recruit?

His fingers began to dance; he had clearance to a lot of places with information about anything and everything. And where he didn't his skills let him go around and get what he wanted regardless. Checking the civilian registries yielded nothing. No medicard or identitags, _anywhere_. Earliest paperwork started at the damn enlistment office. Nothing before that. Absolutely _nothing_.

"But that's not possible..."

He tried looking through from the beginning that he had material on, reading his performance reviews and the instructors' notes. Average. Quiet. Unsociable, but able to work in a team just fine. Big eater. Started out skinny as a twig, without _any_ genetic enhancements, but buffed up to impressive levels as Burnsfeldt had seen in Brazil within mere months. Read all the time, without preference. Classic novels, old and new; technical literature and schematics; assorted general trivia and information...

He compared the two pictures; the starved street urchin and the stoic sniper genius.

They looked like completely two different people; like a decade had passed. There was more to this than just a change in diet and the gene therapy. Yet, the _eyes_ were the same. Sharp; piercing even in this still picture. Like they could see right through you and sneered at what they could see.

The more Burnsfeldt read, the less he understood.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya continued to walk deeper and deeper into the underground ruins.

He had already found the old elevator shaft that had lead to the primary ruins a bit higher up, which had from the looks of things collapsed tens of thousands of years prior. He considered it for a while before shaking his head and continuing his walk as he charted the insides of the ruins mentally.

It explained why it had not been discovered before, but at the same time he felt it strangely curious. Something about it bothered him, but he could not place a finger on what exactly. Perhaps it was simply the difference in wear and tear.

With the sealed environment, nothing has been able to wear down these ruins at the same rate as above. He still found it _odd_.

Walking ever deeper, he began to discover more.

Equipment, broken and unresponsive. Vehicles and guns, wholly functional if lacking in charge. Piles of what looked like food; the remains of what he realized was some form of advanced hydroponics farm and a processing plant for waste.

This place did not make sense to him. At all. To him it seemed like a hidden stronghold, not a research station of any kind.

He continued to wander deeper and deeper, until finally he found the tanks. Not ground fighting vehicles or armor, but holding tanks. Great cylinders, full of some strange material that had hardened and solidified many eons ago until it was impossible to see deeper inside it.

Something in his gut told him that it wasn't _empty_ inside—the solidified material aside.

Emiya extended a hand to the surface, closing his eyes as he let his odic energy flow out and into the cylinder. The dimensions of the tube filled his mind's eye first; some sort of silicate compound; a non-crystalline amorphous solid.

A super-glass of some kind, essentially.

It was two meters tall, with an internal diameter of one meter. Hermetically sealed and with a mechanism for opening and closing it both above and below to flush out and move around the contents through a computer terminal, he guessed.

He realized that the solid material inside had once been a liquid. Extending his senses further, he _touched_ the solid gunk inside the glass.

_Some sort of biological compound; nothing I can make heads or tails out of._ Emiya ignored the physical make up of the gunk and instead tried to get a feel for _when_ it had been made or when it had become a solid.

"Guh... No good." He sighed, letting out another steaming breath of air through clenched teeth. Perhaps it was the simple fact that humanity's earliest swords only dated back to some five thousand years ago. Weapons older than that were honestly a bit muddy to him.

_Most of them are god-forged, anyhow_. Perhaps it was tied to the concept of humanity acknowledging existence that was the problem. The old riddle went ' _if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?_ '

Philosophically, one could answer that in many ways. For magi, the answer was 'absolutely' as the sound would have been recorded in the Root at the very least. But for _humanity_? Emiya did not know. But it was clear to him that when things grew _very_ ancient, their existence grew muddled in their perception of reality.

Things that were real and things that should have been mere stories grow hazy at the edges. Imaginary time and possibilities mixed together, creating something that was impossible to definitively understand.

He doubted it had anything to do with him, per se. Even with the passing of a century it did not feel like his understanding of his oldest weapons grew any weaker. Rather, it seemed like there simply existed a cap on a certain point in time, ahead of which he could not practically go.

He sighed, shaking his head. Focusing again, reaching as far back as he could in trying to put a number to this cylinder. Sweat pooled on his forehead. Where running a thousand kilometers and braving continent-spanning dust storms had failed, this simple magecraft managed to exhaust him.

Emiya was one of the foremost Fakers in all of existence and history, and here he was pushing this simple aspect of his craft further than he ever had before. Exhaling, what had been steam before seemed like fire now. If he could put a number to how far he had gone while keeping the concepts and staying coherent...

"Just twenty-five thousand years, huh." He sighed, lowering his hand unable to hide the disappointment in his voice.

The Protheans had supposedly disappeared a span of time over twice that long ago. There would not be any easy answers for him to find here. Perhaps if he had infinite magical energy and did not have to worry about frying himself to death in the process, it might be possible to peer even further back in time, but he dismissed that idea with a shake of his head.

It sounded like the kind of foolishness some upstart magus might think up in trying to reach the Spiral of Origin. The kind of foolishness that lead to a painful, dumb and meaningless death. He bet that if he staked his life on it, he might reach thirty, maybe forty thousand years, here and now.

That wouldn't help him much.

Certainly, there were spear and arrowheads older than that and he had no trouble with them. But they did not possess a continuous existence throughout time, having often been completely lost for tens of thousands of years. He knew that they were simply old and might be aware that according to scientific dating they were so and so old, but to his perception it was simply an island in the middle of an ocean of chaos.

Additionally—perhaps it was simply the memories in the weapons that were weakened after such a long time or perhaps it was due to the lesser cognitive abilities of those who had wielded those primitive weapons—but rarely did such examples have any clear ideology or thought within themselves for him to read.

He shook his head. This was getting him nowhere.

But he still hadn't analyzed everything. Extending his od further in, he grasped at the contents of the cylinder. He found something. A rather familiar and well-preserved specimen of—"What!?"

Emiya started as he opened his eyes.

"How?"

He pushed even more magical energy through his hand, this time willing the solidified gunk to turn into a liquid again through Reinforcement magic, slowly turning it transparent once more.

Emiya swallowed, his brows furrowing as he took a step away from the tube. He stared at the humanoid body inside, so well preserved that it might have been alive moments before for all he knew.

It didn't just look humanoid—it looked like a human.

"That's... That's not just an early human? When the hell was she brought here?" Emiya stared, taking in her features. Dark hair; a short and wide face; a relatively long and powerful body along with dexterous and nimble looking fingers and toes.

_That looks like a completely modern human,_ he thought for a second.

"No, _no_. Humans are far older than just 50,000 years. It could have been here since long before the Protheans disappeared." He shook his head. Yet, that thought would not leave him. Perhaps the Protheans here had been doing something more than merely studying humans. But surely it had been before the supposed extinction of that ancient precursor race.

Yet he didn't believe it. Something about this place had been bothering him for a while now. He turned around, looking at the several other similar-looking glass tubes that adorned the walls of the room.

He went through them one by one, grasping the contents quickly. There were humans and hominids of various kinds; even a chimpanzee-like ape in one tube by the far end.

"What the hell is this place?" He asked no one in particular, and the expected answer of silence was all that followed.

Emiya turned around. He had to go deeper now. There would be something deeper still; he could feel it. Something about this place had been screaming at him all along that fact. ' _Go deeper; reach the deepest point and you'll find the truth!_ ' it shouted at him.

He walked on.

Slow steps turned into a jog that turned into a run and finally he was dashing through the labyrinthine ruins with his sword held aloft as he scanned every room but for a fraction of a second before he dismissed it and moved on. Frantically, he went through the facilities, moving deeper and deeper. The further he went, the more he felt like there had to be _something_ within this place even as nothing stood out to him.

Until finally, he reached the lowest point. It must have been at least five kilometers below the surface of Mars; an absolutely staggering depth. He reached a door; heavy gates, made out of an advanced steel alloy that exceeded anything he had seen so far.

Emiya swallowed, testing a hand against it. He pressed lightly, both physically and with his od as he a _nalyzed_ the door. It was _meters_ thick.

He hesitated. Breaking this door was not _proper_.

This door had to hold shut. It must never be opened. Not because of what had been locked in, but what had been locked out. He could taste it in the air now, the _intent_. The lingering _grudges_ , _fear_ , _hatred_ and _desperation_.

Suddenly he was reminded of the park in his home town, lingering with malignance long after the fire that burned it all down had died out and disappeared. This was not a good place.

Swallowing his nervousness, he astralized and stepped through the door as an immaterial spirit, keeping his eyes closed for nervousness as to what he might see.

Emiya materialized, opening his eyes. His breath stilled as he froze in place. His heart ceased beating for an instant as his very spirit and soul paused at the sight before him. It was a round chamber, wide and large.

Enough to fit _hundreds_.

They sat in consecutive rings on the floor.

Some had fallen over. Some leaned on each other. Some remained sitting upright as if they were still alive. _Aliens._ Two arms, two legs. Only three digits on each hand. A strange, leathery skin visible around a wide head inlaid with four eyes.

They almost looked like some ancient sect of monks, all meditating together.

Aside from the fact that each and every single one of them held a pistol in one of their hands. And to accompany that pistol, there was a bullet hole in each of their heads, right in the middle of their foreheads.

The _intent_ was at its strongest here. The kind of grudge that would give birth to eldritch gods of vengeance and unbreakable curses that would haunt all who approached it. Yet it lay inert and faded, howling in madness at some enemy that no longer existed here. It was not a rampant hatred; it was focused; purposeful; _defiant._

"What the hell..." Emiya muttered.

They had locked themselves in here; come to die together. He kneeled down, staring at the closest one. It was _small_. If he did not hesitate to think such things of aliens, he would have thought it a child.

In its opened claws remained a dead pistol. Emiya picked it up, gently as to avoid disturbing the dead and deceased around him. It was a weapon. Though it was no sword, it was still a weapon, which gave him a slight affinity towards it. Not much. But something.

"—Trace," He spoke, hesitating for a moment. Madness lay beyond. But he could not look away.

" _on._ "

s Ò̹̮̪̯͇̝͗͊̋̋̒͠B̷̪̬̖̰̭͇̲̽̇͒̇̄E̹̟̺̠̽̋̊ͭ̐̄Y̳ͮͯͮ a r _e̵s_ i͜s̴ţ ͍͇v B͓̺̞̦̠̖͎ͭ̄ͭ̿̊͂E͇̦̖̱͎͎̤ͫ S̭͎̘͖̜̲̭ͨ͌̍ͩ͑ͥÚ͖͕̤͗̀ͮͪB̟̻͎͈̅̒̑͋ͩͮͩŜ͕͓͖̭̱͚̭̓͗̈ͪ͆ͧU̯̩̰̪̠̲̓́͋͊̚̚M̫̳̜̮̭̰̱̿ͣ́͢E͇̦̖̱͎͎̤ͫḌ͎̰̻̄̉̆͂͛͗ͣ e ̦̾s͘u͝ _rv͢i_ ve Ś̹ͅƯ͎ͧ̅̔̅̌͗B͇̰͍̤̳̙ͦͨͭ͆̎͊̈͟M̢̼͎̜̗̣ͧ͆ͮI̷̱̳͛̉T͙̝͖ͨ u r _e_ g _a̡_ i͟ń ̮̰̺ͫ͂̍ͭ͌͐͢U͎̗͔͇̖̖̮N͈̹̞̾ͩͮ̈͌̂͛I̢͚̟F͕͙̻͚͉͔Y̵̹̗͕̦̫ͮ͊ͥͫ̈ _s_ a̴v _e͞_ n _g_ e ̙̪̹̗̟̙ͭ͒̿ͦA͇̳̮̻̣͓̬̒̈́ͯS̢ͮ͒͑C̺̞̆̍̂͒̉͋͜E̳̪͖͇̩̲̽ͫͥ͌̾ͬ͋N͙̼̯̈́ͮ̀̾̿̓͂͘Ḍ̶̇̒̍̾̎̓ !

"Gah!" He tossed away the pistol.

It skidded away on the cold, dark floor until it came to rest in the center of the room.

Emiya panted for breath, backing away as he clutched his head. The weapon had managed to become cursed; through its overwhelming spiritual energy and significance to everyone here. The thoughts that lingered were chaotic; almost impossible to understand, burning in their intent and clarity yet incomprehensible to him.

He could only piece together fragments. Of a thousand voices as one, becoming a storm. He looked up, realizing that all of these pistols had in this final moment become a single existence. They were essentially a Noble Phantasm, to these creatures.

One was all, all was one.

Emiya could feel something within him _lodge_ out of place and suddenly he felt like retching. It was inside of him now. Somewhere, inside his mental landscape these _ritual suicide tools_ had been recorded despite all of his experience screaming that it was impossible for something like that to have occurred.

"Ugh..." He spat on the floor as his knees wobbled and his vision swam, hoping that it would erase the taste of bile rising in his throat. "What the hell is this place?"

Shaking his head and calming himself down he took a circuit around the room, exploring every nook and cranny with his eyes. There was nothing else here. It was simply an empty room, aside from the aliens and the _g̛̀̕u͝n͠s̛_. They seemed to glow in his vision, as he picked each and everyone out in the room wherever they may lay. He shook his head, ignoring them.

_Is this some kind of shelter? Or a temple?_ _There's too little to go on by._

He stepped back, taking one more look before turning his back to the dead. He would learn nothing more here. Maybe Archimedes would have answers?

He astralized and started ascending again. As he got halfway back up to where the collapsed elevator entrance lay, he noticed the strange thing finally.

The codecast 'fireflies' were all gone.

_That Archimedes, did he plan this?_ Emiya blinked. He looked around, closing his eyes to listen and to extend magical detection. Nothing. The ruins were as silent and dead as they had been when he had first arrive.

"Fine. I guess I just wasn't worth informing directly." He shook his head, letting the glowing sword disappear in motes of light as he astralized again. Crouching down a slight bit, he pushed off.

_But how am I supposed to return, then? I supposed I could simply disappear and let the Moon Cell create another instance of me, but..._ He shook his head. Not yet.

Moving up through the solid bedrock wasn't as quick as moving down had been. As a spiritual body, his capability for fast movement essentially all relied on his ability to simulate physical movements. He kicked off and jumped forward according to his own perceptions, thus he moved forward.

That wasn't _exactly_ how it worked, but it was important for the spirit's visualization to make sense for their own movement. Casper the ghost might be able to float and fly around freely. Emiya? Not so much. Therefore climbing up was something like swimming upwards from great depths rather than floating, only instead of kicking to displace water he imagined the bottom of his foot making contact and letting him kick off to continue ascending.

Breaking through to the surface, Emiya opened his eyes and looked around. It was still dark due to the polar night, but compared to the underground it was actually relatively bright. Compared to a human's eyes, his visibility in this setting was actually rather good.

He looked up, frowning at the cloud-cover. Like this, he couldn't see the stars to navigate.

Shaking his head, he simply chose a direction based on the terrain. The clouds seemed to extend as far as the eye could see, but he could see mountains of ice in the horizon in the direction opposite to the one he had chosen to travel towards.

Mars had ice caps; therefore he should be traveling up north with this. Crossing mountains and massive craters at a good pace, faster than even a jet fighter from his era, Emiya came to a halt as he could finally see the stars again.

"Hmm... I'm a little bit too much to the east." Judging by the light, he had still plenty of time to get back.

Emiya resumed his running again.

Within two hours he had caught up to the storm he had originally gone through and he skirted around it until he was roughly certain of his heading. Then, cutting through the dust storm like one of the massive lightning bolts, he headed for Lowell City.

With new purpose to his steps, time seemed to go by much faster, as he moved. He arrived near Lowell City before he knew it.

Soaring through the air, he landed inside Ares Station soundlessly.

He rose from his crouch and looked at the clock by the wall. His entire trip had taken less than seven hours. _Not bad._

Walking through the empty halls, he made his way toward his bunk.

What would he do now? Archimedes hadn't contacted him at all. The Moon Cell hadn't made a peep, either. He had completed his mission. Originally he had been told to return once he was done, but given that he was currently stuck on Mars...

Didn't that mean that no one really cared what he did from he on in? _Couldn't I just..._

He didn't finish that thought; those traitorous thoughts and desires anathema to him. Phasing through the wall to his room, Emiya blinked at the sight before him.

Emiya Shirou was gone; the bunk was empty.

* * *

;

* * *

* * *

Codex:

[ Akahara Reisou (Alternating Diamene Weave Vest) ]

* * *

Early on in his travels, Emiya Shirou had realized that he could not wear hard armor on his body and move as he wished.

As regular designs of armor had never been designed for the kinds of movements he had incorporated into his fighting style—be it with both sword or bow, or _both_ —he had struggled for years in trying to find something that worked for him.

He had tried to use various metal armors, reasoning that his affinity for the material would give him good results in protective value for less weight. It had, but there had been other drawbacks; the first time he tried to pull a flip to dodge in the middle of a fight, his point of balance had been so off that he had nearly snapped his neck on landing.

A medieval knight could certainly perform cartwheels and jump onto a horse in full plate, but he could not perform a back handspring into an upside-down pirouette through the air, from whence he could pull his bow at a dime to loose five arrows before touching ground again. Plate and mail for the chest for example rested on top of the hips and shoulders by design, to keep most of the weight manageable. For _regular_ movement.

Moving upside down would do strange things to both pieces of armor and make it very difficult to fight and absolutely ruined any and all possibility of using the stabilizing maneuvers he had painstakingly learned for controlling his body in mid-air. Perhaps ancient warriors could learn how to manage it, but he did not have the talent for such and had to rely on relatively mundane human acrobatics for that basis of his own agility.

It was a common weakness of medieval plate armor, too; with so much steel on their upper bodies, their point of balance was moved so high up that tipping over a knight to the ground became much easier, leading to the prevalence of wrestling techniques on the battlefields of the era. The daggers that could be used with such techniques probably claimed more heavily armored knights on the battlefields than any sword, spear or bow did.

He had realized, that he had to retain his point of balance low enough that it stayed near the natural human point of balance, to be able to make use of his mobility. Which put a rather _strict_ limitto his upper body's armor's weight. Conventional designs hadn't worked for him, so finally he had simply decided to make his own.

He had first tried out plate cuirasses, brigandines, lamellar armor, modern plate carriers, flak vests, mail and lorica segmentata armor, but none had worked for him as the protective value always scaled with weight and they tended to rest on the hips and shoulders. To make a piece of armor that hugged the body completely was to restrict movement, thus special articulation that accommodated the body was necessary which always added to the weight.

He had finally given up and settled for soft armors.

Against the foes he had often encountered, losing what little agility he had was a death sentence. Rapidity was the essence of war, after all.

But neither could he afford to not wear any further protection in case he _did_ receive a blow. The way modern battlefields worked was that you rarely saw the foe who put you down, therefore protection was still an absolute must.

He had agonized over that problem, for a long time. Reinforcement magic helped, but did not quite cut it by itself. Finally, things had changed as he found some interesting stuff one day. It hadn't been on a battlefield, but in a chemistry lab during some downtime.

_Dilatants_.

Also known as _non-newtonian_ or _shear-thickening fluids_ , it had the property of acting soft and pliable like a jelly when moved slowly. But when something struck it hard, it would harden in response and remain unyielding until the source of tension was pulled back. As far as the material allowed, of course. He had at first seen it with cornstarch and water, but soon found a better match in silica nano-particles and polyethylene glycol for his needs.

It was rather alike the kinetic barriers today in how it worked, simply in _goo_ form.

This allowed him to make use of soft body armor; kevlar, nomex, dyneema, spectra and other para-aramid synthetic or high-modulus polyethylene fibers that were commonly used for protective gear.

The soft body armor of his time was really nothing more than a stacked pile of fabrics, much like the medieval gambesons worn for protection from weapons. The biggest differences were that the layers weren't quilted together anymore and the materials used for the layers. Natural fibers lacked the protective value to stop modern bullets, at reasonable thicknesses, anyhow.

Normally they were only rated for protection against pistol rounds, making them mostly useless as primary armor on a battlefield where the common round was at least a rifle-caliber.

However, treating such materials with dilatants vastly improved their performance, giving him much better protection than before, mostly remedying this problem alongside Reinforcement of the silica nano-particles and the synthetic base fiber for even more protection.

Soft armor that hardened on impact to act like a hard plate, preventing cuts and penetration, spreading any blunt force to a wider area so it dealt less harm, while still allowing him to keep weight and thickness down to manageable levels.

It was wonderful stuff; just what he had needed.

Against normal foes, anyhow. The first time he tried to trust his vest against a Dead Apostle, his spine had almost been ripped out through his stomach. Not the best of days, that one. He needed to find something _even better._

And finally, he did. He discovered _graphene._

Boasting ten times the stopping power of steel at its base form, it is composed of two-dimensional carbon lattices one atom thick; it was a wondrous defensive material. It also had anti-mite, anti-bacterial and anti-UV light properties, requiring a lot less maintenance and washing which on a battlefield was a surprisingly large advantage.

Of course, it had its own fair share of problems at first, but he had worked through those.

For one, it tended to crack under impact much like ceramic armor plates. For another, getting it to behave exactly as he wanted it to, was _difficult_ to put it lightly. It was like trying to cold forge a glass-like material, such as obsidian for example. He had conducted tests for months, having a rough idea of what he wanted, until he discovered something new again that finally allowed him to finalize his designs.

Graphene had a rather strange property, in that when _two_ and exactly _two_ layers of graphene were layered on top of each other, when struck they would form something called _diamene_. It not only retained its toughness in this state, but acquired the hardness of _diamond_.

Thus, the trick was to have two layers of graphene and nothing else, meaning he could not have his dilatant treatment on the material, nor could he have more than two layers for a material that was _only a single atom thick_ in a single layer _._ That left it slightly less than optimal. For one, it was rather chilly.

The solution had been rather simple and had come to him from swords, as many things did.

Simply fold the material with something else and have it in alternating layers. Much like the legendary _soshu kitae_ seven-laminate katana forged by the swordsmith Masamune or the legendary _Wootz Damascene_ steel of the Middle East, he worked with the properties of his materials rather than against them.

The blueprint he started out with was that he had a soft internal layer of material against his skin for comfort, after which he alternated between having the two materials; double-graphene followed by dilatant-treated synthetic fiber. Stacking ten layers of such a combination left him with a thin, light and extremely powerful piece of defensive equipment, something which far exceeded anything that had been available to him before.

The graphene that would harden into diamene, absorbed hard impacts, often shattering in the process. But the pieces were supported by the synthetic fibers treated with dilatant, often absorbing enough of the impact for the additional layers to protect him from harm. This way, he received the benefits of both materials.

He called it alternating diamene weave. Unoriginal, but he had not intended to mention it to anyone else.

The biggest problem after that, was that creating even a simple vest with ten layers of this alternation was easier said than done. But do it he did; it took him an entire month of non-stop work to create a simple vest as he carefully Projected, wove and laminated each layer into place.

The fact that it was a _hollow_ Projection, empty on the inside wasn't important; he only cared about the material properties which performed just as he needed them to.

But once it was complete and all the small details had been handled? Then he could simply Project the _vest_ itself. Or sheets of the four-layer material that he had created earlier as a proof of concept. Repairing it was as simple as that, leaving him with an incredibly reliable piece of equipment he could cheaply and quickly replace on an as-needed basis.

Though the new material was not without its downsides. As it hardened under stress, it also meant that he could not have sleeves of the same material, as when he wielded his swords there existed a chance of his sleeves hardening in response to his own movements being too quick.

Which could be rather annoying. With the torso being rather stationary and slow in its usual range of motion, that was never really a problem. Luckily this problem he had encountered while testing it, rather than in the field where it could have been catastrophic.

And that he had tested that property before he started out by making the first design _with_ sleeves. That would have been a rather painful waste of time. Additionally, the material does not breathe very well, which combined with the increased body temperatures from extensive use of magic, made heat control a rather pressing concern. The bared arms in design are a compromise born of human limitations.

Additionally, as the collarbone and throat are rather vulnerable even with soft body armor, he made a point to add a steel alloy gorget to protect his neck. There was no point in stopping a blow if the force behind it was enough to collapse the airways or burst a blood-vein, thus it was key to have a hard surface that could reliably deflect to the side any impact. The silver highlights are his personal flair, as the simple black surface felt incomplete as was to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super thanks to PseudoSteak(the greatest memelord of our time!) for proofreading. He's the best.
> 
> Thanks to daniel_gudman for doing the math again.
> 
> Thanks to **guest reviewer** for pointing out some inconsistencies.
> 
> You guys remember that "no one else could keep up with him", bit? Yeeaaah, it's not just cause Emiya was the toughest, hardest never-gonna-give-uppest motherfucker around. It was also because he kept pulling stunts like his " _Oh shit, I have PTSD; send me to Maaaars, guys!_ "-spiel without telling anyone anything. You know, how he acted throughout the entirety of the UBW route?
> 
> Emiya is a blockhead :V


	11. Extraction Point

Emiya froze.

He stared at the bed for a moment, before he inhaled and focused on staying calm. The other serviceman was still asleep in his own bed, across from Emiya's. As if he hadn't even noticed the disappearance of his roommate.

_Is this Archimedes' doing?_

Like this, returning to the Moon would be essentially impossible. No, that wasn't exactly true. This way his return to the Moon Cell became limited to but one; by disappearing and being re-summoned within SERAPH by the Moon Cell.

Perhaps that had been the plan all along.

He wasn't a person, in the sense of a human being anymore. He was an _instance_ of a person being run by the Moon Cell. Even if he perished right here and now, it would not affect anything in terms of his existence. The memories he had accumulated so far would probably even be appended to the next instance, completing the transition seamlessly.

With that thought in mind, wouldn't it be easiest to simply expunge all his remaining magical energy and _disappear_? He had completed his mission, hadn't he?

With a scowl, he threw that line of thought away.

He frowned, extending an invisible hand to the bed and _analyzing_ it with his odic force. No traces of body heat; someone had been removed from the bed hours ago. _Not very helpful_ , he complained as he frowned.

Beds weren't swords, thus in terms of sympathizing with them, his ability was _only_ first-class rather than _curve breaking_. His body had been there, but then it had been removed, and whoever or whatever had done it had not directly touched the bed itself. The intent involved was too far removed from him to make any guesses beyond that. He inhaled and looked around, noting that nothing else had been removed. His closet was still locked; its contents untouched.

The bunk hadn't been made after his body's disappearance, either. No attempt had been made to make it seem as if was still here or that he was simply temporarily away.

Extending a ghostly hand and willing it to be able to interact with the physical, he flipped the blanket aside. Had anyone been there, they might have begun to believe in the existence of poltergeists.

 _No underwear or clothes left behind._ He noted, distinctly remembering that he had gone to bed wearing clothes. Which meant, what? That the body simply hadn't evaporated or turned to dust? That should have been relatively obvious from the beginning, even as the mental image had made itself known to him in the back of his imagination.

He sighed. _And this is why I told myself to only plan around twelve hours of operational time. Now I still have seventeen hours to live; far more than I had accounted for._ Never act while committing all your forces; always keep something in reserve.

Emiya looked around; making a list of things still left behind. His body should be wearing only a shirt and boxers at the moment. And one more thing. _Oh, I can use that._ Emiya noticed. His omnitool was missing. He had gone to bed with it.

He had been going to bed with it to keep up his facade of night terrors plaguing his sleep, in case someone was keeping an eye on him. This would have been his last night as a part of the Navy, so it wouldn't have mattered anymore, but he had forgotten to take it off in his haste to leave.

Materializing again, he walked over to the still sleeping roommate's corner of the room.

He opened the locker and took out the omnitool bracelet, turning it on without bothering to actually put it on his wrist. That should cut out most of the passive sensors from getting an imprint off of him, in case someone later did a check. He wasn't even sure what it would read off of him, but he wanted to avoid that anyhow. Technically the active sensors could still have analyzed something off of him at this distance, but considering that it was a rather energy-intense operation, it would not be on right now or even as a precaution.

He turned on the haptic interface, only to pause as his finger went straight through without anything happening. _Right, no interface gloves._ Emiya reached in and borrowed a finger stud from his roommate, meant to be used with haptic interfaces when only one finger was needed.

Trying again, the omnitool responded to his touch.

It wasn't locked, Emiya noted with a grin. He pinged his omnitool, remembering the factory code and ID. Nothing on short-range, no response on direct ping. He sent a mail, but it went through without trouble. He frowned, putting back the omnitool and finger stud, locking the closet again as he leaned against a wall.

So his omnitool was still registered to him and his mail had not been deleted, but his omnitool had been deactivated, turned off or contained somehow? No, no. He didn't know nearly enough about cybersecurity to make any conclusions. In any case, he had no proof that it was still on his person, _either_.

It was a dead end, for now.

Turning around and dematerializing, he looked at the door. He knew there was a camera right outside in the hallway. That would be his second lead. Emiya phased through the wall again as he scoured the entire facility in his spirit form.

There had been some hope as he discovered someone in the infirmary, but it hadn't been his body.

He found the security center, where the night watch remained on duty, quickly enough. There was only one door leading inside, with a heavy steel door that required ID-authorization and an iris-scan to pass through.

Emiya phased through the door without slowing down for a second.

Inside it was well lit, but lacking any other entrances or windows. There were dozens of screens of various sizes laid on three of the walls of the room. Some showed one large camera feed, while others had divided the screen into four, six, eight or even more, smaller feeds. On the last wall, by the door's side, was a large weapons locker and a vending machine.

One extremely large screen appeared to show every single camera feed at the same time, along with an overlay of the Virtual Intelligence running analysis on everything happening. Someone walked through the hallways, his body overlaid with a red rectangle that followed his motions as a smaller green square focused on his face.

A small ID blurb hovered next to the walking person, along with the notification that he had clearance to be up and about this late in the night. Or rather, this early in the morning.

There was one camera in the room itself as well; pointing at the door and covering half the room at the same time. There were two people in the room, operating two terminals as they lazed about. There wasn't anything of interest going on, but someone still had to remain on night watch anyhow.

Emiya walked to the middle of the room and crossed his arms.

 _I can check the footage from here, but I need to be careful._ With that in mind, he decided to observe for now. Fifteen minutes of good intel gathering could be worth hours of meaningless fighting.

He looked at the various screens, trying to figure out where they were located in Ares Station. To be able to effectively use a CCTV-surveillance system, one needed to build a mental map. Without it, as soon as someone moved off one camera, you would become utterly lost if you did not know which camera feed to go to next.

And since not every spot was covered, it required the ability to read and predict a moving person's movement and path-finding, to know which cameras to look at next.

 _That hallway camera leads to this junction camera. This mess-hall can be entered through these two monitored entrances..._ In thirty seconds, he had a rough understanding of the layout as he created a mental map. He then began to observe the guards themselves.

MPs; Military Police. The section of the army that handled crimes committed by military personnel along with being usually in charge of internal security. Neither seemed particularly skilled or strong, which boded well. But he needed to be able to learn how to use this system from them before he tried it himself.

There might be security checks or traps for unauthorized users that would trip him up.

That was simple enough. He looked at one of them, noting that he was intently staring at one monitor that showed a hallway. The man was probably half asleep out of boredom, simply staying aware enough to be able to react if something out of the ordinary happened.

This was just a night like any other, after all.

Emiya moved, disappearing from the spot and appearing in that same hallway that was being monitored in under a second. He willed his hand to be able to act physically as he reached out and tilted over a stack of boxes. It made a loud clatter, as parts and pieces of metal scattered all over the floor.

He moved again, returning to the security room instantly.

"Huh, what was that?" The guard stiffened and sat up straightened, immediately awake and aware. He frowned as he looked at the hallway camera, his eyes scanning the nearby camera feeds and the VI activity log in the area.

He blinked, reaching for the haptic interface and typing away to bring up the rewind function as he looked over what had happened. As he realized that the boxes had seemingly simply fallen over by themselves, he muttered under his breath, "What the fuck...?"

Shrugging, the guard noted the time and added an entry to the night log about the occurrence. He couldn't find anything suspect beyond the sudden poltergeist event, so while he had thought it strange, he did not take any further action.

Emiya stood by him the entire time, looking closely at the guard's every move and action.

He now knew roughly how to playback the time of the events, to find when and how his body had disappeared. The lack of any further security checks in the system was also a good thing. Then again, it made sense. This deep inside the facility, one more layer of cybersecurity would be more of a hindrance and a slow-down to the Military Police personnel than it was worth.

Anyone who could get this deep without notice wouldn't have any trouble with anything that could be put in place while expecting night guards to be able to use it.

 _Right, haptic interfaces._ Emiya noted, frowning as he looked at his hands.

Using the omnitool always required him to wear his hardsuit, a special glove or a small finger stud to be able to use the holographic interfaces. The haptic adaptive interface relied on the microchip embedded in those to actually transmit the data to the omnitool itself.

The physical controls on the bracelet were simply to turn it on and off and a sensor which read the way the arm's muscles were tensed to call up the haptic interface. This allowed you to wear it beneath your hardsuit, keeping it much safer as a result.

Which meant that touching the controls barehanded wouldn't achieve anything. Not unless you had had such chips surgically inserted into your fingertips. Franco had often loudly and proudly declared that he only went 'bareskin' and that the rubber only dulled sensations.

Shepard hadn't been impressed, either.

He looked at his hands, covered in the extended alternating diamene weave from his vest. He could use a guard's hands or even just a hardsuit glove to use those interfaces, but it felt like an unnecessary complication.

Emiya could do better, after all.

"— _Trace, On._ "— _begin projection,_ He spoke in a voice no one could hear as he closed his eyes.

Microchips— _microcontroller units, in official terminology_ —were simply silicon dioxide transistors, silicon oxide insulation and electrically conductive polysilicon to create logic gates. Simple stuff, really.

Simple parts like this hadn't had to advance much in the hundred years since he had been walking around.

The tiny chips began to appear between layers of his alternating diamene weave, at his fingertips. He didn't actually have the whole chip memorized—or even understand the functionality, design or purpose of every part without spending some time poring over one—but he did have multiple examples to reference right in front of him so it didn't exactly matter.

Reaching to hover his hand over the guard's, he simply copied the chips embedded into the guard's gauntlets.

Emiya went through the design in his head, noting and comparing schematics. It wasn't like copying a picture or a simple object; small errors weren't acceptable. Every part, every detail, was vital to its functionality. Thus he pored over it in excruciating detail, until he was a hundred percent certain that he had copied it perfectly.

He bound the illusion and made it reality; something appearing within the layers of his graphene layers at the fingertips instants after he spoke out his aria. Clenching his fist and noting that it did not feel weird, he nodded to himself. Now to simply take out these two and to—

"I'm going on patrol. Gonna go check out that hallway and see what kind of mess it is. I know some engineer's gonna be shouting at me tomorrow, so might as well it do it by the book so that my ass is covered." One guard noted as he stood up to leave.

The second nodded at him and turned to the console. "Right, I'll log it in."

Emiya blinked, as the second guard opened another screen which showed his own face as he made a quick report log followed by writing it in the first log. Emiya might have almost just revealed his face to a camera he hadn't seen, just now.

He shook his head and then ran two sets of box breathing. _Focus._

The solution he came up with was simple enough. He Projected a simple full face closed helmet on his head to hide his face. He went with a simple design, going more by memory than anything else. The design basis of a simple matte black motorcycle helmet, covering his entire face with a dark tinted visor. One that would not open at all and with increased thickness, adding in a polarization to the material.

Assuming that the camera could pierce through the tinted glass, this would throw in an additional layer of obfuscation.

Slimming down the design and removing all the padding, he made it about the same size as his Onyx hardsuit's helmet. The material he used was the same as all of his hard plates; compressed and laminated layers of alternating diamene weave. The bottom he rounded and sealed off, as if it were a air-sealed environment suit.

It should pass off as a hardsuit if the cameras caught him.

Still, he looked like some leather-head biker, clad from head to toe in black without any of his skin visible. He tested it out, moving his head left and right, up and down while testing his sight and hearing. _It'll work,_ he concluded as the first guard left and the door behind him closed.

He noted the location of the cameras and then assumed that there were probably more of them. The only probable blindspot he could think of, would be directly behind the guard. _So be it._ He crouched by the office chair and then became physical once more.

Soundlessly he rose up behind the guard, like a dark wraith stepping out of his shadow. He snaked a single hand up to the guard's neck before he could react, and with a pulse of magical energy knocked him out. The guard slumped like a sack of potatoes in his chair.

Emiya pushed the office chair to the side, accessing the terminal without minding any possible cameras. Either someone was looking at him right now or they would only find out later if they reviewed the footage; it didn't matter to him in this instant, as no alarms had gone off so far.

He found the camera feed right outside his room and began to rewind the footage as he checked the VI activity log. Nothing and no one had been there, aside from the regular patrols by one of the guards on the hour. Emiya frowned, continuing to rewind the footage.

With this level of sophistication of monitoring technology, he could easily rewind at 128 times speed and only lose a handful of frames. Normally this was for VI analysis programs, but with his senses he could review it just fine like this.

Nothing.

He stopped the footage as he saw himself leaving the bedroom in reverse; when he had gone to sleep. He played the footage forwards again.

_Nothing._

He took a step back, straightening from where he had been leaning down over the terminal. Did this mean it had been the Moon Cell's doing? For his body to simply vanish like this.

It shouldn't be possible, normally.

But if it was the Moon Cell, it was hardly out of the realm of possibility. Nothing really was, as far as he knew. But he hadn't been told anything. If the Moon Cell commanded it, he would obey. He had reached out for a miracle and it had been given to him in a fair bargain. He was a mere slave to its purpose, as he had agreed to on that day so long ago.

If the Moon Cell wished it, he would end his life here and return to those gray days of never-ending ennui and remembrance. It had been a fair bargain and it had kept its half of the deal. But was it the Moon Cell?

He had already once died. On that day, he had been at peace with his end. Serene and stolid. He had _smiled_ at the end, there. It had been a life he could remember and look back at without regret as long as he remembered where he had come and why.

But now...

This ending? Simply dissipating like morning dew? In a place like this? After all that he had done and experienced? It did not sit well with him. His stomach churned and he rebelled at the thought.

_thud—thud_

"No. I'm not done yet." It wasn't over. _Not yet_. Not until he knew exactly what was going on.

He leaned back down, his finger tapping rapidly at the terminal as his mind raced. He accessed logs and charts, noting everything and finding nothing again. He reviewed the footage again, but it revealed nothing.

But he did not give up.

Finally, he found _something_. A chart showing power consumption in the facility. The electrical bill, essentially. It went into the range of deciwatts and specified by section of the facility. There, he found an anomaly.

Just when the patrolling guard had finished his round at two in the morning, there had been several small increases in power usage throughout the entire facility. So small that they were a statistical fart, really. Starting from the entrance and going all the way to his quarters and then back to the entrance, the sectional report stated.

Yet the VI-log studiously insisted no one had been there and that nothing unusual had happened. That there was nothing going on power consumption and that all was according to standard. As the guard on patrol continued walking, Emiya compared the power usage of the automatic door opening and closing to the records.

 _It matches. Someone hacked the entire facility and ghosted inside, stealing away my body without anyone noticing a thing?_ Emiya stood up, crossing his arms as he considered that. _But why? And who?_

For all the questions this revelation posed, it gave one definite answer to Emiya. This wasn't the Moon Cell's doing. Hope almost bloomed in his chest, but he squashed it.

He shook his head. He had done all he could here, now he needed to disappear without giving too many clues to his true nature. Already he was recorded on at least one camera, which was less than optimal but something he had to simply accept. He lacked the skills to hack this kind of system as most of his technical skills only extended into the physical side.

As long as it was not traced back to him, it should be fine.

Rolling back the guard who was still out cold, Emiya put a hand on his shoulder and _pushed through_ with magical energy _._ The guard snapped awake as if an alarm clock had gone off and he groggily looked around as Emiya crouched into the blindspot and astralized once more.

Moving through the facility he arrived at the entrance. The lights were out and there was no one here. During daylight hours, a military policeman would also be stationed here to vet and control who entered and exited these parts of the Ares Station.

But during the night, the entrances were nominally locked down making the need for human personnel to be stationed here moot. At night, the facility operated on a skeleton crew.

He passed through the closed airlock, coming back outside into the nearly-nonexistent atmosphere of Mars.

He crouched down, looking at the sand on the ground. It was lightly packed and often tread on, but it wasn't entirely impossible to _read_. Another interesting skill he had some measure of talent in was tracking.

At its basest, tracking was about taking everything in and finding the relevant details. About simulating and understanding what had happened based on tracks and marks left behind by someone's passing. About imagining how something had happened and played out, while being able to discover false trails and ignore the irrelevant.

Really, it was just a non-mystical equivalent to Structural Analysis.

He moved, left and right in a crouch as he looked around and sifted through the various tracks. Finally, he found something promising after he had been moving around in an expanding perimeter from the entrance. A set of tracks that looked relatively fresh.

They went towards the compound and back out from it. And on the way out, one of the tracks looked much heavier. As if the weight of the person had suddenly doubled.

 _My hardsuit was still there. Did they take me out into the open without any protection?_ He had to consider the possibility that his body had already been killed. It did not make much sense, but neither did anything else that had happened so far.

Emiya followed the tracks until he found that they lead to a deeper and wider print. The marks left behind by a landed shuttle. _Shit. I can't track something that flies_.

Then again, he would not be able to find himself if he simply followed the tail.

When tracking, it was always better to follow the 'head' rather than the 'tail'. If you simply followed in someone else's footsteps, you would never be able to surpass them. It was important to understand what the point was and to cut across directly using other means.

That was one lesson as a Faker he had taken to heart.

He considered what he knew and tried to parse some sense out of it again, but to no avail. He sighed, considering his options. Someone had kidnapped his body, for unknown purposes by unknown means. They must have taken the body somewhere; a shuttle would not be a very good place to conduct any kind of interrogation or investigation.

It was a small-ish model. With how many tracks he had noted, indicating at least eight people plus himself, it would be a rather tight fit. They would need some place to go back to and to continue whatever it was they wanted.

He looked to the horizon.

He only had one hope at this point. In the distance, the gleaming city shone and sparkled. The angle of the shuttle on the ground meant nothing, really. But it looked like it had come from Lowell City in a straight line.

"I guess I'm going to get to experience the nightlife, after all."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya had no proof that whoever had taken his body would come here, but it was the same as with the water tower, before.

Inaction was unacceptable, widening his search more would make it impossible to achieve anything and there _was_ a possibility that the shuttle had come here. He reasoned that since they had come in a single squad, using a small shuttle, that this was a small scale operation.

It was too _red team_ , too _black ops_ , for there to be a starship in orbit or anywhere nearby for the shuttle to dock into. That was his gut feeling.

Such vehicles were more difficult to hide, especially since in space there was no such thing as stealth. A shuttle could hide by virtue of being so common and small, that few cared enough to keep an eye on them. Additionally, their range and speeds were limited thus he reasoned that it should be entirely possible, even probable, for his body to be here.

In Lowell City.

At a distance, one could only see the tall skyscrapers gleaming against the dull horizon. Up close as he approached, he could see a multitude of smaller buildings along with what looked like a street below them. Upon closer inspection, he could see that through some unknown means, people seemed to be walking on the streets without any kind of hardsuits.

 _There must be some sort of atmospheric control by the ground level_ , he reasoned as he came to a halt near the edge of the city itself.

It wasn't a very large city. Quite small in comparison to some of the older metropolises on Earth, that had had time to expand in every direction over many lifetimes. But it was still a considerable settlement. Some three million people lived on Mars, most of them right here.

Surprisingly, it did not look all too different from normal cities at a distance.

There were the taller buildings he had seen at a distance, and the smaller and more blocky apartment buildings in what could best be described as the center of the city and the downtown area. The further you strayed from that, the lower the buildings seemed to become. At the edges of the city, you could see those prefab buildings that must have been made in some factory elsewhere and then simply been dropped here or connected to make larger 'buildings'.

Even as a mass producer of fakes and counterfeits, there was something distasteful about those buildings to his aesthetic senses.

He shook his head as he leaped forward. It only took him two leaps to make it to the top of one of the skyscrapers, where he crossed his arms and began to look around. There weren't many shuttles going around at this time of the night. Most of the late night party goers must have already gone off home to sleep, as the streets seemed to be fairly clear as well.

It was the quiet hour, between those who woke up early and those who went to sleep late.

Sighing at finding nothing, Emiya dropped down to the street.

One or two, not more then five at any one time, seemed to be walking around. None of them wore any kind of protective gear and Emiya could tell that some kind of field was being maintained at about four meter's height which kept the oxygen in and the radiation out.

Despite his hurry, Emiya still took the time to admire the city for what it was. A settlement on Mars.

This place would have fit right on the covers of a pulp science fiction novella from the early 20th century, with flying saucers and bulky rayguns. There was a certain charm to this place, even though he could tell how the city was not exactly doing all too well at the moment.

Then again, maybe there were a thousand other settlements like this and he was just finding it exotic and new still.

He doubted very much happened here, in terms of economics or events. It reminded him of the old towns he had sometimes visited. Old mining and factory towns that had been hollowed out as times changed and their lifelines ran dry.

Those kinds of places usually attracted a strange sort. Hopefully it was true here as well.

Emiya looked at some of the clearly inebriated people walking around. Slouched over and leaning for support where they could and swaying about where they couldn't. These weren't people who were celebrating; they were simply trying to forget.

Shaking his head, he ignored them.

How could he find himself now? That was what he needed to concentrate on right now. A police shuttle drove over his head and he smiled. That was a place to start, as good as any. Leaping up and away from the streets, he bounced from the side of a building to another building as he followed the police shuttle.

Like ground traffic, there seemed to be some 'lanes' that the shuttles had to follow as they flew around. They must have been represented on the onboard computers of the shuttles, as he could not see anything from where he was moving around. As the police shuttle stopped at a crossing to let someone else drive before them, Emiya leaped and landed on top of it.

He exhaled as he settled down to sit with his feet on the bonnet, crouching down to stare inside at the two policemen as they talked. He could read lips and he understood some of what they were saying. Inside, neither of the policemen seemed to notice a thing as they continued flying. Shaking his head, Emiya moved through the windshield and went to sit in the back of the shuttle, where those arrested would normally be held.

Emiya furrowed his brow as he began to listen to them, looking for anything of note.

Finally, after ten minutes Emiya shook his head and decided this wasn't getting him anywhere. They had simply been patrolling, handling some drunken patrons and checking an occasional alarm from a storefront while receiving only reports of minor trouble. Nothing that pointed towards anything he could use.

But he had found out the location of the police station in listening in on them. That seemed like it could be useful.

Leaping off, Emiya phased through an entire building as he kept moving. There was a slight hesitation at going through buildings at first, but given how tightly packed this city was, he would just be wasting time in going around. So he simply jumped and went through them all.

He found it quickly enough, landing in the reception area. He ignored the drunks and the officers on duty by the desks, simply moving through restricted areas without a care. He had finally found another lead in the car. Or rather, he had found a way to pick up one he had lost earlier.

Traffic Control.

Something must have been communicating between each of the shuttles. Just like with the water tower, having a thousand shuttle computers all vying for dominance in traffic was not optimal. Instead, building a single central hub and then slaving all of the shuttle computers to that one made certain that traffic stayed safe and orderly.

He walked up, reaching one of the highest floors of the skyscraper, until he found the place he was looking for. It reminded him of something between a busy office, an airport control tower and the pictures he had seen as a youth of NASA mission centers.

Dozens of people, poring over screens and terminals. Even during the night, it seemed that Mars needed constant control over its airspace. Then again, given that there was always someone out mining the asteroid field, it did make sense.

Looking around, he tried to get a feel for the system. But this wasn't just a single facility, stretching a few hundred square meters, with a mere hundred cameras to worry about. This was not just the entire city; this was the entire _local airspace_ control.

That meant everything within thousands of kilometers, he realized as he looked at the scale of the _short-range_ active radars nearby. People were trained for this job for months, Emiya suspected by the complexity he could just see at the moment.

Emiya frowned. He wouldn't be able to get anything out of this system, even if he knew what exactly he was looking for.

There were too many people around. He could not simply take out one and then take his time; people were constantly moving in and out as they got coffee and went to take short breaks. There was no door to lock to keep people out, and just one shout away there lay an entire police station looking to make trouble for anyone trying to get into their system without authorization.

Emiya sighed, walking around as he looked at the people working. It would be a waste of time, his energy and possibly of lives if he started a fight here. And there was no guarantee that he could even find what he wanted here or that the power would not be cut in whatever lockdown eventually he triggered.

He stared at the unused terminal in front of him; it taunted him with the bouncing screensaver as he considered his options.

Maybe if he projected a disguise somewhere else and simply walked in and sat down here? It might buy him enough time to look things up. But he shook his head at that. He knew very well that his own appearance did not lend itself to blending it.

White hair, tanned skin and height made people generally notice him everywhere he went.

Besides, there seemed to reign an overwhelming sense of camaraderie here. They all seemed to know each other. He would stick out as an unknown even if he changed his appearance to be far more mundane. _There must be a duty roster somewhere, too. They know who should and shouldn't be here, probably._

He considered trying to appear as a boss of some kind, a janitor or a new arrival. Someone who could reasonably show up and get access here. He could even look around for examples of what kind of paperwork he would need to fake to get in— _Oh, right. No physical paperwork anymore. I would have to hack the credentials. A Catch-22 right there; I need to hack myself in so that I can hack something._

Additionally, that kind of scheme would require days if not weeks to be pulled off safely. Time, which he did not have. And he would leave a massive trail behind himself, especially since he was so unique looking, even in the 22nd century.

He sighed again, rubbing his brow with a hand. A positive side to being astral and ephemeral, was that he _could_ in fact rub his brow even through the helmet he was wearing.

Emiya looked around, turning to notice the people coming in and leaving.

He needed to be able to hack into places without being detected, but even without the worry of detection he would have had his hands full here. It wasn't like the Ares Station security system, which was designed for jarheads who did not know binary from binoculars.

But for this system they had dedicated personnel, whose sole job was to _understand_ and use it to it's full potential. He could not simply match that kind of training with his Structural Analysis-fueled cheating, his quick thinking or with stolen skill and techniques from weapons he had replicated.

He crossed his arms, tapping a finger on his bicep in an annoyed habitual tick.

 _What can I do?_ He asked himself, furrowing his brows. Realizing that he was getting stuck in a loop as he was too focused, he took a mental step back. He began to list out things he could do, but hadn't considered yet at all, lacking in immediate applications he could think of. He could stay astralized; avoiding sight and detection until his existence expired from other causes. In the astralized state he could interact with objects, if he focused on it. He could move very quickly and remain unhindered by obstacles. He could create a body using the Servant-class container's specs to appear in the world as physical existence, able to masquerade as a living, breathing human being.

 _Wait._ Something about that stood out to him. He considered his own memories. Heroic Spirits. Servant-classes. They had appeared in his lifetime as Servants in that battle royale in his youth. In that ritual that could have lead to the end of the world.

 _Heaven's Feel_ ; _the manifestation of the soul_. Something about that. It was on the tip of his tongue; a realization he hadn't considered yet. It had something to do with the Alchemists, he thought. Not those Einzbern who dabbled in material transmutation and trafficking of curses.

The mentalists of the middle east.

In his world, there had been a breed of specialized hackers. Those especially who favored the mental and spiritual alchemical disciplines, had sought to make use of the increased potency, availability and use of information technology as an extension of their own abilities.

They had long been thought of as the weakest faction of the moonlit world; they certainly had a world-shattering armory of weapons and tools, which could have put down most anything. But when they refused to ever use them, in practice it meant that those creations did not exist beyond gathering dust in Titan's Pit.

He knew of two methods they had developed, allowing them to use computers at a degree which staggered all others in their effectiveness and speed. Both were based in the techniques developed by the Eltnam family; _Etherlite._ Connecting the brain to a computer to receive directly the information as Input; connecting one's sense of touch to be able to manipulate the data directly and to complete the Input/Ouput System.

They had called themselves Spirit Hackers, he vaguely remembered. There hadn't been many and they had not achieved anything noteworthy in his time, even as information technology had begun to explode.

But there had been something more. There had been theories about there being something beyond even that. Rumors. Ideas. For a method for directly inserting not just the _mind_ into a computer through a fake clone that relayed information, but also the _soul—_

It _clicked_ inside Emiya's head.

Heaven's Feel was the true magic relating to the actualization of the soul in the real world; allowing one to act and affect one's surroundings directly without need for an existing Corpus. Servants had been brought forth in the Holy Grail War of Fuyuki, using a flawed application of this method.

He could not be certain due to his lacking knowledge in the exact field... But did the Moon Cell not do the exact same thing? _The SERAPH is simply a virtual world, isn't it?_ _Doesn't that mean..._

Emiya opened his eyes and stared at the vacant terminal before him. Just as he could possess a body and operate it, could he not possess a computer? No, not possess. _Dive_ into. He hesitated. He had never heard about anything like this before; it was completely unknown territory for him.

"Hah. What am I getting cold feet for?" He jeered at himself as he extended a hand to place it on the terminal. He wasn't actually putting it against the computer itself or any of the data ports, simply the screen before him. But that was important, he reasoned. For the _mental image_ involved.

For a _human being_ , the screen was the ' _portal_ ' to the digital world. Not some dataports or sensors. He wasn't trying to manipulate it from the outside; he was going to do something completely different.

He inhaled, closing his eyes as he focused.

He created a mental image, and perfected it. It was the most natural thing to Emiya Shirou, to perform an action in his mind. He mastered it within two heartbeats as he began to replicate it in the real world.

Even with his eyes closed, he could see the terminal screen before him; his opened palm between it and his sight. It was the barrel; he was the bullet.

"—Trace," _Begin—_

The hammer inside his head was pulled back, loading the bullet inside the chamber as his circuit flared to life in preparation. This would not be Reinforcement— _synchronization,_ nor would it be Gradation Air— _projection._ No, this would be something entirely new; Diving

"o _n_!" — _insertion,_

Everything went black.

It felt like a gun had been put to the back of his head and had blown out his brain through the front of his skull. But instead of dying instantly, it felt like his entire existence was sucked in through that hole and pulled through a straw _somewhere_ else.

The self broke, the self reformed.

Opening his eyes, he gained awareness of his surroundings an instant later.

Emiya was hovering in a void. There was nothing except him. He could see nothing. Hear nothing. Feel nothing. He blinked, realizing this wasn't what he had expected. He had thought it would either be like VR-gaming, somehow. Where he could see the screen perhaps in a different way? Like he was inside of it. Or that it would be like those old movies with the dark flat worlds, where everyone wore glowing spandex? Or maybe even a waterfall of constantly shifting green numbers and letters?

In and instant, _everything_ changed. Suddenly he was floating upside down above a black world, where a glowing gird of blue lines extended as far out as the eye could see. Just like in _those_ movies.

Then the floating screen; a perfect copy of the terminal screen he had seen, appeared right in front of him alongside a second floating screen showing numerous lines of green code, floating by and rapidly shifting constantly.

"Huh." Emiya muttered, adjusting himself so that he was floating at least the right way up. Probably, anyway. The thing below him could have been a ceiling for all he knew.

Looking left and right, he couldn't find anything of note in the virtual landscape. It was just a flat black plane with the blue grid extending as far as the eye could see. He looked at the screens before him, trying to understand what was happening.

The screensaver continued to taunt him. Instantly it disappeared, revealing the log on screen that asked for his login credentials. Emiya blinked, glancing at the second screen. It was still continuing to throw numerous green characters at him. It was rather distracting in fact.

Catching on, he willed it to disappear and it immediately did.

"' _Perception is reality'_ , huh." It somewhat reminded him off his reality marble, yet not quite. More like a marble phantasm, perhaps? No, that wasn't right. He wasn't effecting change on the world, merely changing the way he perceived it.

No, well he had essentially brought the one screen out of the screensaver mode.

That meant he could affect the computer. He had Input and Output. Question was, would it be enough? The spirit hackers of his era would have still been stuck at the login screen if they did not have access to anything else.

He focused on the now single screen before him as he descended to stand on the plane below him. He tried to perceive it as something that existed in the virtual world, as something more than a mere screen that reflected the terminal's screen in the real world.

Suddenly, he was enclosed by four walls. He blinked, before jumping over the wall. Looking at the screen, he could see he had gotten access to the system as the log in screen disappeared.

"Huh. Neat."

 _I can work with this. But I don't want to alert anyone, so..._ He willed the screen to log out again and for the screensaver to resume. Closing his eyes, he willed the screen to disappear and instead focused solely on the world around him.

It was entirely false; a projection created by his mind as an interpretation of what he perceived as the world around him. But that was fine, he could work with that. He inhaled and then opened all his senses anew. Now that he knew what to look for, suddenly objects began to spring up all around him. He focused on an object in the distance and he knew that it was a registry of those working the night shift in Traffic Control; it was overlaid with all of their log in-credentials and all the processes they were running at the moment.

Emiya shook his head; it was irrelevant to him right now.

He _willed_ and the virtual world obeyed. He could have been moving himself, or the world could have been moving around him. It did not matter, as perspective was so skewed here. He simply willed the relevant data to appear before him, similarly to how he called swords inside of his own reality marble.

None of this would probably work in the Moon Cell, but in lesser systems such as this he was fairly certain he could do whatever he wanted.

A log of all shuttles in the airspace around Lowell City.

He focused on activity around two in the morning, sifting through the overflowing amount of information in moments as he began to cross-reference those who had exited the city and then entered it again. If he could find someone who had left the city limits before his body had been kidnapped and who had then returned afterwards, it would be a probable match.

He found thirty.

Creating a list, he began to cross-reference again with traffic camera footage. Rewinding the records from earlier today, he could look through and identify each one. He looked at the shuttle models; how many people were inside; which direction it had come from. Slowly, he narrowed down the list to but one possibility.

A slim, black shuttle with dark tinted windows. It had left and entered the city limits in the time frames he had outlined, though according to its flight plan it had not been anywhere near that part of Mars. He couldn't see anyone inside of it, but he could say that its dimensions fit the print he had found outside of Ares Station.

 _Found you,_ he grinned.

He followed it as it moved through the city. At times it disappeared off of the grid, but as long as he forwarded the footage it would eventually pop up somewhere again. Until it didn't. Somewhere around a higher-end residential district, the shuttle had stopped appearing.

Which meant that it was most likely somewhere around there.

He grinned, bringing up the last camera feed and locating it on a map of the city. He noted where to go from the police station to get there as he nodded to himself.

 _I need to get there,_ he thought as he willed himself to pull out of the virtual world. His circuits—which had been running constantly at a low hum reporting to him of a small, but constant drain on his reserves—began to shut off as he dived back out into the real world.

It was like going through a layer of scalding hot oil, followed by sub-zero flash-freezing liquids. He realized that those sensations had been there upon insertion as well, but he had been too distracted to notice the first time. Then he broke through the _surface_ and he was back in the real world.

Gasping for breath, he panted and blinked in confusion as he looked around. _This isn't the police station_.

He was where the camera had last been looking at; exactly where he needed to be. Turning around, he could see the half-dome of the traffic camera behind him.

"How convenient." He grinned, before turning around and beginning his search.

Emiya closed his eyes, pulling up the mental map of the city block within which the shuttle must have stopped. It wasn't large, so he began with leaping into the air and looking down from above.

A few shuttles and other vehicles were parked outside or on top of buildings, here and there. But nowhere did he see the black shuttle. Landing, he turned and began to go through buildings, one by one. He ran through them, finding the largest airlocks through which a shuttle could have been flown through, as he cleared garage after garage.

Finally, as he moved onto a nondescript and plain-looking house that looked like it had never been lived in, did he find a match.

Entering through the garage-airlock, Emiya spotted the black Cord-Hislop Aerospace _Suave-_ model shuttle with tinted windows immediately.

He nodded to himself, placing a hand on the shuttle. It still bore the golden brown dust on its bonnet, a telltale sign of having flown outdoors. That by itself wasn't much, considering Mars' in general. But the piles that had found their way in between the cracks on the bottom told him that this shuttle had been parked down in the sand.

Good enough for him.

Emiya turned around and walked through the door, leading to the house proper. Quickly going through the first floor of the house, he scanned room after room.

Nothing.

Placing a hand on the wall, he inhaled and closed his eyes.

"—Trace, _on_ "— _begin synchronization,_

He used Structural Analysis to grasp the entire house in a fraction of a second, acquiring a wireframe model inside his head. A three story building; the 22nd equivalent to a nice and quiet suburb house with a white picket fence. _Ah, that would do it_. There was a basement, too.

Dropping down, he listened intently and noted the amount and position of people. _There was extra care built in the floor; it would act as soundproofing against even a bomb going off._

Almost immediately, he found himself.

Emiya Shirou sat in a chair, strapped by the arms, legs, neck and waist in place with a pair of drips going to his arm. The limp body seemed unharmed and still breathed, to Emiya's sudden relief. He felt as if the weight of the world had suddenly come off of his shoulders, and he blinked at the sensation. _Have I grown this attached to living again?_

"Anything?" A voice asked, impatience obvious.

Emiya turned away from his body, looking at the person who had spoken to distract himself from the storm of emotions inside of him. It was a familiar face, but one that he hadn't expected to see ever again.

"No. I have no idea why he's not waking up. It's like he's in a coma, or something. Maybe it was a bad reaction to the sedatives we used on him... But I'm not seeing any of the usual correlative symptoms there. All the lights are on, but no one's home." Another answered. Both were wearing hardsuits—medium weight from the looks of it—and were standing in the other side of the room.

Burnsfeldt nodded. "There's something really wrong with all this. I knew it was a good idea to get him. Damn it, this whole affair's already blown up in my face on the Navy side. Will you be able to find any use for him? I have to leave soon, or I'll attract notice for my absence."

The second man shrugged. "Who knows. If he does have some genetic modifications pre-dating his enlistment, like you guessed, we might be able to find out something with a biopsy."

Burnsfeldt sighed, then.

"Fine, whatever. I have no idea what to make of him, so just make sure it won't be traced to me and I'll be glad to have him out of my hands. Maybe you can recruit him with some of long-term conditioning programs? They've been showing good results lately, I hear."

The second man shrugged. "Those methods are still being developed; a reluctant control subject might be useful. Well, only after the proper interrogation, anyhow. Assuming he wakes up at all."

Emiya looked around, walking closer to his body.

There were several marks on his neck, from what looked like some sort of syringe. He couldn't be sure. Perhaps from when they had first nabbed him? Tranquilize and extract, then neutralize on-site for a interrogation. Then when he failed to wake up, they tried other things.

There was probably a cocktail of chemicals and drugs in his body right now.

But, if he wanted an immediate grasp on the situation without revealing himself, he would have to play the game by these two's rules. But he had no idea what kind of stuff might be swirling about in his body. Was it really a good idea to possess it in a time like this? He could just materialize somewhere out of sight and break in and out, simple as that.

Move in quickly enough to kill everyone before they could do anything to his body, while maintaining a level of secrecy of the mystical.

But then he wouldn't have any idea what this was all about. If he did jump into his body, he was fairly certain he could get out of the body and be fine again, but he had a distinct feeling a drugged up brain might choose to say something entirely different than the mind had intended.

Sighing, he shook his head. _No risks, no rewards._

He sank into his body. Immediately, his mind was enveloped in chaos and turmoil. His gut roiled and his senses swam. He heard all the colors of the symphony as his heart beat so slowly that he might have been frozen alive.

Emiya pushed through it all and opened his eyes.

"Guhhhh... I hannn't this feeel shizz sinnce I to _ok_ a dip in the _gr_ ail...Fucking Kotomine..." Emiya frowned, then. He had rambled a lot more than he had intended.

"What?" Burnsfeldt said, turning around and staring at Emiya. "How is he awake?"

The other person walked up to Emiya, raising an omnitool as he began to scan him with furrowed brows. "I have no idea, this..."

Emiya shied away from the light, growling as he tried to get a handle on himself. He tried to put on an act; slurring with every word even without having to try.

"I schwear, I havennn't drunk anything, orificer. Shir." Emiya garbled out, biting his tongue more than once.

He worked his jaw, blinking rapidly and then tried to spit out the sand in his mouth. He realized that was just his saliva, as it dripped all over the floor and on Burnsfeldt's legs.

"Ugh, damn it...!" The Engineer scowled, jumping back and glaring at Emiya as if he wanted to hit him.

"I don't know why, but he's back to normal. Or, drugged-to-hell-but- _present_ , at least. Do you want to interrogate him now?" The second man asked, lowering his omnitool with a shrug.

Burnsfeldt frowned, considering it for a moment.

"Yes. I've waited the whole night. Might as well get the satisfaction. I'm going to get shit anyway when I get back..."

Emiya peered up at him, working to make the blurred edges disappear as he controlled his breathing to try and impose order on the chaos inside of his body. But it would not be enough to make a difference in the short-run. In the long-run, perhaps he could flush out all the chemicals faster, but here it would not matter one whit.

Burnsfeldt slapped him, rocking Emiya's world in white as half of his vision disappeared for a second. His left ear began to hear a strange and far-off chime that rose up and fell down in tune every second.

"Who are you?"

Emiya considered that through his haze. _No point in lying this early._

"I'm nooo oneee."

The second had his omnitool up again, looking at some readings as Emiya spoke. He looked up, nodding to Burnsfeldt.

"It's working; go ahead."

"Who are you working for?" Burnsfeldt asked, holding Emiya's head with his hands as he peered into his eyes.

"Sysh... Sstemms all in navy?"

Burnsfeldt frowned.

"We know about the churches in Barcelona. Tell us where the rest of your cell is. Who is your contact?"

Emiya inhaled and paused his perception of time. The world came to a halt; everything freezing in place as he disconnected his mind from the body.

That was interesting. And told him _nothing_ at all. Barcelona? Churches?

He had gone touring the locations for a number of reasons, primarily for the architecture and for a another arrow to his quiver against the Alliance Navy trying to ship him off into the special forces. He had sought the faithful in hopes of converting, so that he could claim his religion expressly forbade violence, citing himself as a pacifist.

Caren had often enough cited the Bible at him and while he had never found it a bother, per se, he had thought to finally get some mileage out of those verses.

Only as it turned out, in the last year the Catholic Church's policies seemed to have radically changed. Pope Leo XIV believed that humanity ought to assert itself more in the galaxy, and that all those who he had spoken to on the subject of his trepidation after enlisting had encouraged him to stay in the Navy and to hold steadfast for the good of humanity.

The ideological possession was plain to see on them.

He could smell the internal takeover from a mile away too, even before he heard about the sudden death of Pope Clement XVI, the previous head of the Catholic Church.

Finding no help there, he had abandoned that line of tactics. Besides, he was certain the Navy had their own religious figures who were more than happy to assist one of their flock in finding the righteous path anew.

That meant, what? _Burnsfeldt is related to the current ruling party of the Catholic Church, and thinks I'm an operative of the previous Pope? But what would they want in the Navy? And what could I possibly want in the Navy in that case? Or on Mars? Is there something I'm completely missing, or is he just prodding me? He seems to be overreacting. For now, I should try to get my body functional._

Emiya let himself sink back into the sea of chaos. He blinked again as time began to move in his perception.

"What?"

Burnsfeldt ground his teeth, looking to the side at his second who shook his head.

"Fine. Did you receive any gene therapy before joining the Navy?"

"Wha _a_ t?" Emiya repeated, slurring even more.

Burnsfeldt sighed with disgust, turning to his assistant again.

"Get him sober. I can't interrogate him like this."

The second nodded and began to fiddle with his omnitool, taking out a hypoderm-pistol and giving Emiya two shots, before measuring him again with the omnitool and closing off the two drips.

"Give him ten minutes." He said and Burnsfeldt nodded, before walking out of the room.

Emiya let his head loll as he stepped out of his body, following after Burnsfeldt as he kept an eye on his body.

Closing the door behind him, Burnsfeldt nodded at the two armored men standing guard right outside. There was only one way out of the basement room, and it was heavily guarded.

Raising his omnitool, Burnsfeldt began to comm someone. Emiya stopped, standing inside the closed door so that he could with the turn of a head keep an eye on both Burnsfeldt and himself.

" _Fillion._ " The voice on the other end of the comm spoke and Emiya raised an eyebrow at the tone of voice. It was paternal; expectant, with a hint of disappointment.

At the same instant, Burnsfeldt's entire body language changed; he stood straighter, looking ahead at the omnitool and even seemed to be smiling a little bit wider.

 _Conditioning, they said? Looks pretty successful from where I'm standing._ Emiya noted with a frown.

"Sir, as outlined in the report, I have him in custody. Only, he has woken up now. Do you wish for me to continue here or should I move him to the nearest Cerberus base of operations?" Burnsfeldt asked, keeping his voice quiet enough that the armed personnel could not hear.

" _I must confess to some disappointment with you, Fillion. You should have brought this up with me before acting. As it stands, we may never know what our guest was searching for on Mars._ "

"But, sir, I did not wish to wake you—"

" _I do understand—and share—your concerns regarding him. His actions show few tells, but the big picture reveals a truth hidden from those who do not have the eyes to see it. Nevertheless, now we may never know his true designs for Ares Station._ "

Burnsfeldt swallowed, obviously nervous at the chastisement he was receiving.

" _But, we must endeavor to overcome our mistakes. Is that not right, Fillion?_ "

"Yes, sir." He spoke quietly, head hanging.

" _For now, tie your loose ends up and have him brought in. We shall have him shipped to the tertiary Ganymede base, where we have facilities suitable for further questioning. As for the other two, keep your eyes peeled but stay your hand, lest we tip off those who would seek to work against us. I have complete faith in your abilities in that regard._ "

"Yes, sir." Burnsfeldt answered as he stood up straight once more. The line cut off and he sagged, before inhaling with new purpose and turning to the man who had been silently assisting him until now. "Is the VI working?"

"Yeah, but you're gonna have to let him cool down for a bit, still." The man said, looking at his omnitool.

Burnsfeldt blinked, frowning at the man. "Why? I thought you'd get him clear enough to talk to?"

"Yeah, but with that mix of tranqs, stims and the truth serum along with the scrubber I just gave him, he won't be in exactly the best frame of mind for this. He'll still tell the first or second thing that pops in his mind, but whether that thing is what we want to hear, is something completely different. You'll have to keep hammering the question until he thinks of the right thing in response." The man explained, waving his hand.

"Right. Repeat questions, keep him off-balance and don't let him get a word in edgewise when he's not saying anything I want to hear. Basic interrogation. Did you get a baseline on the VI-analyzer?" Burnsfeldt nodded, crossing his arms.

The man shrugged. "Not yet. It's working, but the material from the Brazil facecams isn't the best. It's like he's wearing a mask the whole time. Plus the helmet covers most of his microexpressions there. Hard to make a good baseline, but you keep hitting him and I'll keep seeing what he throws back at us. Fifteen minutes and we'll know the truth of everything he says."

Burnsfeldt smiled then, a vicious glee apparent in his eyes. He would make up for his gaffe, to regain the trust and expectations placed on him. He turned around and began to walk back to the interrogation room. "Alright, let's go. Time to see if our guest is coherent enough for us."

Emiya hopped back to his body and inhaled deeply as he tested out if anything had changed.

Several minutes had passed and Emiya could feel most of his bodily sensations having returned to normal. He inhaled, beginning to circulate minute amounts of magical energy in his body with every breath. This wasn't a magical malady that could be flushed away with effort. But, by subtly Reinforcing himself he would be able to act, once it became necessary.

Next, he began to insert magical energy into the bindings, using it as a method for slowly weakening the material so that he would be able to break free when he needed to. Still, if he just stood up now he was certain he would fall over. _Buy as much time as possible._

He considered simply fighting as his Servant-self, but then dismissed that as he had no idea what kind of surveillance might be on the persons' of the two who were in the room with him. He might be done with his mission, but that did not mean that he would screw that up so late in the game.

Burnsfeldt returned, slamming the door behind him and Emiya winced at the sound as the sound seemed to echo inside his skull.

"Well then, coherent are we? Good. _Good_." Burnsfeldt said, stretching the O out with a smile. Gone was the servile and chastened boy, in his place was once again that dandy and smug man, who always seemed to be so sure of himself. It was like he had gotten his 'hit' again, just as he had begun to suffer from withdrawal.

Emiya looked up, holding one eye closed. "S-sir?"

That made the Lieutenant Commander smile even more widely. A reminder of his authority would placate him for a moment and keep him calm, Emiya reasoned. Keep the man thinking he had full control. Emiya looked around with bleary eyes.

"W-where is this? What's going on...?" He blurted out as he looked up at the looming Burnsfeldt.

"None of that, _serviceman._ I will be asking the questions now. What is your name?"

"You already know that..." Emiya said. _He's still playing the officer? Is that meant to make me think this is sanctioned by the Systems Alliance? Is this 'Cerberus' some operation or cell of the Navy?_ He didn't have enough information to go by right now, to make any definitive judgments.

"Do I? Tell me, where did you come from?" Burnsfeldt asked, raising his hand and bringing up his omnitool.

"Sir? I don't understand—"

Burnsfeldt hit the table next to him, cutting Emiya off. "Answer the question, serviceman!"

"...What's going on? None of this makes any sense, sir—" Emiya continued resisting obliquely; he wanted Burnsfeldt annoyed enough to reveal something.

"What doesn't make any sense here is _you_. Where did you receive your genetic enhancements? Nothing showed on the original tests, but those can be fooled. At first I'd thought you were some fundamentalist of the old guard. But that was _too obvious_. And then I realized it. This is a ploy by someone to allow you to infiltrate the holdover of the Catholics, it will allow you to claim purity to their cause. Was it the STG? They would certainly have the technology to account for such things."

"The what? Who?" Emiya asked and Burnsfeldt hit him then, right on the mouth. It was somewhat painful, but Emiya merely let the pain wash over him. _Ah, the body changing to resemble my true self rapidly must have been noticed. The gene mods should take years to affect me, normally. But STG?_

"The salarians are well known for their work in genetics, so I would not put it past them to have reverse-engineered humanity's work to such a degree." Burnsfeldt spoke as he pulled up two displays from his omnitool. "After all, one does not turn from _this_ to _this_ in the space of a single month."

Emiya blinked at the pictures; his enlistment picture and photo of him from basic, when he had already begun to grow out into a healthier shape.

"This? This is the kind of transformation explicitly banned by Alliance law. Your appetite drew attention, especially with how quickly you were able to 'put on the pounds' as it were. What did they do, splice some of the krogan genome into you and hide it as non-coding DNA, hidden behind all that garbage you tried to pass off as your actual genome? Did you seriously think anyone would buy you having such a poor genome? It was _ballsy_ , I'll give you that. But stupid. Entirely too stupid! Did you use some form of retroviral carrier to turn it back into coding DNA after the tests? No matter, we will figure it out, soon enough."

Emiya blinked, utterly at a loss as to what this man was saying.

"Sir, I—"

"Who sent you here? What were you doing in Barcelona?"

Emiya feigned confusion, though he didn't have fake it much. This man was rambling all too much. "Wha—Barcelona—I didn't do anything there!" _Did he do something to Cassani?_

Glancing at the other man, Emiya wondered how quickly they would be catching on. The drugs they had mentioned did not seem to be working anymore, as his mind was clear and his speech was controlled. Still, he had no measures against a facial analyzer and no guarantees he could bluff through it. He had to keep this short.

He still didn't know what exactly they knew, so he had to choose his answers carefully to get the most of out his questioners.

"Bullshit, we have records of you going to five different churches and talking to the personnel while having left behind your omnitool, even though leave regulations state that it ought to be worn at all times. A man of your character, noted for his _fine_ understanding of the _rules_ , would surely know not to do such a thing. Not unless he was hiding something." Burnsfeldt spoke, his speech becoming more and more rapid until he was talking a mile a minute. "Who were you meeting in Barcelona?!"

"I was just visiting the churc—"

"How did you fake your heart attacks? They all happened within two hours of you going to bed? That pattern is far too revealing! Who are you working for? Who taught you all this?!" Burnsfeldt shouted, bringing up footage of Emiya's combat footage from the Shanxi-exercise.

Emiya shook his head, repeating his denials and he held back a frown. _They really do monitor everything. I'm not getting anything out of him, now. He's too 'high' right now, I can't even get a word in edgewise to trip him up._ He could already feel most of the numbness having receded, he wouldn't have any problems moving now. _Then again, I have a new trick I can use. Honestly, I don't have any more time for this._

Emiya inhaled, deciding that he had had enough of this for now.

It was obvious that whatever Burnsfeldt was doing, he was doing it on the side. None of this fit in with anything of how the Navy worked, not at least in accordance to anything he had seen up to that point.

He looked down, breaking eye-contact.

"I'm going to break your nose, when you lean in." Emiya whispered quietly. He rolled his shoulders as much as the restraints permitted, getting ready.

He just needed an opening _._

"What was that?" Burnsfeldt asked pausing in his torrent of questions, and Emiya whispered it again, just as quietly as he kept looking away from Burnsfeldt.

Shaking his head and leaning just a tad bit forward, just far enough to be safe from any attempts from the bound up Emiya, Burnsfeldt chuckled. "You'll have to speak up, if you want to be heard."

"I said," Emiya looked up, smirking at the man who had come within arms reach and thought himself safe due to the restraints. "' _I'm going to break your nose, when you lean in._ '"

Burnsfeldt blinked, staring back at Emiya. There was just a single moment; of confusion, of disbelieved amusement and a touch of worry, in that space of the blink of an eye.

Then Emiya exploded into motion.

The restraints tore like wet tissue paper as he sprung forward, grabbing both of the other man's arms by the elbows, leaping up and smashing into his captor's nose with his forehead in a vicious headbutt. He heard the crack of cartilage and the warm, wet sensation of blood on his face even as he could smell it.

Dazed and contused, Burnsfeldt took half a step backwards, not out of any conscious effort but from his body simply trying to stay upright while blinded by the pain.

On his feet, holding Burnsfeldt's arms still, Emiya let go and moved both of his hands up to the neck and brought them together behind it, to pull the other's face forward.

In the same instant, he sprung up and forward again into a leaping knee kick upwards. The crossed-together hands pulled the skull back and the rocket-like knee kick shot forward, meeting in the middle with Burnsfeldt's head caught in the middle, making a sound a sledgehammer on bone might make.

The Lieutenant Commander of questionable loyalties was out like a light, instantly. He fell over like a sack of potatoes, crumpling on the floor. Behind him, the second man who had been leaning against a wall, had already pulled his pistol and was drawing a bead on Emiya.

 _Excellent reflexes and training_ , Emiya noted. In his shirt and boxers a mass accelerator round would definitely put him down with one shot.

But he was one step ahead, surging to cross the floor in a dead sprint, almost parallel with the floor in his burst of motion.

— _Pffftzzz!_

The trigger was pulled and Emiya felt something tearing his skin by his shoulder, but nothing more. There were no near-misses with the guns of this era unless the target was outside of the mass accelerator's spine's correction cone; he had gotten there in time. His hand had snaked out and pushed aside the drawn pistol just as the trigger was pulled, getting him just outside the range of the auto-aim's correction.

The man's eyes widened as he tried to step back, but Emiya kept pace and more, closing the distance between them.

Even on equal ground, moving backwards was never as fast as running forward. And right now Emiya was performing at truly superhuman levels; the magical energy buzzing in his veins like burning lightning.

The man tried to pull back his gun, but Emiya followed with the hand that had reached out, grabbing a hold of the wrist and pulling to follow with the same motion. The man tried to raise his hand, the other shooting forward in a desperate punch to pry Emiya off, but Emiya's other hand shot out and punched with an open palm at the gun-hand's elbow.

The man turned on his feet as if he had been spun in place, the elbow functioning as a lever to his entire body. Emiya snuck in even closer at the open back in the same instant, cocking his hip against the other's back even as his arm went in under the man's arm and up to the collar.

"Fuc—" The man tried to get loose as he realized he was about to be thrown over the hip, but Emiya pulled with his entire body as he turned his body and performed a picture perfect hip throw.

The man had a fraction of a second time to feel the momentum before the back of his skull impacted on the hard floor, bouncing once as Emiya brought his own weight and momentum into the fall. The sound of the impact was enough to tell Emiya that the man had at least cracked his skull and was probably going to die in minutes.

Emiya rose up, dusting himself. The floor was rough and cold, feeling less than comfortable against his bare skin. He looked at the two hardsuited figures and sighed. _Luckily neither had their helmet on_. _The kinetic barrier seems worthless in a melee fight._

He let out a disgusted sigh, looking at his hands.

He had killed again; it came natural to him at this point. He avoided baring his sword until he decided that it was the time to kill, because he knew that once that threshold was crossed, there was no going back. Once the arrow was loosed, it could not be recalled.

Emiya looked around, noting the room again. It was bare, the chair he had been in, the table with the various medical supplies and the two unconscious men aside. He knew however that on the other side of the door, six more men were waiting.

Emiya considered the two on the floor. He frowned, moving to take their omnitools and physically disengaging the power supply before he put them on his wrists. That should allow him to analyze them later if he wanted to, without worry of them being used against him. He only had the underwear and undershirt he was wearing right now, what was in this room and on the two unconscious men, to take out six heavily armed men right outside.

The only gun in the room were two pistol, neither of which he had any user access to.

"There are limits, even for me." He sighed as he sat down, cross legged and closed his eyes.

And then he stepped out of his body. His black full-body alternating diamene weave would have contrasted sharply with the stark white walls of the basement, had he been physical in that moment.

He put a hand against the door and inhaled.

"—Trace, _on_ " _—begin projection_ ,

The door was an automatically opening one, which could be opened and locked through omnitools or the interface on the side. But that all hinged on the door actually being physically able to open. He projected a sword inside the mechanism that opened the door, jamming it completely.

This door would not open until the sword was removed.

He walked through it and considered the men on the other side. _I can't get out without going through these men. A fight seems inevitable._

Crossing to the other side of the hallway in his spiritual and incorporeal body, Emiya noted that the men outside were spread out over the length of the entire hallway. They were all wearing helmets, with guns held at the casual ready and standing attentively even as they discussed something in low voices.

Emiya looked at them, listening in as he walked past them.

"Think Burnsfeldt's right about this one? Seems like a long shot to me." One said, raising a hand to point at the door with his thumb.

None of them wore any kind of identifying marks or insignia, simply clad in black, white and gray armor with the occasional gold highlight.

"Lunch seems like a long shot to you, shut the fuck up already."

"Fuck you, I don't take shit from you—"

Emiya shook his head, he wouldn't learn anything from these people either. He noted that none of them had noticed what had happened in the room just now. It seemed that the soundproofing extended to the walls and doors as well. _What thorough craftsmanship_ , Emiya complimented with grim humor.

He walked back into the room with his body and the two he had knocked out. Frowning, he looked up. Maybe he could go through the ceiling to the first floor? He consulted the wireframe in his head, before sighing. _The floor is too thick, they would hear anything I could do to make a hole, defeating the purpose entirely._

That left only fighting his way out.

Emiya placed a hand on the wall, extending his od into the house's walls again. He found all the major power lines and then put just a little bit too much effort into it. As a youth, he had long struggled with Reinforcement due to his unique element. As one's magical element affected _how_ the Reinforcement magic worked, his rather volatile nature of 'sword' tended to destroy things quite easily.

On the other hand, it made him something of a broken phantasm expert. Hell, he had been shattering wood and cleaving hard stone with his failures a mere two years into his magical studies, which was rather impressive considering his lack of talent.

All the lights went out instantly, as all power in the basement was cut. It was pitch black, but that hardly bothered him. The layout was simple; all of his enemies were weary creaky armor and heavy boots. He could fight blind here just fine, if he needed to.

Lowering his hand and materializing, he walked over to the two unconscious men on the floor. He sighed, making an ugly expression as he resolved himself again to break his ideal.

"Time to clean this mess up." He sighed, the breath tickling his eyebrows inside his mask. He raised a foot and brought it down onto the neck of one and then the other. Both died instantly.

He wasn't completely sure what was going on, but he felt fairly certain that they would come back to bother him if he left them walk away here. Moreover, Burnsfeldt seemed too close for comfort to Shepard. A failure here would only explode on those who he had spent time with, judging from this man's character. The man had already bared his teeth and Emiya had drawn his sword in response, metaphorically speaking.

Hesitating at this point would be meaningless and immature.

Turning around to the door, he called forth his blades; his fingers grasping hilts as he took the last step and kicked forward at the same time as he dispelled the sword embedded in the door earlier.

The door caved out and exploded off of its tracks, in a way it was never supposed to move, taking down two of the armored men behind it. They were blown backwards where they had been standing, as if they had been struck by a sudden high-yield mine or had been hit by a car.

Flashlights at the ends of assault rifles and shotguns turned his way, lighting up his dark form in the newly opened doorway.

"What the fu—"

One tried to shout as he raised his rifle, but Emiya had crossed the distance already and sunk his curved black blade between his ribs, piercing armor, flesh, heart and spine with the move in one smooth thrust. The man died three seconds later, unable to understand what had happened.

Switching to reverse grip, Emiya kept the sword embedded in the man as he raised his white blade above his head.

"Open fire!" Someone shouted, and the two others hastened to respond as weapons were raised.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

Bakuya was thrown forward, shooting out like a white dove through the air. It embedded itself into a wall and a second later the sound of a kinetic barrier going off and collapsing was heard, followed by the sound of a head falling to the ground and blood spurting out from the now headless body that collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut a second later.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

Emiya strode forward, keeping the ad hoc body-shield raised as he advanced calmly against the hail of automatic gun fire. In this narrow hallway, flanking wasn't an issue.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

The body held worked as a shield, first absorbing the hail of bullets with its kinetic barriers, then with the armor on his back and finally with the body itself and the armor on his front, as Emiya advanced. _Just like a Holtzmann shield; move slowly to slip in the point and nothing goes off. Like this, they can be pretty good shields,_ he grimly thought as he pushed forward the body he had been using as a shield with his other hand.

— _trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!_

It slid off of his blade even as it kept taking bullets for him, and he kicked it forward before the dead body could fall down, letting it bounce into the closest of the two remaining men, entangling him.

"Agh!" The man shouted as he fell over and a second later Emiya's foot lashed out and snapped his neck in a sickening crack, leaving him limp on the floor.

Emiya stood over the body, looking down before he slowly turned to look at the last man, who stood in paralyzed shock with his overheated rifle. He kept pulling the trigger as he backpedaled until he hit a wall.

Emiya turned around, letting blood drip off of his hanging sword as he stared at the last man.

— _drip_

— _drip_

— _drip_

The hallway had been completely changed in the space of the past ten seconds.

Bulletholes and ricochet-marks pocked every surface as blood pooled on the floor and slowly spread out from the slain. On the wall a long red stripe remained from the beheading earlier, with a white sword sticking out conspicuously from the wall a bit away from it.

"Ah—Ah—Ah!" The man finally realized his gun had overheated and pulled his pistol instead, raising and taking aim with expert precision that could only be the result of a thousand hours of practice that overrode all of his panic.

Emiya didn't move, simply looking at the man.

As the trigger was pulled the sword whipped up and three sounds could be heard almost at the same instant.

— _Pffftzzz!_

— _tingg!_

The bullet hit the wall, tearing off paint as it ricocheted off. The pistol was almost dropped from slack hands as the armored man _stared_ in abject horror at the upraised sword that had undeniably deflected the bullet without fail.

Emiya inhaled, bursting forward and cutting through the last man from shoulder to hip in one swing—going through kinetic barrier, armor, skin, flesh and bone without even slowing down.

The burst and flickering of the failing kinetic barrier mixed with the screeching of tearing metal and the cracking of ceramic plate.

"Guh...!" The man cried as he crumpled, the suit still trying to keep him alive. Medigel was being dispensed into the gaping wound, doing little but prolonging the man's life for some minutes more. Emiya looked down, frowning as he kicked out and snapped the neck, to end the man's life. _Go for the head or neck; torso hits take too long and make them suffer. Structural weakness by neck due to enhanced need for mobility, much easier than the torso as well._ He noted, distantly.

He shook his head, flicking Kanshou clean of any blood still staining the blade as he examined the flat. _No damage. Good. The aiming assist program targets vitals, making prediction for angled parries rather easy, though timing it could be... tricky for burst or automatic fire. But as expected, the bullets themselves are too fast and too small to be seen. Kinetic barriers react to my attacks, but can't handle them. Might be different with vehicles._

These swords were his favorites, yet he often called upon them for worthless killings such as these. But that was partly what he so admired about them; that their nature had never changed and that only the love and dedication of that swordsmith couple remained inside them. It helped him stay his course; maintain a distance from the slaughter and suffering around him.

He sighed as he tore out Bakuya from the wall and flicked it once, flipping it into a reverse grip as he considered the hallway. _And once again, I'm back in this place._ He shook his head, ignoring the sudden melancholy he felt.

He turned around, walking back inside as he checked that everyone was dead and finishing off those still breathing and trying to crawl away.

Looking around the entire house, he tried to find his omnitool but failed to find it anywhere. Finally, giving up on it, he continued looking around the house for other things he might be able to use.

By the outside of the garage, he found a strange transparent body bag of some kind, with an oxygen supply attached to it. _So that's how they got me from the airlock to the car._ And by the wall there was a closet full of light hardsuits. They seemed to lack any kind of armor or kinetic barriers, but would still protect him from the outside environment and supply him with oxygen.

He would take it; he didn't have anything better to wear. Might as well take all the oxygen tanks, just in case. And a spare, in case he broke the one he wore.

Having given up on his omnitool, he settled for the gear of the men who he had killed. Then again, perhaps that was for the better as he would not probably be able to use that one anymore. It was already light outside; long past morning on Ares Station.

They might just give him a slap on the wrist for disappearing and throw him for a few days in the brig. But if they realized that there was no footage of his disappearance, it would raise questions.

Going back there was a waste of time, anyhow. He was going to the moon.

He searched and stripped the armored men of their weapons and omnitools as he made certain to disconnect all power sources and take any credits he found since he guessed that after this point he would not have access to his old funds.

Piling up the bodies in the interrogation room, he Projected a simple-looking sword and pushed some of his magical energy into it. It cracked, a long angry red line ran through its length. _With this, ten minutes from now the entire basement will be burning. Who knows how long the oxygen will last for a normal fire, but it should be enough to dispose of the bodies._

Down here there weren't any fire-system and the sword was one that would burn even under water, so the lack of oxygen would only slow it down.

Walking to the garage, he put down his body and considered it. He was still in his Servant form. With his short while inside of his body and with the long rest it had enjoyed, his magical energy was topped up again. He could also tell that his Independent Action had been reset, giving him another 24 hours to work with.

Handy, that.

Still, he couldn't just _disappear_ and have his body start moving again as he stepped into it. If that was caught on any recording, it would raise a lot of eyebrows. Simply performing at a superhuman level and appearing from nowhere could be explained away. But that would be revealing too much, giving too clear a sign of his true nature. In the basement room, he had made sure to remove everything that could be recording, but he wasn't sure of this place.

It had been absolutely bare; this place was cluttered. Closets and shelves, filled with tools and replacement parts for the shuttle and for performing maintenance on a variety of weapons and equipment.

Too many places to hide stuff in, especially since it was the shuttle entrance.

No cameras or obvious surveillance gear to be had anywhere in plain sight. Still, it didn't hurt to be careful, so he turned off all the lights here as well and crawled under the parked shuttle. It had a raised profile, looking like a sports-car of a century past, thus there was just enough space for him to make it there.

He highly doubted any cameras existed that were pointed here in this room and if they were, he hoped the darkness would be enough to block off anything too incriminating.

Emiya extended a hand to the bottom of the shuttle. Unlike cars, the bottom was the same smooth material as the sides and top; sealed against the dust and near-vacuum it had to brave. The hammer of the gun pointing at the back of his head was loaded; the barrel was extended and the bullet loaded itself.

"—Trace, _on_ " _—begin insertion,_

He blinked as he appeared inside that same strange world he had dived into the time before. This place looked completely similar, in that the blackness went of for infinity as the blue grid extended as far as the eye could see beneath him.

Emiya craned to look up, noticing the plane he was falling towards again.

Sighing and crossing his arms, Emiya let himself slowly sink until he was near the 'ground' again and he flipped to land on his feet. _Do I appear upside down here, because I am 'diving' headfirst into the digital world as if it were an ocean? How strange._

Emiya looked around, sensing out everything within easy reach. With how connected everything was, he could not only sense the shuttle he had entered, but the house and neighboring buildings as well. _Now, how to handle hacking a car... Might as well go with what I know._

He nodded to himself, exhaling and pulling up the wireframe model of the shuttle as he knew it from having merely seen it. The same blue lines that existed to create the plane beneath his feet appeared to form the likeness of the shuttle.

Nodding to himself, he made a circuit around the thing as he focused on his senses. This spirit hacking thing was still pretty new to him, but if he took the time to think it through, he was certain he could handle it.

Immediately several things gained his notice. He found two lines extending out and into the distance from the chassis of the car, pulsating quietly. The doors of the shuttle had a blue picture of a red padlock on them, with the top latch firmly shut.

 _Does that mean it's encrypted or locked?_ Emiya thought with a frown before he shook his head. He reached out and put a hand on one of the long lines and tried to feel out where it went. It seemed to go on forever, zigging and zagging all over the place. Finally, he gave up and tried the other.

Instantly, the connection to what he recognized as the Traffic Control appeared. He blinked at how clear and large the connection seemed in comparison to the previous one.

 _What, is the other one some hidden tracing signal?_ He considered, before shrugging and just pulling loose the line and letting it shrivel away. He waited to see if anything else happened, before accepting that it had seemed to do something without breaking anything.

Moving on, he looked at the doors and the insides. He shrugged, pressing the padlock once and willing it to open. It turned blue, vibrating softly at his touch. He looked inside, considering where the ignition was before sighing and simply willing a button to turn it on to appear before him.

Pressing it, the entire wireframe began to softly vibrate in place. _That did something, I think._

Emiya closed the circuit, appearing underneath the car once more and noting that it was softly humming over him. He smirked, crawling back out and dusting himself off. Noting that the doors were open, he lifted his body inside along with the environment suits and oxygen supplies, and then closed the doors as he sat down in the driver's seat.

Or what he thought was the driver's seat anyhow.

He really had no idea how to drive this thing. He sighed, rubbing his brow, only for the gloved hand to be stopped by the helmet covering his face.

"It's always _something…._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to PseudoSteak for proofreading and helping out.
> 
> Thanks to Deathwings for cool ideas, which I stole and mutated with abandon :V
> 
> Thanks to wellis for helping me with the story and South for pointing out a continuity error following that change.
> 
> Thanks to Something8576 for proofreading.
> 
> Updates will slow down for the foreseeable future, because I need to spend more time thinking through every scene here onward. Until now, I knew what I wanted pretty clearly and could just write it all out.


	12. ReSolve

Emiya exhaled as he tried to get the borrowed environment suit to fit a bit more comfortably, looking out through the shuttle's window.

Behind him, Mars was receding as he kept flying ' _upwards_ '. Even with the weaker gravity compared to Earth, the shuttle was still managing quite admirably to keep up a good speed until it finally broke out of the red planet's gravity well.

It turned out that shuttles _could_ make interplanetary journeys, but only when pushed to their limits in terms of fuel. Or so he judged based on what the VI told him about his fuel consumption. Behind him, people should be preparing for lunchbreaks just about now in Lowell City. He had been out for hours.

He would be gliding in, keeping everything non-essential turned off and only using fuel to maintain the kinetic barriers to protect the shuttle from space debris and to keep it going straight. He wouldn't be even using any propulsion after he got his initial velocity, merely relying on the initial burst to keep the shuttle in motion in the frictionless void of space.

All to maintain his fuel cells as long as possible. Constant thrust was not a requirement for travel, but keeping the mass effect field which kept the shuttle light enough to move at the speeds it did _was._ Which meant there would be a constant drain, even without him turning off his fusion torch thrusters. But that wasn't a very large drain, since the system was quite well optimized. Really, the kinetic barrier was the biggest drain. Nothing had hit the shuttle so far, since space was pretty empty for the most part, but if something did it would do catastrophic damage to the shuttle.

But it was simply a necessity for high speed travel.

He had charted out a route from Mars that would be aiming for where Earth would be when he arrived there, so that he would be traveling in a straight line that met the planet going in circular orbit. Easier said than done, that. Especially when the distances involved exceeded Light-seconds. If even the smallest error could cause a massive deviation down-range with a sniper rifle, with space travel the deviation quickly grew beyond human comprehension.

It was the sort of thing that required abstract maps and computer modeling for humans to deal with; one could not simply look out the window and go 'huh, I took a right at Albuquerque, I should be there... Oh, _there_ it was! Let me just turn around and get over there.' And it wasn't _just_ the distances involved, either. It was the nature of traveling through a void that was the biggest issue. The human senses lacked any reference-points in space, making it difficult to even keep going straight.

Humans when walking through unknown territory, had a tendency to walk in circles. Emiya had no idea if this phenomena would be replicated in three-dimensional navigation, but he sure hoped not.

It was like walking through a pitch black hallway, completely blind. At the far end existed a door, but you did not know _where_ exactly. Moreover, the door only opened once in a year and if you were there too early or too late, you would actually walk past the door and keep walking for all eternity.

Which was probably why the shuttle was equipped with a flight VI as a standard. Too much room for human error here. It got him started and quickly enough taught him the basics of flying around, giving him a good idea how Shepard had originally learned to drive. Only, it refused to fly to the Moon because the amount of fuel would not suffice for safe travel according to its calculations. It also warned him that this shuttle was only rated for flight on Mars, but he didn't quite care. He needed to get to the moon, preferably before the Alliance or this 'Cerberus' caught up to him.

So completely ignoring such limitations, Emiya merely flipped the paradigm in his head and considered the shuttle an _arrow_ and the planet he was looking for to be the _target, moving through the air._ It was like shooting clay pigeons, really. Ignoring all the numbers, the velocities, acceleration, delta v, the distances and the radial velocity, he instead simply compared the shuttle's speed to Earth's on the miniature display showing the system in a three dimensional hologram. It was to scale and of the right dimensions, the VI assured him, thus he figured he could use it. He shot forward in the direction he wanted to go as he assured the VI that he knew what he was doing and ignored its warnings. And then he, as he began to reach for peak velocity with reasonable fuel consumption, he started turning everything he could off to save power. It had the side-effect of shutting up the VI, which was a definite plus.

Even the life support had to go; he had an environment suit he could use after all. This model of shuttle wasn't meant to have a self-pressurizing system inside, but for the pilot to always wear a suit. It did seal out the environment, which meant he had some oxygen from inside the house, but that would probably leak out too quickly for it to be worth anything.

But he had his suit for that, which came with several oxygen modules he could change out to keep breathing. Then again, he would have to hot-swap his oxygen supply sooner or later, which would be _interesting_ , considering the suit was not designed for such maneuvers to be done while in a non-breathable environment. Could he hold his breath or hold a hand in front of the seal where the supply would be pulled out? It was just a civilian model, which meant that this shouldn't be necessary, there was usually always one place or another where once could 'fill up' safely near the settlements. But few civilians probably thought to fly from one planet to another in a shuttle.

Which was why he had been slowing down his heartbeat to minimize oxygen consumption. He had been getting a lot of mileage out of his breathing techniques lately. In a _lot_ of _ways,_ really.

So the plan was for him to fly in the dark through the vast divide between Mars and Earth, accounting for the spin and speed of both objects, in hopes of getting back. And once he'd see something approaching in the far off distance, he would begin to make minute course corrections as necessary. With the planets orbiting the sun, he couldn't simply look for Earth in the distance and start flying straight at it, lest he be force to curve constantly to account for it approaching in its orbit around the sun.

Given that in this straight line flight he would run low on fuel somewhere around Earth, flying in a curve would definitely end with him stranded in space.

Emiya looked at the rear-view mirror and raised a hand, giving the red planet behind him a jaunty wave as he muttered, "Goodbye and fare thee well."

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard woke up.

Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes as she looked around blearily. For a moment, there was some confusion as she looked around, before she realized where she was. _Oh, right. I have my own quarters, now._

She got up, stretching and warming up as she downed a large glass of water. Stretching her neck, she began to prepare for the day.

Finally after getting the morning rituals out of the way, she glanced at the omnitool for the time. It was still half an hour before anything scheduled began, so she had plenty of time to relax. Just as she had observed in the party, there was a laxness to the regulations here. Certainly the officers in charge of them valued discipline and order, but most of the N-liners she saw were all quite casual and rambunctious in nature.

It seemed that strict order was for the rank and file, while at this level they were simply expected to behave and were given leeway proportionate to their ability. With competence and responsibility came freedom and leeway. Perhaps as much to reward and motivate them as to let them breathe and grow into their full potential.

She had a long day ahead of her, so she might as well get this done first thing in the morning.

Opening her omnitool, she brought out her contacts list and began to write an e-mail. She was sure Emiya had situated himself already and wouldn't mind her making contact. She wrote about the party, skimping on the details regarding her digressions and merely describing it overall, mentioning she met someone who seemed trustworthy there.

 _I want to reassure him, don't I?_ Or was she reassuring herself?

Shepard shook her head, reading it through once, only to wince at all the spelling errors she had made. Scowling, she corrected them and gave it a second read. Again, more seemed to pop out at her. It was like she began thinking with one sentence, jumping into another in the middle and finishing with a third.

When she read them out aloud, she felt like wincing every time. _Fine. This should be fine._

Shepard was tempted to simply use the speech to text function or to send a voicemail, but she knew that it would be a necessary skill in the future to be able to write by hand, so she toughed through it. She could almost hear Emiya chiding her with a raised eyebrow when she'd thought about doing it the easy way at first.

She pressed send and looked at the time. There was less than five minutes to wake up call; it was time. Getting her gear ready, she forgot all about it.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya had thought that as long as he would hit the target, it wouldn't be a problem to get to Earth.

That as long as he managed his fuel cells, it would all work out.

Actually, it wasn't _that_ simple.

He had thought it was, but soon enough as he was en route, he realized just how little he actually knew about space and traveling through it. Sure, on paper some 80 million kilometers of nothingness existed between Mars and Earth, which sounded manageable with a hovercraft using an eezo core. Starships had eezo cores and they could go at speeds faster than light. How different could they be?

A prolific science fiction writer of the 20th century, Robert A. Heinlein had once quipped that 'once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system', which Emiya had thought an accurate assessment. That the problem of escaping Earth's gravity well was the biggest obstacle to space travel, and once one was outside of it, it would be child's play to get anywhere since space did not have air resistance or gravity to hinder you. And since Mars had such a low a gravity, getting off world had been easy.

He thought he was halfway to the moon.

This sure showed him what he knew about space.

It was around the time he had traveled for half an hour that he realized that he _really_ wasn't getting anywhere like this. It wasn't that he wasn't moving or that he probably would not arrive around Earth as he had planned.

It was just that he would not be doing it anytime _soon_.

So after an hour of looking at Mars slowly shrinking behind him, he had realized that it would probably take days if not _weeks_ for him to arrive at the moon at this rate. That was about when Emiya had thrown up his hands and just decided to _do something_ about it. He wasn't about to _fly back_ , after all. That would have felt like giving up, which he refused to do now that he was actually 'in the air', so to say.

"Idiot. You haven't changed at all." He berated himself quietly.

So he figured it wasn't like he couldn't perform some quick engineering while on the move, right? Maybe tweak something or reinforce some part with magic to make it fly faster? The ship was pretty much flying by itself and him sitting there wouldn't change anything. Even turning everything off wouldn't affect his oxygen supply either, since it was all from his suit.

Emiya sighed, reaching for the glove compartment and looking for a manual he could use. No such luck.

"A hundred years ago you got all riled about a bar jump, now you're too stubborn to turn back when faced with being stuck in space for weeks without any supplies. Stupid, foolish, dimwitted, stubborn numbskull..."

Wracking his brains about what he knew about the shuttle, he palmed the helmet as he tried to rub the spot between his eyebrows. The first thing about eezo hovercraft to note which he knew, was that they all worked using pretty much two major functions.

One, the eezo core which lowered the mass of the vehicle to make it easier to move. Two, a method of propulsion which usually handled both the lift and the moving forward parts. There were other designs which apparently combined the two in one eezo core, but he hadn't seen anything about how exactly those worked.

And besides, this vehicle was clearly a relatively simple design. Certainly, it was a high-end luxury shuttle, something in the range of a Porsche or a Lamborghini in his time, perhaps? But he doubted there would be a place for it to have an engine design mostly seen in military starships.

Which meant that he _probably_ could do something to speed up his journey. So, he turned off all the power and instantly the shuttle slowed down as its mass increased.

Emiya ignored that as he began to work his magic instead.

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

A wireframe blueprint of the entire shuttle filled his mind as he focused on it. First he simply took in the whole, getting a feel for the design itself and where everything was located. Then he began to prod and touch at different parts with his extended magical energy to see what each part did and tried to build a working model of the entire shuttle in his mind's eye.

Finally, he exhaled slowly as he pulled his mind out from the shuttle. His breath misted on his visor, the cheap design not incorporating anything to prevent it. _Should have taken the Onyx armor, it was a lot better. I could have hotswapped the oxygen in it just fine..._

Emiya shook his head. Going back to Ares Station wasn't an option anymore, it was useless to be complaining about what he couldn't have. Instead, he focused on his findings.

He couldn't really do anything about the propulsion as it ran on a simple commercial fusion torch, which wasn't very receptive to careless tampering. It was a relatively high tech piece of equipment. Literally rocket science, as the already antiquated parlance went. Something of a side-effect of eezo-based hovercraft was that getting off world was pretty simple, actually.

Which showed here as well, as really the only thing he figured he could mess with, would be the eezo core. The part which made the shuttle lighter, and negated all the troubles of old with weight and sufficient thrust when it came to breaking out into low orbit.

It was also something which would be immensely useful. He wasn't sure that if he did boost the fusion torch thrusters that his power consumption wouldn't sky-rocket as well. It might get him forwards faster, but would it mess up his fuel consumption? What was the point of floating by Earth with no fuel and being unable to change course once the time came?

He also had no intention of trying of performing a landing from space without a ship of some kind. Even without having to worry about burning up in an atmosphere from entry, the thought of continuing to accelerate until he impacted with the moon was less than pleasant. Without the atmosphere he wouldn't burn up, but that also meant that there was no such thing as terminal velocity or air drag to slow him down. He could project a parachute for a safe landing on Earth, and had done so more than once to escape from incredible heights safely.

But on the moon none of that would work. It would be a very quick and rough landing and one he would not walk away from without wrecking his body completely and utterly. He ignored the thought that his Servant-self might manage it just fine, for now.

No, he had to increase his speed without affecting his fuel consumption too much. And luckily for him, he could do that, by improving the eezo core the shuttle used. After all, if he made the mass necessary to be moved smaller, then the velocity would rise proportionally, right?

If you took the kinetic energy propelling a bullet from a modern gun and put it into a car, the car would be moving a lot slower. Thus the opposite must be true as well. Besides, there was plenty of space there for more of the stuff, he noted as he had analyzed the eezo core in the engine. Well, not in the spot where the current core was held, but around it, if he moved some of the chamber walls around to create some space. It was a simple application of reinforcement for him, simply shaping metal to his will.

So if he projected some element zero, wrapping it around the existing core like an airtight shell, tripling the amount in the core, it _should_ make his shuttle fly faster. He looked back, noting that he could still see Mars just fine behind him as he drifted slowly through space.

Inhaling, he focused on analyzing the eezo core, just like he had three months ago back when he had first been shipped to the basic training camp.

He had to make certain that the _grooves_ in the two parts were in the same direction, as eezo behaved somewhat like permanent magnets in that sense. When a current flowed through eezo, it would create a field around itself— _much like an electromagnetic field, around a metal wire under similar circumstance_ —that lessened the mass of everything inside of it. If the current was reversed, the mass of everything inside would grow heavier.

Thus, if he had the two eezo pieces in opposite directions, one of two things could happen. The better alternative was that they countered each other out and the stronger one won. The _bad alternative_ to how it might work, was that it might generate a warp field.

Which would either rip him and the shuttle apart instantly, or it might just tickle him. Might. As in, Emiya did not have a 100% understanding of what he was doing here. He knew that the amount of eezo affected the effects more than the current that was passing through it, meaning that a bigger core was more powerful than a stronger current. That much he had read from when he had looked up the guns' manuals earlier. He really hadn't had cause to read up on eezo technology beyond guns, which he suddenly felt a little uneasy about. Still, that had been noted as a difficulty when it came to weapon's designs, so it had stuck with him. And it _should_ apply to a shuttle's eezo core just the same.

He tried to check if he could connect to the extranet to confirm, but he had already flown beyond Mars' buoy range. He had to base his solutions to only the things he knew, now. _It can't be helped, nothing new here. Let's do this._

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection._

Emiya focused, his mind calming instantly from centuries of practice. He was the foremost Faker to have ever existed, this much was child's play to him. The world fell away, his senses growing silent as he began to assert _his world_ on it.

The material was ancient; formed when stars went supernova. It had unusual properties aplenty and was highly prized for its applications in dozens of fields.

Yet for all that, he could still create the matter just as he could create most anything. He exhaled, his breath steaming hot this time.

Opening his eyes, he couldn't see anything. But that was fine, as he was _looking_ through his magical energy at this moment, through Structural Analysis. The projection was flawless, he noted with a smirk. He wouldn't settle for anything less. With this, the eezo core should have tripled in size.

He turned on the power again and attempted to add thrust, he was happy to note that it worked perfectly fine. The power consumption had increased a slight bit, but it should be fine. His speed increased much more rapidly and he felt quite confident in getting to the moon within a reasonable frame of time like this.

Except that Mars still loomed behind him, quite large and only slowly diminishing in size. _It works, so might as well do it properly._

So he turned everything off again—ignoring the shuttle slowing down again with the increase in mass—and filled the entire core with as much eezo as he could create.

He hesitated for a moment whether it was safe to turn on the engine, considering how he was absolutely pushing this to its limits. With a huff of amusement at hesitating at this point, he turned it on and applied the thrusters.

Before that, Emiya had never wondered what it would feel like to be a _actual_ speeding bullet. Now he didn't have to wonder, now he _knew_.

* * *

;

* * *

"Ensign Shepard."

She looked up, blinking at the pair of men who were walking up to her. Behind them came one of her new instructors. It had been a long day of nothing but theory and repetition. Apparently the foundation for the special forces lay not in merely hard training but a wide base of knowledge. Something, which she had been woefully lacking in. Luckily it seemed that few among her current peers was any better, as far as the relevant knowledge was concerned.

It was tough to listen in, trying to pay attention when so far she had happily zoned out before during any theory, back in basic.

"Yeah, that's me?" She asked, turning to face them.

"Lieutenant Kolkkonen, Alliance Intelligence, Internal affairs. This is my partner, Lieutenant Ashford. We would like to ask you a few questions, please come with us."

She blinked at that, understanding about half of what he had said. She turned to peer at the instructor who was standing behind them, calmly watching the situation.

"Sure, I guess."

They led her away, into an empty room and told her to take a seat. Sitting down opposite to her, setting themselves between her and the door, they began to tap away at their respective omnitools.

Looking up, the lieutenant who had introduced himself began to speak. "Ensign Shepard, please describe your relationship with serviceman Emiya to us."

She frowned, looking between the two, but as neither spoke a word and only continued to stare at her she considered what was happening. These two were _cops_ , she would have known that even without their announcing of that fact or the different authority they bore. Cops were cops; people she had never gotten along with.

"We enlisted at the same time and bunked next to each other." She said, simply. _Has he done something? Or did something happen to him?_

"Is that all?" The second cop asked, tilting his head as he stared at her down the length of his nose.

"Yes...?"

Neither said anything, but the one with the omnitool noted something down.

"When was the last time you were in contact with serviceman Emiya?"

"I uh, sent him a mail this morning." Shepard answered. The key point was to tell truths whenever you could, but to mix up the signals you gave off. Well, when you wanted to confuse them. She'd managed to get away from two arrests before, but that was different from this.

"And did he answer?" Kolkkonen asked, looking up from his omnitool without moving his head, peering at her so that the whites of his eyes were visible beneath his pupils.

"No. What's this about? What's happened to Emiya?" She asked, shooting back her own question before they could ask her anything. She looked at them; neither reacted in any fashion to her questions. She couldn't read anything off of them.

"Would you consent to showing us your mail inbox? Mind, your answer will not hinder us, but it will be noted in your record." The second man asked, tilting his head at her questioningly.

"I..." She frowned, before nodding her head. "Go ahead."

The second lieutenant raised his omnitool and tapped away, apparently capable of checking her mail without needing her assistance at all.

The man tapped away on his omnitool for several seconds, looking through various folders as he occasionally looked up to check on her. At one point, he frowned at the omnitool and looked at her intently for several seconds, but when she said nothing he returned to looking through her mail.

Shepard remained seated, arms crossed as she frowned at the two.

Finally, the lieutenant put away the omnitool and resumed in staring at her as he placed his hands on the table, fingers laced together.

"Today, at fourteen hundred local time, Ares Station reported that one of their personnel had gone missing during the night without a trace. Since then, serviceman Emiya has been AWOL."

Shepard blinked, uncomprehending as she looked at the man, turning to glance at the other man who was staring at her just as impassively.

"...Oh." She had no idea what to say to that.

After that, it all seemed a haze to her.

She hadn't been told anything else by them and they hadn't had any more pertinent questions, thus after telling her to call them if she found out anything new, they had let her go.

Shepard walked through the hallways, her steps echoing as she took one step after another. She felt adrift, lost. The day had gone past in a blur. She remembered nothing of its events. Not since the interview concluded. Nor really from before it.

She arrived at her quarters, sitting down heavily on her bunk.

Just this morning, it had seemed like a welcoming abode, yet now she saw through that and realized it was nothing more than an empty room. There was nothing for her here. Pulling up her omnitool, she pulled up the outbox.

The message was still there; marked as unread and unreceived. She stared at it for a long time, sitting there in the dark. Sighing she closed the outbox, staring at the interface.

It beeped at suddenly, lighting up to note that she had received a message. Sudden, irrational excitement bloomed in her as she hastened to open it, only to deflate as she noticed it was just a public notice.

She blinked at the header. It was a notice in change of staff, along with the reason for it. "Burnsfeldt is gone?"

Jumping up, she walked out of the room. That man should have still been staying on Earth; she could still try to ask for his help. Right now, she had nothing and it was killing her inside. This couldn't be unrelated. She could feel it in her gut; something was going on here.

And she had to find out what.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya looked out the window, noting the strange red tint everything was beginning to take. It wasn't very pronounced yet, but was definitely there.

"Redshift?" He asked, incredulous. _Holy... How fast am I going right now?_

Looking at the dashboard, he noted that the speedometer had long since capped out. For whatever reason, the speedometer in the shuttle was an analog, much like in a 20th century car. He felt a little bit of pity for the thing, actually.

He shook his head, getting rid of such thoughts. He had been sitting quietly again, doing nothing at all as he simply looked around. Behind him, he couldn't see Mars anymore, but he wasn't sure if that was from the distance he had traveled or from the weird color distortion he was experiencing. He had only remembered halfway later to shift his course to account for the new speeds he had reached, realizing with some horror that he had been on a course to completely miss Earth for a moment.

Here, Emiya had nothing but time to think and look back. Especially to that place on Mars, in the deepest hole in the ground.

"What the hell was that place?" He asked no one in particular as he remembered those solemn figures, like statues. He remembered that great spectral cloud of wrath that hung about them, weak and helpless, yet defiant and determined to make itself known even so.

Emiya closed his eyes, the insides of the dark skycar vanishing from his vision as he appeared in that world inside of himself. Swords dotted the landscape, great rusted cogs spun in the burning sky above. He looked down, seeing the pistol in the dirt. Half-buried, and stained with rust and blotches of dried red blood around the muzzle.

He crouched down, looming over the thing.

" _What_ are you?" But the gun remained silent.

Reaching down for it, he hesitated for a second. Swallowing, he grabbed it. Nothing happened; no booming voice, no overwhelming lingering malice, no alien sensations rippling through his mind.

It was just a gun.

He exhaled, closing his eyes and opening them again. He found himself back in the dark insides of the skycar. Outside, the moon shone a bright white, blinding against the darkness around it.

In his hand was the pistol. Emiya frowned. Bringing it _out_ was as easy as any other weapon inside of his reality marble.

"—Trace, _on_ " _—begin experiencing the history of its growth, reproducing the accumulated years,_

Extending his magical energy through his hand into the grip, he cautiously tried to sense out the _gun_. Why had he been able to replicate this weapon? Guns had always been something he could project, but never _replicate_. They had to be empty, normally.

The metal, wood and plastics of their construction were all entirely mundane and understandable, but the whole of the concept of a _gun_ never came to him like a sword, a lance or even a shield came. If he wanted to project a gun, he would have to do it piece by piece and assemble it himself. A much more expensive and time-consuming operation than nearly _any_ sword. Even shields and armor came more easily and with those he could even gleam at the _insides_ with enough time and effort.

Which was why he had come to prefer his bow for ranged combat. Nominally bows could be simplified enough to be made of two pieces; the bow and the string. He had gone beyond that and built the whole thing out of a single piece; _graphene_ , as usual.

But with this, he could only tell three things about this weapon in his hands; _first_ of which, was that as far as he could tell it was a tool meant for nothing but suicide.

Once perhaps it had been a weapon, a sidearm like any other. But that final use; whatever the emotions and resolutions those aliens had had in their last moment, the whole of what remained of that species coming together and dying with some strange purpose...

It had wiped away anything else in this gun.

It suffused the whole of it, permeating everything about it with that _purpose_. He could not understand it, either. It remained like mist to his hands. He tried to grasp it, finding shades and shapes in the nothingness, but it all escaped his grasp.

This weapon only existed for someone to point it at themselves, to end their life, for reasons he could not understand. Nothing more. Perhaps if he turned it on himself, he could gain a glimpse of that reasoning?

He shook his head.

 _Secondly_ , the thing that had allowed him to replicate it became obvious now. It was a gun; a pistol to be specific, even by whatever standards those aliens must have had in that ancient time. But it was more than that, too.

During his life, he had been no stranger to guns.

Pistols in particular had been something he had extensively researched and used due to their nature. When you wanted to appear dangerous without raising too many eyebrows, a small pistol on your hip did world's worth more than a large sword in your hands.

There was a dichotomy to guns, making them quite similar to swords in a sense.

They were functional and practical, often assembled in factories and lacking any and all personal touches by a craftsman for the individual weapon—a select few pieces aside. Yet, they were carried around as sidearms. They followed by your side, like a loyal retainer. Day in, day out. Quiet, but always there for you. As long as you knew and maintained your gun, it would serve you proportionately well.

Just like the swords of men that had come before, they could carry deep emotions and histories, absorbing everything they went through and compressing those events into something more. Just like a duelist's rapier; a samurai's katana; the gladius of the Roman legionnaires; blades passed down from chieftain to warrior; from king to knight; and many, many other examples of various men throughout time. They were as much symbols as weapons, and would gather the emotions, thoughts and concepts around them like lightning rods.

Thoughts and feelings lingered in guns, just as well. He knew this, even if he couldn't quite as well understand it.

The hundreds of hours spent practicing with them, the thousands of repetitions. Desperate struggles and easy victories, great achievements and horrible atrocities, all were ingrained into those tools. They were just as romanticized in men's minds as swords were, too.

As far as the _concept of creation_ and the _basic_ _structure_ went _,_ guns simply could not compare to older weapons in complexity or depth. But when it came to the _experiences of growth_ and the _accumulated years_ , they certainly did not lose out. The eras of the gun had seen conflicts on scales that had never been fought with spear or sword, after all.

Emiya would never admit it to anyone, but he had something of a fascination with guns as well. Then again he was fond of all arms, tools and devices, _really_.

He had considered such things about guns before, but had never gone too far with them. His capture and execution had come in the way during his life, and afterwards it had become a moot point. Guns generally did not perform terribly well against spiritual bodies, after all.

Moreover, they scaled _terribly_ in power.

Emiya exhaled, chasing away those thoughts as he tried pressing the button he knew was built into the grip. But nothing happened. He sighed, as the weapon had been configured for three fingers, it refused him. It was like the grip safety on 1911s or trigger-safety on Glock pistols, requiring a special kind of grip to even activate.

A grip he could not naturally replicate.

But he simply extended his magical energy and forced it to work for him, ignoring any such incompatibilities.

— _thuuummmm_

The orange, glowing blade appeared with a low thrum, extending from the grip forward along the length of the barrel. It was some sort of single-charge blade created out of something resembling the omnigel held within omnitools. It was held in place by some sort of mass effect field, which caused the entire blade to glow as it did.

 _I think I remember reading about these. Omniblades? They do not see much use, as the distances in conflicts have not shrunk since the first introduction of repeating firearms._ Emiya thought, observing the blade carefully.

He understood now; there was _one exception_ that did overcome that rule, but only partly. Gunblades. Combining a blade with a gun, so that the line blurred _just_ enough. They had been something of a curiosity, both to him and to their original users and creators, and were rarely anything more. But now he felt the need to bring _it_ out as well.

The first one he had ever seen and thought worthy of the title gunblade, beyond a mere novelty item.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

The 19th century gunblade appeared in his other hand instantly. For a moment, he felt silly holding the two gunblades in either hand, one archaic and old, the other futuristic and _older_ still.

Emiya exhaled, feeling a little bit warm.

Shaking his head, he looked at the one he had just pulled out from his reality marble; the weapon he had encountered during his lifetime.

It looked like a Bowie knife blade that had been seamlessly fused with a revolver, combining the 30cm long blade with the 12mm caliber revolver. He had seen it at an antiques auction right before the ' _action'_ had started, and had been absolutely fascinated by the thing. While getting his hands on the weapon hadn't been strictly necessary, he had still taken the time to take a closer look during the ensuing firefight. He had even shot it a few times, just to see that it actually _did_ work.

Of course, he had put it back afterwards. After having made sure that he hadn't broken anything or scuffed the polish. He had even fixed the springs without removing any of the patina.

Among the many craftsmen who sought to create gunblades, only a few did Emiya consider to be of true note, and among them one stood out. _Joseph-Célestin Dumonthier_. The man who had made the bowie-revolver that had caught his eye, originally.

A French gunsmith and inventor who worked in both France and Belgium, where he took out at least ten patents in the 19th century Europe for various firearms designs, including but not limited to a simpler revolver-knife gunblade in 1840 and his cane pistol in 1870.

He also created various smaller novelty pistols, combining often the features of a folding knife, corkscrew and a single-shot pistol into one compact design. _The french certainly had their priorities sorted out. Wine, dine, stab and shoot. Everything you would need for a proper evening party in one simple package._ Emiya thought with an amused smirk.

Most of Dumonthier's designs were percussion or pinfire designs, from an era when reloading was not as simple as simply pushing in a new cartridge. This had made the idea of combining a ranged weapon with limited ammunition with a melee weapon much more practical than in the eras of quick reloading. Not much, but just enough for people to accept such things.

His most famous weapons were probably the 1846 Norwegian Postførerverge gunblades, for the postal guards who required a self-defense weapon that suited their needs. Looking like a simple dagger with a small curving hilt, its quillons functioned as hammers for the twin barrels on either side of the blade. But his finest work were undoubtedly the knife-revolvers, which saw use in the Crimean War among various European officers. Unlike other craftsmen—who merely milled in the blade and fitted it into an opening in the barrel, or attached a firing mechanism into an existing blade—Dumonthier wanted his weapons to be one whole.

Not a gun welded to a knife, nor a knife milled to a gun. But a _gunblade_. Thus he created the weapon Emiya was holding now. _It's pretty warm in here,_ He noted as he exhaled.

It was one solid piece of shining steel, from blade tip to revolver grip. There were no seams or divide between the ' _revolver part_ ' or the ' _knife part_ ', merely the ' _gunblade_ '. Of course, the rotating barrel, the single/double action trigger mechanism and the hollow handle to house the spring were all distinct parts, as they had to be. But the frame itself did not separate between blade and gun. There was a balance. A harmony. Synergy between the two, that created something more than just a gun and a blade.

It was a true _gunblade_.

 _It's beautiful,_ Emiya shook his head as he a realized he had been daydreaming about weapons again; losing himself in details like this was no good. He felt a drop of sweat roll down his face as he looked at the gun.

But it _was_ a beautiful piece, with detailed engravings and with a rich history to it. The _concept of creation,_ the _basic structure,_ the _composition material,_ the _skill of its making,_ the _experience of its growth_ and the _accumulated years_... They were all _splendid_. From beginning to end, this had been created to be something special and it had been used in a way to match that.

Well, there were others as well, such as the German revolver-sword that had been used for hunting. But none of the others had been used in any notable fashion. _This_ _one_ had been through quite a bit in the hands of the European officer who had originally bought it, just prior to leaving for...

Emiya shook his head again. _Focus on these weapons._

To his mind the strange pistol he had acquired on Mars did not quite meet those conditions of being a proper gunblade; not strongly enough in physical design, at least. The blade could only be activated once per charge and it was fairly fragile. Additionally it was more of a separate piece, that hung onto the frame of the pistol through the mass effect fields than anything else.

Perhaps that meant those who had created it had believed in both functions equally, valuing the blade just as highly as the gun? He frowned. With kind of combat context had those aliens been preparing for and fighting in, to value close combat so highly? Even in the era of single-shot guns on Earth, the _concept of creation_ had not been strong enough to create many noteworthy gunblades. And wasn't that contradictory with how it should have been overwritten by the ending they had wrought for themselves? By the ' _legend_ ' of this alien noble phantasm?

 _Not unless the thing they sought to cut down from the beginning was the same as what they had shot in the end..._ Emiya thought, suddenly. But that made no sense. Why would they have suddenly become their own enemies?

He shook his head, this was getting him nowhere. He looked out into the emptiness of space around him, the dark reds and blackness helping him calm down. Was it the red coloration that made him feel so hot in here?

The _third_ and final thing weighed on his heart heaviest of all.

Among the cacophony of chaotic alien thoughts and emotions he had sensed, he could recognize reliably only one. With the alien mindsets of the weapons' original owners, he lacked the logos to understand their minds.

But even so, he could understand that one tiny fraction of what had been engraved into these suicide guns.

"' _Save us_ ', huh..." Emiya muttered, looking at the guns with a frown.

Was it his own rebirth in fire? The hells he had journeyed through, desperately seeking his place in the world? Or was it simply related to his current existence as a 'hero of justice'? Whatever it was, even across wholly different species and tens of thousands of years...

He would never fail to recognize a cry for salvation.

Emiya shook his head. They were long gone; he could do nothing for them, now. _'You could solve the mystery of their deaths and put those lingering grudges to rest'_ a voice inside of his whispered, but he squashed it ruthlessly as he exhaled hot air through his nose.

He had done his job and now it was time to go _back_.

* * *

;

* * *

"Shepard? What is the matter?" Anderson said, blinking as he had opened the door to his room.

"I..." Shepard hesitated. "Sir, I need your help."

"I was just about to leave..." He said, frowning as he looked back inside the room. He was already wearing his full uniform along with a packed suitcase. "But I supposed I can spare a few minutes. Come in."

Shepard let out a sigh of relief as she entered, closing the door behind her. The Staff Commander's quarters were quite a bit more impressive, if not in size then in décor at least.

"Well then, have a seat and tell me what is going on."

She sat down by a small leather chair, placed next to a round table and two other similar chairs. Anderson seated himself opposite to her, looking at her intently.

"It's about someone who I went to basic with. He's gone missing and it's got something to do with Burnsfeldt, I just know it."

Anderson blinked at her heated voice, before frowning. "Do you have any proof?"

"Well, no... But."

Anderson sighed. "Shepard. Assuming he is away without leave, that makes it an internal matter. You must understand, that I don't have any authority in an internal investigation. This is a matter where even trying to find out what is going on could get you—or even _me_ —into a lot of trouble."

Shepard hung her head, clenching her fist. She just needed to figure out what to say, she knew she could get this man's help with the right words.

"Besides, what reason would Lieutenant Commander Burnsfeldt have for doing something like that?" Anderson finished.

"He hates Emiya and..." She blinked as she realized she hadn't thought it through. Certainly, the man had been angry and had run off from the party, but did that mean anything? But he _was_ missing. "Burnsfeldt is missing, just like Emiya. There's got to be a connection there."

Anderson blinked. "Now, that might not necessarily mean anything, He is an active duty special forces operative, with a rather well known and valuable specialization. The Alliance has need of men like him, more than you know. That you haven't seen him might not mean anything."

"He never showed up to the lectures he was supposed to be having, and no one was informed about it. The other instructors had no idea where he is, either. After the party; after I called him an asshole, he just stormed off and no one's seen him since. I asked around." Shepard said, staring at Anderson. She _knew_ that something was going on.

"That still does not mean that he's connected to your friend's disappearance in any way." Anderson objected, sighing.

"Maybe, but Emiya told me to be careful about Burnsfeldt. We only met him once, and Emiya could tell that something was up with him, and when I called him an asshole, I said 'Emiya was right'. That was what really got to him, not just what I said." Shepard nodded to herself, almost feeling pieces falling in their place inside her head as she spoke out the words.

Anderson blinked. "Perhaps, but how does that relate to Burnsfeldt?"

"He hacked the Shanxi-exercise feed and watched over us the whole time. He's the best engineer within lightyears, right? A specialist in security systems. The two guys who were asking about Emiya said he'd ' _disappeared without a trace_ ' in the middle of the night. How could he do that? They should have cameras and locked entrances everywhere, right? It would take someone like Burnsfeldt to just make him disappear like that!"

"Two men? Investigators came to question you? In person?"

"Yeah, two of them. Lieutenant Kol-ki-nen or something weird like that. I forgot the other guy's name, he was so quiet the whole time. They looked through my mail and then told me to call them if I figured out something. But they didn't tell me anything, I don't trust them. I just..."

Anderson frowned, staying quiet as he went through what she had said in his head. He looked up, narrowing his eyes at her. "Are you sure your friend did not simply leave on his own?"

"No, he wouldn't do—well, he _might,_ if he thought it was important enough. But he wouldn't be able to get past the security systems, right?" Shepard answered and Anderson raised an eyebrow at her. "He's... _focused_. If he thinks something is worth doing, he'll do pretty much anything to get it done. But he..."

She suddenly turned thoughtful, going silent.

"Is there a possibility he might have gone on his own somewhere?" Anderson asked intently, realizing that she was hesitating now.

"It's... It's _possible_. But I don't know what it might mean."

Anderson leaned forward. "If I'm going to help you, you will have to trust me. Is this a... _volatile_ circumstance?"

Shepard blinked, not certain what that meant. "I... don't know. _Maybe?_ It's not something I'm sure about—I mean, it might just be wishful thinking on my part, but—I think he faked a medical condition to get out of being forced into N-school."

Anderson's eyebrows rose up at that as he leaned back. He opened his mouth, frowning and closing it again.

"That's... That's a little bit hard to believe. To be honest. For a variety of reasons. Do you have any proof of such?"

"Well... You remember that box breathing thing you mentioned? He was always doing something like that, before he did something _crazy_. He said it would help in calming down by controlling your heartbeat, or something. They said he was having panic attacks, or something? If you can calm it down, couldn't you also make it go wild?"

Anderson frowned. "Well, there is a certain connection through the Automatic Nervous System, but that's..." He paused, frowning. "Are you sure?"

"No. But..." She hesitated.

"But?"

"He seemed so calm. Just like back in the city. I woke up the night before, and he was lying on the floor. He was so sweaty, it looked like he was almost steaming. I thought he was dead for a second. Yet he stood up and looked like nothing was wrong, telling me he was ' _fine_ '. And I _believed_ him." She looked up at Anderson, then. "It just seems weird to me. I thought it might have been a dream, until the next day they took him out of the N-school list."

The Staff Commander frowned, before shaking his head. "I really shouldn't be getting involved here, but something about all of this does seem odd."

He stood up, grabbing his suitcase as he activated his omnitool.

"Flight Lieutenant Thompson, are you still with me?"

" _Yes sir, prepped for flight and ready to go. We are a little bit behind schedule, but I can still catch up._ "

"Contact the _Hastings_ and tell them I will be delayed for a few hours. Have the shuttle ready, I will be heading for Mars, shortly." Anderson said and turned to look at Shepard. "Are you coming with?"

She blinked, before nodding vigorously and getting up herself to follow him as he began to walk out.

" _Understood, Staff Commander. Preparing for lift off. The bird will be hot in five. Thompson out._ "

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya twirled his thumbs. He was already growing quite bored. He had looked at the gunblades for a while, but already he had nothing more to do with them so he had simply set them aside.

Then he finally remembered that he had something in the back which might be interesting to work with. He hadn't had a chance to open up a rifle or omnitool through his own tools and methods, after all.

Problem was, that the two most valuable omnitools were on his wrist right now. He had put them on when he had killed them, after all. To get at them, he would need to _open_ his suit which was a monumentally bad idea, considering that he knew that all the oxygen inside the shuttle would have already dissipated into the void.

But that was fine. He should start with something easier and less valuable for his first experiments, really.

Taking one of the grunt's omnitools he considered it for a moment. He closed his eyes, extending his senses as he ran the already familiar set up as before.

The hammer to the back of his head was cocked.

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

He winced as the hammer dropped, yet nothing happened. Like a dry-fire with a gun or a bow, with the magical energy having nowhere to go it bounced back at him and caused some damage. A minor headache, nothing more. He had used as little as he thought possible for this attempt, just for this reason.

"So I can't dive in if there's no power." Emiya noted, looking at the simple bracelet. The power source had been removed; there was no way for it to work right now since it simply could not work without a constant supply of electricity. _I wonder what would happen if I were inside when it ran out of power?_ He shook his head at that morbid thought and inhaled deeply.

There were risks to turning it back on.

Who knew what kind of surveillance programs and bugs were in there. It might even explode the moment he connected the power supply back in, some hidden timer starting inside the moment the user died by his hands. Well, that last one was unlikely to happen, but it was still a possibility.

He sighed, accepting that he would have to waste some magical energy if he wanted to play it safe. Taking the power source and placing it in his hands next to the omnitool, he closed his eyes.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

Opening his eyes, he looked at the heavy metal cube now in his palm. And by heavy, he meant _heavy._ Fifteen centimeters of hardened steel and lead on each side, it would contain most any explosion he could foresee occurring. Also, it would hopefully jam any signals, allowing him to deal with the omnitool in an isolated state. Then again, considering _where_ he was right now, that wasn't exactly a worry.

He almost wished he had access to the extranet, since there really wasn't much to do here.

The cube fell into his lap and he barely had time to pull out his hand from beneath it before it fell down. It settled somewhat painfully on his legs.

"Oww." He muttered, frowning. With some effort, he lifted it onto the passenger seat next to him, with the omnitool he had chose sealed inside of it along with the power cell. Perhaps performing these kinds of experiments in a skycar wasn't the best idea, but it wasn't like he had anything better to do, either.

Closing his eyes, he stepped out of his body. For a moment there was a worry that the shuttle might zoom into the distance, leaving him floating and stranded in the void of space. But luckily he seemed to be tethered to the shuttle or his body for now, keeping him from being left behind.

Emiya frowned, considering something for a moment. Did mass effect fields affect spiritual bodies? He seemed affected by gravity, after all. Reaching out, he almost stuck a hand outside of the shuttle. _Maybe not the best idea._ He projected a simple iron sword and extended it outside while still spiritualized. It didn't feel like anything happened to it; it did not experience any drag like he half had expected.

He pulled it back in and looked at it. It looked just _fine_. Shrugging, he dismissed it and inhaled to calm himself. He extended a hand _out_ through the shuttle and the mass effect field. He felt nothing unusual again.

Bringing back in the hand, he looked at it. Nothing. He moved to sit in the back, on the empty seats and materialized to take a closer look at his hand. Nothing seemed out of place. Shrugging, he spiritualized again and stood _up_.

Emiya's head poked through the field and he looked around. Everything outside still appeared roughly the same, but looking down at the shuttle he blinked. The hulls seemed to be exuding a blue smoke-like haze, or aura, as it continued to move.

He shrugged and sat back inside and moved to the front. _Enough horsing about_. Turning around so that he was facing his body, half-inside the windscreen and dashboard of the skycar, he looked at the metal cube.

Extending his hands inside it, he willed it to be able to touch the physical. He placed the power source back in and then turned the omnitool on. He closed his eyes and again—

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

The metaphysical gun went off successfully this time. The hole in his head tore through, sucking everything with it as his world went black again. Lightning and frost rippled in turn, fire and wind tore at him as his senses went mad. It was nothing new; the deluge of chaotic sensory information had been there every time so far.

And again, as if being thrown into the deep dark depths of some arctic ocean, he opened his eyes to find himself in that strange world.

Darkness, never ending. Blue grids, archaic even for someone from his age. _I still don't understand much of this._ He sighed, pulling up the mental image he had of the omnitool bracelet in his mind's eye.

A great ring appeared. Extending from horizon to horizon; it went over the vault of heaven like a cold, metallic rainbow, burrowing deep beyond the blue grid the represented a walkable plane in this place. He looked up and he looked down, noting that he was in the exact center of this massive ring now.

Emiya sighed. He hadn't expected something like this, but there had been a slight part of him that thought of himself as some small creature inside of the circuitry, to be interacting with the computers like this. That the ring must have been absolutely huge in comparison to himself, was something of an obvious conclusion from such a world-view.

"Whatever, it's fine."

He began to focus on his senses again, pulling out everything he could detect and putting it in a place that made sense in this world. Focusing, he began to chart out everything that was actively going on in the omnitool. He found messages, files, programs and applications, all doing their own thing. He eyed through them, but dismissed most and inconsequential.

With a frown, he took everything he thought might be useful later and compressed it into a ' _ball'_ , putting it somewhere where nothing could touch it. Then, he tore out everything that seemed like it was trying to connect to something else. If he didn't know what the program was trying to do, he _lobotomized_ it entirely and moved on.

Emiya had chosen an omnitool he perceived as less valuable specifically so that he could be as rough as he wanted to. If he fried the whole thing, that was completely fine.

He had more of them in the back, after all.

* * *

;

* * *

"Let me handle the talking. Technically, you shouldn't even be here." Anderson said, looking over at Shepard. She nodded, understanding that he was giving her a lot of leeway as it was.

" _Landing at Ares Station, touchdown in twenty seconds, sir._ "

"Understood, we will be there for some time, so no need to keep the engines running, flight lieutenant."

" _In that case, I'll go for a fuel run by the depot after landing, sir._ "

"Understood." Anderson responded, before turning to Shepard. "Time to seal up."

She nodded and they put on their hardsuit helmets. Shepard's unmarked while Anderson's had his stations of rank along with the N7 mark proudly emblazoned on his chest on the hard plate. It was the only specialization mark which one was allowed to wear, though for no real practical reason. Mostly it was a propaganda measure; to parade around humanity's heroes wherever they went. No one cared about the G or M sevens, after all.

Or that was the feeling she had gotten from all the cameras that had been focusing on Anderson at the party.

She blinked, looking up as the shuttle began to depressurize. Leaving Earth, they had had oxygen inside in the cabin. But as they began to land, suddenly the air was being sucked out, to minimize oxygen waste once they opened the shuttle doors.

The shuttle lurched a little as they landed, no more than the feeling of someone walking past you, really. The warning light went red, signifying a pressure drop as the last announcement and then the shuttle door opened. Shepard and Anderson jumped out and began to walk away as the shuttle flew off to go around to the other side.

Ahead of them, someone was coming out to greet them. Half-running, half-walking to turn around to look at the shuttle flying overhead, it was obvious their visit was both unexpected and unannounced.

As the figure approached them, he seemed to spot Anderson's rank and N7 insignia. He froze for an entire second before throwing a sloppy, if quick, salute at them.

 _We would have been made to run laps for that, a week back,_ Shepard thought with a blink as she settled behind Anderson's right side. She would pretend to be his aide, saying nothing and hoping no one questioned her presence.

"At ease, lieutenant." Anderson said, saluting—much more crisply and with better form, Shepard couldn't help but note—as he stared at the men.

"Sir, Lieutenant Patterson of Ares Station, chief engineer of the western wing. We weren't expecting someone to be arriving—there's been something of a chaos today, I'm terribly sorry, if we had known to expect an your arrival—" The lieutenant began to babble, obviously nervous at the N7's appearance.

"No need to be worried, Patterson. I'm not here for any heads, today. I heard one of your men went missing last night. Is there anything you can tell me about that?" Anderson spoke, calming down the lieutenant.

"You mean the new arrival? No, I— I'd just met him, he arrived yesterday and I went out to meet him when he got shipped in. Quiet kid, seemed sharp and with good manners. Did his first day of work and then the this morning he was just _gone_. Hours later, while the MPs were looking for him outside and in Lowell City, the internal affairs guys show up and take over everything!"

"Just gone? What do you mean?" Shepard asked and suddenly the lieutenant looked down at her, uncertain how to react to her. She lacked any obvious rank insignia or symbols. She hadn't even acquired anything to show her ensign status, either. Yet she was wearing the Navy colors in the Navy standard hardsuit. If he didn't know better, he might have thought her a fresh recruit.

But she was walking next to a Staff Commander; a real N7! Ignoring the oddities, Patterson answered.

"Well, I just heard the military police guys talking about it. Just a bit. Apparently nothing was caught on camera and the security logs and VI can't explain it at all." Patterson explained, glancing at Anderson as he began to speak, to see if he should have ignored her. Noticing that Anderson did not interrupt him, he continued. "They just found his bed empty, with his omnitool gone. Nothing else. Not even a hardsuit. Not a one is missing; he shouldn't have been able to leave. Just gone, like smoke in the wind."

Shepard looked up at Anderson, giving him a pointed look through the small, slightly tinted visor.

"Hmm. It does seem like there is something afoot here. Did the internal affairs already sweep the place? Have they closed off anything?" Anderson asked.

Patterson paused, hesitating. "I really wouldn't know, sir. But they left hours ago and everything seems to be business as normal again. Even if everyone is left confused and shaken by what's happened."

Anderson nodded. "Well, then. Takes us in and let me speak to the highest ranking officer on station."

"Ah, yes sir. That would be Lieutenant Commander Dostov, right this way, sir."

They moved to follow and it finally struck her that they were on another planet. The realization came out of nowhere and she had to stop and look around, making a full turn to take it all in.

It looked...

It didn't look like much, actually. It just looked like a dusty landscape. Even Brazil had been more exotic, really. It didn't even look as red as it had in the night sky, the one time she had seen it.

She frowned.

This was where Emiya had wanted to go? She felt somehow ashamed of her disappointment. As if she was betraying him somehow in thinking that of this place. As if she should have been awed by the place he had wanted to go to. _Or had he felt the same way? Is that why he left?_

For a second, hope bloomed in her chest and she blinked. But if that was the case, didn't that mean that he had run away because what he had wanted wasn't what he had gotten? She didn't like that thought. Emiya was... Emiya was someone who would have toughed it through. No, he would have blown away everyone and then gone on to do whatever he wanted without worrying about what anyone else thought about him.

Still, this planet wasn't what she had expected.

"Shepard?" Anderson turned around, calling to her through the comms. It took her a moment to realize that she couldn't hear anything outside of her helmet. The comms made the direction of the sound around her seem natural, as she could point out that Anderson was in a certain direction when he spoke. But aside from that she couldn't hear anything.

Just her own breathing inside of her helmet. Her heart was beating in her chest and suddenly it felt tight, as the understanding of the strange place she was in settled into her consciousness. She felt overwhelmed for a moment, but she inhaled slowly and controlled her breathing as she moved to follow Anderson.

"Yes, sir?" She asked as she caught up.

Anderson looked at her for a second, before nodding and continuing to follow after the lieutenant.

They arrived at a ramp and walked in through a door, leaving Shepard confused as to whether they would be wearing their hardsuits inside as well, until suddenly the room began to pressurize. Controlling herself, she carefully kept from revealing her surprise at everything and anything around them, as they continued to move through the facility.

Arriving at a relatively fancy looking office, lieutenant Patterson knocked on a door before peeking inside and whispering something to whoever was there. He then stepped to the side and saluted Anderson once again.

"By your leave, sir?"

Anderson nodded, letting the lieutenant walk away as he turned to the door and walked through. He gave one last look to Shepard, reminding her to keep quiet with his eyes as they entered.

Inside a man stood by a desk, saluting Anderson somewhat more respectably. Anderson saluted him back and they both relaxed.

"Staff Commander. It's a privilege to make your acquaintance. What brings you to my little corner on this ball of dust?" The Lieutenant Commander, a portly man who seemed to spend more time behind a desk than on his feet, said. Perhaps it was the weaker gravity, but he seemed somehow less solid than the people of similar proportions she had seen on Earth.

However, unlike Patterson at least he was clean shaven and had regulation haircut. A noticeable irregularity on the station, as most seemed to have little care for their appearance. It seemed more like a civilian facility to her, after basic and the special forces so far.

"We were just in the area. My protege here, Ensign Shepard, had a fellow she knew in basic. He came here and we figured we could drop by for a visit. I hope we aren't a bother." Anderson explained.

"Mhm." The Lieutenant Commander nodded. "And unfortunately, he seems to be missing at the moment, no?"

"Indeed." Anderson said, sighing.

"Well, I really can't tell you much. The Alliance Intelligence Agency came by, two officers from the internal affairs department. They have taken away all of the records and evidence of that case, and I really cannot be divulging anything regarding an active case until an terms of internal disclosure is sent back to me. Apologies, for coming all the way, but I really cannot help you."

"Of course. We have no intention of prying, or shoving our noses where they do not belong. I apologize for the bother, we shall be leaving now." Anderson said, bowing slightly as an apologetic gesture.

Shepard reacted at that, but kept her face under control as she kept silent.

"Oh, by the way..." Just as they turned to leave the office, the Lieutenant Commander turned to look at them as if he had forgotten something. "If you happen to drop by Lowell City, do watch out for the emergency vehicles there. Terrible business, that fire."

Anderson blinked, before nodding. "Thank you, we shall keep it in mind."

They left, walking back the way they had come. Shepard had tried to memorize the layout of the place, but had quickly lost herself in the labyrinthine halls of Ares Station.

"Is it a dead end?" Shepard asked, finally unable to contain herself any longer.

"They've been told to shut up, I won't pry any further here. But if Alliance Intelligence is involved, then it's sure to be ugly. He gave us a lead, however. Probably not something officially related, but something his gut is telling him and he can share without reprisal."

"The fire?" Shepard asked and Anderson nodded. She considered it, not quite seeing the connection, but seeing no other leads accepted his judgment on the matter. "What's so bad about the Alliance Intelligence?"

Anderson looked down at her, considering what to say. He looked away. "Ask me in two years. Until then, pretend you'd never heard about it."

She blinked at the curt answer, as he simply continued walking. Frowning, but not pressing the point, she moved to follow him.

"Flight lieutenant, how long until we are ready to leave?" Anderson spoke, raising his comm.

It took several seconds until an answer came back as they walked. " _Five minutes, sir. Mostly done. Where do you wish to go next?_ "

"We'll head to Lowell City and take a look around. Have you heard anything on the common comms?"

" _Actually, there seems to be something going on by an apartment building downtown. Some kind of fire, or something, sir._ "

"A fire? In this atmosphere? I see. Without a dedicated fire department, it would pose a problem for the city. Plot a course there once you're in the air, we will be heading for the airlock." Anderson said, closing the comm as he frowned in thought.

"They don't have fire departments here?" Shepard asked, as that had stood out to her.

"Hmm? Yes. With the low atmosphere, fire does not really spread all too much. Even inside houses, the construction usually allows for the oxygen to be simply removed by opening an airlock to the outside. Usually it is done slowly enough to avoid sudden depressurization, but it can't always be avoided. I'd expected perhaps an office fire, or an engine meltdown. But an entire building? For a fire to be a problem would mean that it is some form of exothermic reduction-oxidation reaction, which implies military-grade incendiaries..." Anderson mused out loud as he walked.

Shepard blinked in complete confusion at the last few sentences as he had spoke, trying to appear as if she understood it all. Noticing this, Anderson laughed.

"Don't worry. You'll be receiving a general education somewhere along the way, I'm sure. Chemistry might seem like a bore, but once you're in the field and learn how to make your own explosives, it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting." He said, laughing good-naturedly at her expression.

"If you say so..." She muttered, not bothering to note that she had been coasting along even in basic when it came to theory.

"Hahah. Well, I might as well explain it in detail. For something to burn, it will require three things. First, sufficient heat. Secondly, enough oxygen to maintain the reaction. Thirdly, a fuel source to consume. Remove any one of these three things and a fire can't burn."

Shepard blinked, understanding it a little. "Oh, so throwing water on a fire will cool it down, cover it from the air and make the material wet so it won't burn?"

"Close, but not quite. The fuel itself generally won't be affected by becoming wet; that's simply affecting the first two. So don't go thinking that water will put out every fire." Anderson corrected her and she scowled. " In fact, throwing water on a burning liquid is generally a terrible idea. Unless, you of course want a huge fire, which _changes_ things." He said, with a sudden and distant look in his eyes. He shook his head, looking at her again. "But you're certainly clever. You'll do fine as long as you can keep your eyes open and your nose in the books."

"I guess..." She muttered not entirely sharing his enthusiasm, as they arrived back at the airlock. Anderson seemed to find her reluctance quite amusing, as he smiled while they put on their helmets and sealed their hardsuits again.

Walking out, they arrived by the dust-covered landing port just as the shuttle began to lift off on the other side of the facility. They watched it glide over and touch ground, they both jumped in and settled down for the ride.

* * *

;

* * *

"—Trace, _off"—all processes completed,_

Emiya sighed as he returned to the shuttle's inside again, throwing back his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He wasn't sure if he was capable of getting a headache, but it sure felt like he was about to have one soon.

He had thought he could simply rip out everything he did not want and still have a functional omnitool, but apparently that was not the case. Or rather, no way in hell would it be that simple. He hadn't ever really dabbled in programming, but his friend had. And often times he would rant and rave about how nothing he ever made would work like he wanted it to. How removing one thing affected twenty others, and re-implementing it would introduce thirty new errors.

Emiya had used simply tell him that as long as he put in effort and carefully went through his creation, these kinds of things would not happen. The friend had never taken that lying down, shouting that unless one actually wrote code, they would never know what it was like. How naive Emiya had been, scoffing at that back then.

"Or is this perhaps karma?" He laughed lightly.

He shook his head, removing the power source from the omnitool and then let himself fall back into the body. He wondered what had happened to that man, after his execution. Hopefully he went on to live a good life afterwards, but Emiya doubted it. That guy was the type to always get into trouble he couldn't get out of himself.

Emiya shook his head, noting how hot it really was. _This is clearly strange._ "Ah, whatever. I'm jumping in the pool at the deep end. I should first learn how to swim in the shallow, as it were."

He blinked, noticing that the faux-leather upholstery seemed to be bubbling at one spot. He raised an eyebrow, reaching for the Dumonthier gunblade and using the knife to poke at it. It felt like melted plastic.

He frowned, then. _Oh, shit!_

Emiya suddenly realized something he had entirely forgotten about starships. Heat management! In a void like this, heat could only effectively transfer through the solid objects it was in contact with, meaning rather than cooling with the surrounding air—regardless of how thin it was on Mars—it was all now being contained in the shuttle.

 _That's bad. That's real bad. The environment suit is rated for extreme colds, as Mars is rarely warm. There's no telling how long the suit can last in extreme heat!_ Emiya realized with growing panic.

It wasn't just the engine, but also all the circuitry creating a little bit of heat, all which added up to this. It wasn't radiating at a quick enough rate, thus it was all building up inside the shuttle.

 _Shit, shit! What do I, fuck it!_ Emiya focused as he extended his magical energy into the shuttle. He closed his eyes and found the point generating the most heat and spoke the words—

"—Trace, _on!"—begin projection, hypothesizing the basic structure—altering,_

The sword appeared instantly inside the small space where it should not have fit. Which was why he had twisted and bent it so that it squeezed just within the engine. Jumping out of his body, he reached into the engine as a spirit and wrapped his fingers around the hilt and began to push magical energy into this nameless sword he had plundered from a certain King of Heroes.

Immediately, ice began to appear. Only a little, as he did not wish to rapidly cool down the metal, which might cause damage. Instead, he only created enough ice that it began to form and melt into water. Where the water was coming from, Emiya had no idea and he didn't _really_ care as he kept slowly pushing the ice outwards to all the ice to melt and absorb the heat as it turned to vapor and disappeared.

He exhaled, sitting back into his body and noting that it was much cooler again. "Holy... That was..."

Emiya didn't even know what to say. He really was out of his league. _The next time, get the damn manual before you need it, idiot!_ He leaned back, raising a hand to his visor and pressing his palms against where his forehead was.

He reviewed what had happened and then chided himself for losing his cool like that as he calmed down. Projecting a noble phantasm was a little bit overkill. It wasn't _that_ expensive, but he could have projected something cheaper. Like a sword just made out of ice; it would have been pretty darn cheap in comparison.

Funny thing was, he couldn't project liquids. But making a sword out of ice and letting it melt was apparently completely _fine_!

Emiya shook his head, dismissing the noble phantasm in the core of the engine and replacing it with a simple ice sword instead as he leaned back and just breathed. _I really don't know what I'm doing here..._

Exhaling, he put his hand on the dashboard and began to use Structural Analysis on everything to make sure nothing had been melted or broken. Just to be sure, he reinforced the metal chassis a little, which would allow it to resist heat a bit better and made it tougher in case something unexpected happened again.

Continuing to regularly project ice swords into the engine and letting them melt and vaporize and then be ejected to vent heat, Emiya went through the systems one by one.

Everything seemed to be fine, so it had just been a close call.

He also noted that the eezo he created seemed to erode in use. Not noticeably, but still enough that it would eventually all disappear. He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he simply continued to keep an eye on the slowly disappearing core. At this rate, it would still last him over a week, but the fact that he couldn't explain where it was going or why it was disappearing as it did troubled him.

But of course, there was _more._

Emiya suddenly went _very still_. After all, he had just seen a small arc of lightning across the chassis of the shuttle. That couldn't be anything good.

And suddenly he had remembered that FTL ships had a limitation to their operation times, in the form of static build up forming in the eezo core. Which, if left to build up until saturation, _would kill everyone inside of the ship_. Realizing that he had not accounted for that at all, _either_ , Emiya suddenly felt very hesitant to so much as blink, lest he electrocute himself to death.

Normally the shuttle was meant to fly only inside Mars and at very low velocities, thus the static build up would be minimal. But it was still there, and could have theoretically built up just as it had now, thus there was a grounding rod in the hull near one of the wheel-like protrusions on the bottom of the shuttle, which would let excess static build up dissipate upon landing.

But he had nowhere to land right now. And there was nothing around him that would let him get rid off the excess static build up. _Which means... I have to project something again. But what?_

During his life, he had traveled extensively to collect swords once he had realized the true scope and nature of his power. Antique shows and auctions, museums and private collections alike had been toured, as he ravenously replicated everything he could find. And once he had gone to southern Norway, as he had heard about the _Sverd i Fjell_ there.

They were three swords thrust into a cliff side by side as a monument for a historic battle that happened over a thousand years prior, made completely out of bronze. These _Swords in Stone_ weren't really any good as weapons, as their points of balance were rather poor for a variety of reasons. Based on migration period swords, which used to be wielded with their signature round center-grip shields, even the real swords of that design were rather 'top heavy'. The tapering really was awful on them, and it didn't help that the entire hilt was a part of the whole piece, rather than an actual, _functional_ hilt. Though admittedly, they were just monuments planted into stone. Thus their point of balance was intentionally towards the tip, that was thrust into the ground, since no one wanted them to topple over and fall on someone.

Then again, that made them more like arrows and made them easier to make fly with the _tip_ first. Normal swords had a tendency to want to go _pommel_ first. Also, they weren't sharp so their usefulness was questionable. Oh, and they were 10 meters tall and wider around than he could wrap his arms. Which _complicated_ things when it came to trying to use them in a fight.

He had on occasion tried to magically chuck them at people, but it never really felt like it worked very well, so he had mostly forgotten about them. Until now, that is.

They were huge. Which was good. That would let them store a lot of static charge, almost like the ground on a planet. They were bronze. Which wasn't very conductive, compared to copper or even steel. Which was _even better_ , since he didn't want to short circuit the entire thing by letting too much static escape too quickly, lest something start to burn or melt. Slowly venting out the excess static was good. It was really good. He had to go through three giant swords until he felt safe to move again inside the shuttle.

"Am I going to have to do this the whole way to Earth?" He wondered and realized that, yes, he really would.

But luckily, the trip wasn't that long anymore, since his modifications had worked just as intended. There were merely some bugs in implementation, still, that was all.

He could already see Earth in the distance.

After an hour since he had left Mars, he could start accessing Earth's extranet, which let him read up on some of the starship engine literature, which made him almost want to go back in time to slap his younger self who had thought that _shuttles_ and _skycars_ were the same damn thing.

 _Shuttles_ could fly around on planets and even make the distance between planets. _Skycars_ definitely could not. They weren't even sealed for space travel properly. Hell, this model—while quite beefy for what it was—couldn't even get out of Earth's atmosphere on its own. That he had thought to perform interplanetary travel with it was...

"Sheesh. _Idiot_."

But still, he _had_ made it all the way to the moon like this. There it was, right outside. He almost felt like he could just reach out and touch it, as he spun around it in orbit.

He tried really hard not to think about the six electrically charged giant bronze swords floating behind in his trail in space right now. He really did. Surely it was safe, space was huge, after all? He didn't want to just dismiss the swords, as he wasn't sure what that would do to the electrons stored up. Would they arc out as a massive lightning bolt? He wasn't sure.

Emiya looked away from the window, where he was in orbit around Luna, glancing down at the fuel gauge. He would not have enough energy at this rate to make a landing and then take off again. The gravity wasn't much, but it was enough that it would take the last of it, if he tried. Yet, did it matter?

Wasn't it fine as long as he just got to the moon? Why was he holding something in reserve, even now?

"Mission accomplished. Good job, me." He spoke to himself dryly as he slumped. Why hadn't Archimedes contacted him? Or the Moon Cell? He should have already been within the immediate range of passive scans.

A beep on the console got his attention, suddenly. Someone was hailing him. But he realized it wasn't the Moon Cell or Archimedes near instantly. With an annoyed frown, he pressed the button to allow communication.

" _Suave-450-CRB, this is Armstrong control, come in."_

"This is... Suave-450-CRB." Emiya answered, hesitating for a moment with the name. He hadn't actually checked the skycar's register, but he knew that it was a _Suave_ model.

Which was a bloody low-atmo speedster; not meant to climb even climb into the stratosphere on Earth. Yet, he'd flown it between two damned planets, stubborn fool that he was.

" _Are you experiencing any technical difficulties at this time? You are in orbit around Luna and have not engaged engines in 14 minutes and 30 seconds according to our sensors. We have a tow-ship ready, if you are in any need of assistance._ "

"No, just... enjoying the view. Everything is fine up here." Emiya huffed, looking at the dashboard and imagining what they must think of him.

Some madman who had flown in from Mars on a short-range skycar? It was probably like being a harbormaster and one day finding someone coming in with a rowboat, and when they jumped on dry land, they hand you over a passport from the country across the ocean. They must have thought he had been flying for days or weeks to get here.

They had simply been worried about him, then. No need for him to be snappish.

" _...Understood. Your vehicle is licensed to operate inside Mars airspace only; should you wish to make a landing on Luna, please prepare appropriate paperwork before making an approach. Do you understand?_ "

"Yes."

" _Very well. A notification has been added to your registry; it may be challenged in any Systems Alliance courthouse, within the following 20 standard Earth cycles. After that, it will be added as a permanent mark on your record. Have a good day, Armstrong Control out._ "

The line went dead.

Emiya huffed in amusement. Had he just received the interplanetary equivalent of a parking ticket? He snorted at that, shaking his head. _The more things change... I probably should just dismiss those swords, or they might fine me for public littering, too. Without anything to act as a conductor, the electrons shouldn't be able to do anything harmful. Probably._

A simple effort of will and he felt the swords in space disappearing. Nothing happened. Then again, they were all thousands and thousands of kilometers away, so it was all probably fine.

 _Probably_.

He considered his situation.

Performing every check up on himself that he could think of right now, he couldn't find anything wrong with himself. Neither from his time on Mars nor from the period in transit. No strange hallucinations or sensations. He tested his memory and coordination as much as the skycar's internal space allowed, finding nothing wrong with himself.

Then again, it shouldn't matter much at this point.

He had been away without leave from Ares Station for long enough for that to become a problem. Not only was he away without leave, but he had already evaded their probable attempts to find him for long enough to raise some eyebrows. Moreover, he had killed and burned the body of an Alliance officer, which may or may not have spread out already. The sword he had used would burn down a house, but he wouldn't bet on it cremating the corpses thoroughly enough to hide all the evidence. Especially from a modern day forensic team.

There was no place for him to return to in the Navy, now. Outside of a military jail cell, at least.

Then again, he had only joined because he had wanted to get to Mars. Considering how _easy_ it turned out to be to cross the distance, as long as he had a high-end luxury skycar or shuttle and a full tank, he was beginning to feel like all of that had been a massive waste of tim—

_No._

He could not think that. The time he had spent with _her_ had been worth it all. That much, he could declare without hesitation. But it was over, now.

Wasn't it?

He looked up, staring at the moon just outside. He was still in slow orbit around it.

"Archimedes hasn't contacted me at all. Does that mean he expects me to make it back on my own entirely?" Emiya frowned. Even setting foot on the surface of the moon wouldn't do much, since the actual photonic crystal structure was hidden deep within.

At this distance, something _should have_ already happened. He sighed, dismissing the Dumonthier knife-revolver and the strange alien gun which had been on the passenger seat the whole time since he'd put them aside.

Emiya looked out, noting the blue orb in the far distance. Shining so bright and beautiful. It looked somehow different from space, yet he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It all seemed so distant and small from here. _I died there_ _once,_ He thought suddenly.

Or had he? He had ignored that question for months now. Ignored the nagging feeling for months as he did not want to waver from the mission. Yet here on the cusp of his return when all had been accomplished, he could deny it no longer.

He needed to know.

The dashboard computer functioned just like an omnitool, allowing him to access the extranet. Typing in his own name, the date of the last sunrise he had seen as a living man and the name of the court.

The results came back nearly instantly, staring back at him.

"So that's how it was."

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard looked around, wondering what to think of this as a ride. She would probably be seeing insides of shuttle's like this many times again in the future.

The military model of shuttle lacked any windows, having thicker armor to maintain hull integrity, even though standard protocol was to always wear hardsuits while in transit through low-atmo planets. Pumping oxygen in and then depressurizing every time the shuttle doors had to be opened was a waste, after all.

The trip was short and they jumped out without actually landing, as the shuttle pilot informed them that he would be maintaining his position above them, due to not finding any good spots to land nearby. The shuttle was quite large, after all. Most of the other vehicles around here seemed much smaller in comparison, she noted.

The sleek models in front of houses and parked on the ground seemed more like sleek cars to her, than like the shuttles in the military she had seen so far. In fact, there were more than one wheeled vehicle around as well, as they walked through the uniformed people who had gathered around the house up ahead.

As she saw it, she gasped.

She had never before seen a _melting_ house. The bottom walls looked like they had been warped first and then begun to bulge outwards, with the paint and color all turning black from the heat. Then, the entire structure had begun to tilt to one side. Finally, it had seemed to collapse in on itself somewhat by the roof. She swallowed, looking at the strange sight, not sure what to think of it.

"Yeah... This has to be the work of high-yield self-fueling incendiaries." Anderson said, his voice tight. He inhaled sharply, as if expecting being able to smell the scent of burned material in the air.

She looked around, noticing the police vehicles and what looked like city engineers, all standing around and staring at the house or discussing among themselves, as they stayed outside of a cordoned area. Anderson kept walking, finding a man who looked like he was in charge of the proceedings here.

"Hello, David Anderson, Alliance Fleet." He introduced himself and the man blinked at him, before noticing the N7 on his chest.

The man looked up, glancing at the obviously Alliance shuttle flying overhead, before he looked down at Anderson again.

"Uh, Commandant John Baxter, Lowell City Police Department." He looked back at the house, obviously considering something before looking back at them. "Does this shitshow have something to do with the military?"

The suspicion was plain to hear, but Anderson handled it expertly. "That's what I'm here to find out. Are you in charge here?"

The Commandant nodded, throwing a thumb towards the city behind his back. "The bigwigs went back already, telling me to handle this. What a mess. It's been cooling down for hours and we still can't go in."

"Can you tell me anything about what happened here?" Anderson asked.

"Sure, no problem. We got called in by the neighbors when they realized the house next to them was melting like wax. They were a little worried, perfectly reasonably so as we found out when we showed up. Something started a fire in the house and we haven't been able to find out more, since."

Anderson nodded at that, staring silently at the house. Understanding that they would not be able to find out more until they gained entry to the building, it seemed that like all the gathered personnel they would have to wait until things cooled down.

"How did the fire not die out? Shouldn't there have been systems to stop something like _that_ from happening?" Shepard asked, nodding at the house.

The Commandant blinked, looking up at Anderson who looked at him expectantly. Shrugging, he began to talk.

"Yeah, that _should_ _be_ the case. The house plan lists a segmented floorplan which allows every floor and room to be sealed off and slowly vented, but the fire seems to have been self-fed to the point where it just kept going until it melted the vents shut." He shrugged.

"So the fire is feeding itself?" Shepard confirmed and he nodded.

"There's also some new cryo-tech used, something called ' _Bose-Einstein condensate_ '? I've no idea what the stuff is, but it seems to have contained the fire for a few hours until the supply ran out. Expensive stuff, too." Baxter further explained.

A man to the side huffed. "More than the entire departments' budget for a week went up in smoke, I hear."

"Who owns this place?" Anderson asked, ignoring the man by the side. "Have you been able to get in touch with him?"

"It belongs to one Joseppi Cardotin. Tried getting in contact with him, listed as a practicing M.D., down by the central hospital. Lived here apparently. Haven't been able to find him at all. Doesn't look good." The Commandant said, sighing at the end.

"How long has it been burning?" Anderson asked and the Commandant shrugged.

"We came here a few hours ago, but we can't really say since it's been pretty much contained. The neighbors were the first to notice anything, but that's just a few minutes difference from our first patrol on site."

"Why did the house melt like that? Shouldn't it have caught fire, too?" Shepard asked, looking around.

"The atmosphere is pretty thin, here. It's almost like a thermos can; the heat can't escape quickly enough. But with how cold it is outside, it keeps cooling the external walls even as it heating from the inside. Plus, not enough oxygen to go around.

"As far as we know, the only thing burning was what started the fire originally, the rest is just the contained heat melting stuff. We're pretty sure it's already out and have been making small holes to help cool it down faster. Don't want to make too big a hole and let it cool it too quickly; could bring down the entire house. It's a weird situation and one we've never encountered before." He explained, shrugging before muttering in a quiet voice that the paperwork would be a pain in his butt.

It probably wasn't supposed to come through the comms, that last complaint.

"Sir, I think we're about ready to send in the drone." A man came up, holding his omnitool at the ready. "The temperatures just hit the safe zone."

"Hmm? Very good, begin when ready and give me a feed to watch." The Commandant spoke and the man nodded in response, tapping away at his omnitool. He took out a small ball, about the size of the grenades Shepard had seen before, and held it in his hand while looking at his omnitool.

It made a spark, twitching in his hand once, before it began to float. Suddenly, it was encased in glowing red layers, turning into a much larger glowing red ball that floated in the air. "Drone active, checking feed."

The Commandant turned on his omnitool and began to watch, along with several other members around them doing the same. Anderson and Shepard joined a man who was watching the feed, as no one thought to chase them away.

"Moving in."

The drone surged forward, slipping in through a small hole into the building. It was pitch black inside. A scan pulsed, followed by a searchlight turning on as the drone continued advancing inside. It looked like the entire house had been made out of melted ice that had only just begun to solidify again. It somewhat reminded her of those weird houses she had seen in Barcelona with Emiya. She shook her head; not the time.

"Sir, the scans are showing a basement floor not listed in the floorplans." The drone operator announced.

"What?"

"And it looks like it's where the fire originated. Shall I move in?"

"Yes, of course." The Commandant answered, frowning.

The drone kept floating inwards and slowly the air itself seemed to become hazy by the residual heat. Even outside, here in the cool surface of Mars, wearing their hardsuits, all of them began to feel more than a little hot at the sight of the house's insides.

"Sir, heat levels rising too high. I can't go any further. We'll have to wait until it cools down further."

The Commandant sighed. "Fine, back away a bit to keep the drone from malfunctioning. We were pretty sure that there wouldn't be any evidence, anyhow. We'll have to do a more thorough dig later. For now—"

"Wait." Anderson said, catching everyone off guard. "Turn a little bit to the left, I think I saw something."

The drone operator blinked, turning to look at the Commandant who turned to look at Anderson. Baxter shrugged, nodding to them to try it. The drone operator obeyed.

"See, _there_. Can you lift that thing out?" He pointed at an omnitool feed.

"See what?" The operator asked, peering at his own omnitool's feed. Anderson walked up to him, moving to point at what he had seen. "Oh, yeah. Hold on..."

He pressed some commands and a small arm extended outwards, moving to pick up what she had seen.

"Huh, it's pretty heavy, what is this..." He blinked as the thing was revealed. "Some kind of environment suit? But how did it handle the heat?"

"That's a Devlon Industries Explorer heavy armor." Shepard said, distantly recognizing the white ceramic plates somehow.

They all turned to look at her.

"Yes, yes it is. That's military-grade equipment." Anderson said, sighing deeply. "I'm sorry about this, but could you continue deeper? If the drone breaks, I will compensate for the damages."

The drone operator frowned, looking at the Commandant. He exhaled, before shrugging. "Yeah, alright. Keep going."

Continuing deeper inwards, the quality of the video feed worsened, forcing them to pull back out. They dug a little here and there, scanning what they could find. But there was simply so much melted _stuff_ that it was hard to distinguish anything.

Shepard frowned, feeling utterly useless as she simply stared at an omnitool feed. _There has to be something I can do..._ She looked around, analyzing the surroundings.

"Huh?"

She began to walk away from everyone else. She had noticed the vehicles around here as they had arrive and now she noticed one that stood out. There were wheeled cars and there were short-range civilian shuttles, arrayed near houses and around the cordoned off area.

At a glance, she could tell which belonged where and to which house. All, but one. A neat looking black shuttle, with tinted windows and sleek lines. It just seemed _off_ to her, where it had been parked. Not quite in any apartment, nor quite between any. Almost like someone who had merely dropped by for a quick visit.

She walked up to it, taking a circuit around it. There was a logo on the side, proudly declaring it a Cord-Hislop Aerospace product. She looked at the ground, noting the dust. It wasn't packed, like near the spots where other cars, shuttles and skycars had been parked. Like it wasn't often here.

Standing up, she moved to try and look inside of the shuttle. Even when shrouding her eyes with her hands, the window was tinted too dark to see through.

Frowning, she leaned back and looked at the door. She couldn't see any kind of visible handle on it. _Doesn't that mean it works like the car doors I used to break open all the time? I don't have a 'jack', but..._

Shepard looked at the all police cars parked around the melted house. She knew the police had them, too. They needed them to be able to get into cars, if someone was trying to resist arrest or was in danger inside a car. The one she had had was based on those, in fact.

As long as she wasn't caught, it was fine, right?

She walked back, keeping an eye on everyone. They were all busily looking at the melting house and the drone's feed at the moment. No one had so much as noticed her walking off, it seemed.

That worked for her just fine.

She found a police shuttle with the doors open and began to look around. She found something that looked promising after half a minute of looking. Sneaking away after making sure no one had noticed her, she got back to the suspicious car. Lifting up the small box, she pressed the ' _open doors_ ' button.

_click—Click_

Reaching out, she opened the shuttle door and peered inside. She blinked, freezing. There was a shotgun on the passenger seat. And right next to it lay an omnitool with the power source pulled off. With trembling hands, she reached forward and took the omnitool.

She plugged in the power and turned it on,

A familiar lock screen greeted her. She swallowed, feeling her heart suddenly beating in her chest like a hammer. Reaching out with a single finger, she repeated what she had watched Emiya do a hundred times before.

It opened.

' _You have one(1) mail from [_ **Shepard** _]',_ the words on the omnitool stared at her. She felt herself swaying then, reaching out for the shuttle for support.

"Emiya..."

* * *

;

* * *

Archimedes looked up, noting the sound on his terminal.

"Hmm, and what exactly are you... Ah?"

He tilted his head, frowning at the influx of data and reading from somewhere outside the Moon Cell. Blinking at the location, he frowned. "Ah—!"

Noticing that it had actually arrived hours earlier but its priority hadn't been flagged as high enough to interrupt his earlier work, it only came before him now.

Nodding to himself in finally remembering what exactly it all was, he began to eye through the information. It was not so much that he had any interest in any of the findings, but he wanted to make sure it was all in proper order. First and foremost came the data that had been stored on the primitive computer on the higher levels, near the surface.

At a glance, it looked like some kind of encyclopedia or perhaps a manual, but the more he read, the less interested he grew about it all. Translating it was a cinch for someone of his talents, as he used the Moon Cell's vast processing power to go through the data.

"How haphazard and sloppy. What monkey wrote this? There is no structure or reason to any of this. It is as if someone merely took a hundred scholars' teachings and poured them in at random. Or did they expect someone to sift through all this based on feeling it out? Even if you were in a hurry, have some pride."

This was worthless to anyone who might want to search for anything specific there, he understood quickly enough. One could only peruse and puzzle through the various topics and try to make some sense of it while holding fingers crossed that they hit upon a relevant topic. No expert or master would have created something like this, he thought as it continued to offend his sensibilities with every word.

"Even in that old fool Aristotles' time, they understood the value of structuring and sectioning of subjects. _This_ is simply _revolting_." Archimedes decreed, before with a flick of his hand struck aside the display. The data list disappeared from his sight.

He began to look through the other data, which hadn't simply been there for grabs, but had been scanned and analyzed by his program and been brought back. Material composition, construction methods, the effects of weather and radiation over the millennia on the ruins.

"Well now, this is..."

Archimedes peered at his findings. It was almost as if someone had brought in much of the equipment at the top-most layer at a later date, at the same time as the lower base had been constructed. It was still a long time before the most recent visit by the Umbral Star, but knowing that it had often made circuits and reaped the harvest in cycles meant that that fact did not bother him at all.

_Curious._

But nothing he cared about, setting aside the data for later perusal. For now, he would take a look at what the Moon Cell had actually wanted. The data concerning the experimentation on the early humans.

"Archimedes."

The man wheeled his head around at the call of his name. _Where did he come from?_

Someone had appeared behind him, as if stepping forward from the shadows. He turned around slowly, glaring at whoever had interrupted him, eyes narrowing at the newcomer. But then he blinked, straightening up as he stared at this person before him.

Clad head to toe in black apparel and with a face-covering helmet, this could have been a wraith from the blackest pits of the underworld with all the menace it exuded. Yet it seemed familiar, still.

"Who...?"

The figure seemed to blink, tilting its head before it raised a hand to its face and with the motion one would use to move a strand of hair from one's face, the helmet disappeared. The white hair and frowning mien of the Guardian greeted him.

"It's done."

Archimedes blinked. Even without the helmet, the extended collar hugged the throat and covered half of the newcomer's face, making recognition take a few seconds. Additionally the strongest point of reference in Archimedes' memory, that garish red cloak, was gone.

"Nameless?"

Then he finally remembered everything else about the Mars' ruins that he had already long forgotten about. It was sooner than he'd expected for the man to return, but not outside the realm of possibility. Archimedes' body language changed as he crossed his arms and leaned back to peer at the man over his nose.

"You certainly took your time with it."

"You requested that I avoid making waves." Nameless countered instantly, without so much as a twitch or a blink of an eye.

The administrator frowned.

Something about this man had changed. His entirety seemed different. Ready and vigilant, somehow. Almost jittery and in a hurry. What had happened off the Moon Cell to this man? Archimedes had made a point to forget all about that man, once the ball had gotten rolling. He shook his head, _It does not matter._

"As you say, you may leave now—I have no further use for you." Archimedes dismissed him, turning around. Yet that presence behind him did not waver one bit.

"Tell me about the findings."

He froze, blinking. He turned around to look at the man behind him, standing there expectantly. As if it was Archimedes' duty to answer any and all inane questions this fool might have.

The mathematician scowled.

"What of them? There was nothing of note there."

"Nothing of note? You call that lowest level nothing of note?" Nameless raised an eyebrow at that. "The grudges in the air were palpable, almost enough to affect the physical world. A _noble phantasm_ had been forged by that event."

"Yes, yes. The pitiful few who in their extermination must have opted to die out by their own hands, carving out a little hole in the fabric of time. Nothing more."

"Extermination? By whom?" Nameless interjected again, his presence somehow sharpening.

"That much should be obvious, even to _you_. Then again, I forget who I am talking to." Archimedes snidely ignored the question.

Nameless stepped forward, glaring. "Just answer the question."

He only received a sniff and a shake of the head for that from the mathematician.

Nameless sighed, trying a different approach. "There was an advanced species there a long time ago. If something came there and wiped them out, doesn't that matter to the Moon Cell?"

"The Moon Cell is very much aware of the cause and time behind those extinction events and they are of _no note._ "

"Then for what _purpose was I sent out there_?" Nameless asked, grinding his teeth.

Archimedes scowled, not wanting to admit to how petty the reason had truly been. It was the very same line of questioning that had made him decide to cease asking the other heroic spirits he had consulted before.

"Then what was it that caused the deaths on Mars?"

This finally broke Archimedes' last hold on his temper. "Velber, who else! I am not some scribe for you to question! Leave, now!"

"The White Titan of fourteen thousand years ago? But these ruins far predate that era." Nameless was not moved at all by Archimedes' wrath as he looked away, speaking to himself more than the Administrator. " _But_... No, that still doesn't make sense. Why did the Moon Cell want to know about Mars, Archimedes?"

The mathematician continued to sullenly glare at Nameless, refusing to dignify him with an answer.

They glared at each other for a solid minute, before Archimedes finally let out an aggrieved sigh. _The sooner I get rid of him, the sooner I can return to my work. I will have to install stronger firewalls afterwards, to keep him from barging in later._

"There were signs of early human lifeforms on Mars. That was all."

Nameless nodded. "The test tubes. It looked like they had a wide variety of samples. Did you find out anything?"

Archimedes sniffed at the question. "Obviously I did. There were signs of genome splicing and breeding attempts. Butthe results were obvious and their folly resulted in just what you'd expect. It seems like they were extracting sequences and copying parts of the genome. For what purpose, I cannot even guess."

Nameless nodded, as he listened.

Archimedes ignored that, continuing. "Did they not even realize that performing such experiments on Mars would inherently contaminate their subjects' origin? Ridiculous. Ah, that would explain their grizzly ends. Hah, they turned themselves into monsters and could not take it, ending their own lives. _How pathetic._ "

The mathematician shook his head at that.

"What... What are you talking about?" Nameless blinked, frowning.

"Hmm? _Origin;_ the human origin. The starting point for sapient beings; the point from which the spiraling line known as the ' _soul_ ' stems forth. Existences born on Earth can only acquire specific origins, befitting the planet's existence. The concepts which are a part of ' _the World_ '. Those that bear another origin are undoubtedly recognized as alien existences. The _soul_ shapes the _corpus_ , thus their external appearances would have changed to match their inner degeneration." Archimedes drawled, obviously enjoying the look of complete incomprehension on Nameless' face. "I would have expected _you_ of all people to understand that."

"Hold on, _what_?"

"Your origin is certainly a rare one, is it not? ' _Sword_ '? The old divine spirits were concepts made alive through recognition and reverence. The pieces of the slain war god, scattering down to Earth must have contaminated—"

"You're saying those who killed themselves were human once? Or that they were the progeny of humans?" Nameless questioned, interrupting Archimedes.

He growled, growing annoyed at being ignored so flagrantly.

"But... But what about their galaxy-spanning empire? The construction of the mass relays? The _Citadel_?"

Archimedes blinked at the guardian, not quite understanding the questions. Nameless frowned, looking uncertainly at the administrator.

"You mean... You don't know? You didn't know?"

"Know _what_?" The mathematician asked, glaring at the implication. _What is this nonsense he's talking about?_

"What about Lowell City? Does the Moon Cell care about that place at all? No, no. There have been generations born there, without issue. Is it because of the Age of the Gods' passing? No, that doesn't make sense, either. Did it even occur here in the first place?"

Archimedes peered at Nameless, raising a single eyebrow as if asking ' _is any of that supposed to mean something?_ '. A sudden look of realization and suspicion entered the white-haired man's eyes, then.

"Or _Armstrong_?"

Archimedes scowled, looking at the man before him with growing annoyance. "What about him? That useless man is a joke, even compared to the likes of _you._ Though... With his Noble Phantasm, the journey would have been a cinch... No, no. The magical energy expenditure would be..."

"You really don't know _anything_ , do you?" Nameless interrupted him, causing the administrator to blink. Nameless' shoulders slumped as he looked away. "How exactly did you expect me to get to Mars, Archimedes?"

Archimedes sneered at the question. "The West European Plutocracy has plenty of old spaceworthy vessels—I made certain to check from the Moon Cell's observational records, they've been kept in working shape even since the aerospace development ban was put in place—and you obviously managed to appropriate one of them for your use. Do not imply I sent you on an impossible task, wasting the Moon Cell's and my own valuable time and resources."

Nameless blinked at that. There was a moment of pure silence, as he seemed to process that as he shook his head in disbelief.

"You really didn't know. No, you don't even _care_. It should have all been staring at you in the face, all this time. Then..." Nameless inhaled, his brows furrowing as he stared at the floor. He looked up, locking eyes with Archimedes. "I'm going back out. There has to be something more to this."

Turning around to walk away, showing his back to the Administrator who was grinding his teeth at this moment.

"As _if_." Archimedes growled, stopping him. Nameless turned around, looking back at the man. "You know it yourself as well, don't you? The dead cannot walk among the living."

Nameless blinked, frowning.

"Those who have died cannot enter the world they have left behind. This goes for anyone who has died, doubly so for heroic spirits. Regardless if you lived and died thousands of years ago; your ripples still echo throughout time. There is no more place for us in the world of the outside; to exist after our end would invalidate our deaths and put in question everything about what we had achieved within our lifetime. This goes for _anyone_ who made a mark on the world, be it historically or in the nature of its current existence. To defy that is to defy the Moon Cell's prime directive of objective observation without affecting the world that remains unaware of its existence. This boundary is _absolute_ , without the Moon Cell's explicit assistance. Without _my_ explicit assistance. You are not going _anywhere._ "

"' _Who made a mark on the world_ ', is it?" Nameless asked, as he straightened up, pulling down the shirt collar that was hiding his face to reveal a crooked smile. It seemed like the kind of expression one would wear when one knew something no one else did, and that one thing changed everything in the world. "You said there existed no records of Emiya Shirou in _this world_ ; how fitting it was for a Nameless to exist like that, to have been entirely forgotten by the world. Didn't you?"

"Something to that effect, perhaps." Archimedes frowned, before understanding hit him. "But _no_ , you fool. That does not make you exempt from that rule. Rather, it binds you even more severely to it. You are _nothing_ , there is no place for a _no one,_ outside of the imaginations of the rabble."

Nameless blinked, before shaking his head with a chuckle.

"I think you're making a lot of assumptions without having covered all of your bases." Nameless said, laughing as he stood there with his arms crossed. He looked at the Administrator before him and smiled, as if honestly glad to have met this man. _Something_ about that expression turned Archimedes stomach in knots.

It was the face of a man who could walk up the steps of the gallows without a single hesitation.

The strangeness of it all only served to anger Archimedes further.

"It doesn't matter what you think! The only way you could have returned is by abandoning the body you were handed. By letting yourself _dissipate_ and let the Moon Cell create your spirit core anew with the memories of the outside included."

"Oh, so that _was_ the only way of getting back, was it? I figured that you would leave me no other options." Nameless turned around, glaring at Archimedes. "And what if I had planned to never return at all? If I had stayed out there for as long as I felt like?"

"Hah, do not think me a fool. That body you were given was dying the moment you possessed it; prolonging that process was no more difficult than actually curing it. Its brain would have begun to fail within days of the codecast's activation. You never had any choice in this matter, _Guardian_."

Nameless blinked at that, before huffing. "You really had all your bases covered, even if you don't know why you're doing anything. I'm impressed; I really should take notes. Especially in always making sure to double check my plans basis in _reality_."

Archimedes growled then, clenching his fists as he glared at Nameless' jibe.

"You know, I'm actually reminded of a friend who I once knew. He was rather like you." Nameless said as he looked to the side with far away eyes, and Archimedes blinked at that complete aside in the conversation.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He never held back his tongue, speaking his mind honestly and without candor. It made him a lot of enemies, but I remember thinking back to him fondly at times. Mostly because he could just say one thing and cut through all my thoughts, until only the truth remained." Nameless looked up, locking eyes with Archimedes. "Thank you, Archimedes of Syracuse. You may not understand the men of the world, but you are without a doubt a brilliant Heroic Spirit, capable of changing the world with your every action. Without you, I'd never have gotten a chance for any of this, after all."

Archimedes sniffed at that, realizing it was all some kind of subtle jab he could not understand, which only caused Nameless to smile all the more widely.

"One more question and I shall leave you be. It pertains to the nature of _answers_ , you see. And who better than the man who shouted ' _heúrēka_ ' as he ran naked in the streets?"

Archimedes growled, gnashing his teeth at that remark. Nameless nodded as the mathematician hadn't actually refused, crossing his arms and raising a single pointed finger.

"If you were to have performed a complex problem a long time ago and had arrived at a solution, after a long time of effort and trouble." Nameless began, motioning with his hands to illustrate.

And despite himself, Archimedes' interest was piqued.

"And then, you had set aside that problem—solution and all—to focus on other things for a long while. If you had after that long, long time, _forgotten_ the answer and misplaced everything you worked on so hard, long ago, so that you can no longer find it no matter where you looked...

"What would you do?" Nameless asked, his voice heavy as he let his hands fall to his sides.

Archimedes blinked at the expectant gaze. The answer was _obvious,_ wasn't it?

"Re-do the problem, from the beginning." Archimedes said with sniff. "If there were no faults and I make no mistakes, I will eventually find that answer again. That much should be obvious, even to a repugnant fool such as yourself."

Nameless smiled.

"Yeah." He closed his eyes and inhaled, looking like a he took on the world on his shoulders again and feeling burdened little if at all by the effort. "That's what I thought, too. Which is exactly why I can't stop now."

Archimedes sighed, shaking his head. _What an annoying man, I should have never relied on him_. _Well, as long has he's back, it does not matter. He can rot away for the rest of time, for all I care._

"If that is all, _leave._ "

Nameless raised a hand to his face, scratching his nose in a surprisingly boy-ish manner as he smiled at Archimedes' reaction.

"As you wish. You were right all along you know. In the eyes of the world, I am just a _nameless hero of justice_." With those words, he swung out his arm and called forth the red shroud. It settled on his arms and around his waist in a flutter, as if a great wind was pushing at him, before it settled down.

Nameless smirked, placing a hand on his hip. "I'll be taking my leave now.

"—Trace, _off_ "

And disappeared in a burst of scattering light, vanishing without a trace.

"What a disgustingly melodramatic man."Archimedes scowled, shaking his head as he returned to his findings. It wasn't like he could do anything, so what was that satisfied face for?

* * *

;

* * *

CODEX:

**2\. [ Combination Arms & Gunblades ]**

During his life, Emiya encountered various weapons in his life, made from the late medieval era onward all the way to the modern era, created in attempts to combine melee and ranged weapons into a single hybrid weapon.

The earliest attempts he had encountered at using combination arms were made in Europe at the end of 15th century, with the advent of wheel lock mechanisms really allowing them to break through. Though matchlocks were also used in earlier guns, they were much less successful due to the danger of the wick falling off, a concern which also had limited the use of mounted gunners. Snaplocks were also used, but faced similar issues due to the pan cover requiring a specific position to be used and the danger of the ignition powder falling out if it was used as a melee weapon.

The first weapons were axe-heads mounted on crude one-shot pistols, often used in the form of hand axes after the single shot was spent. They saw use among the Polish cavalries between the 16th and 18th centuries, the 17th century Swedish navy and the Indians also greatly valued such weapons, decorating them with inlaid gold and religious symbols and carvings. The first swords began to appear first around the 16th century, among French and German hunters who often ran into tenacious boars and massive bears in the yet untamed woods of Europe.

Hunting knives, shortswords, spears, axes, maces, shields and rapiers were combined with the wheel lock mechanism, which made them often both horribly expensive and unsuitably heavy for uses other than showing off. Of course, wheel locks were quite complicated and expensive, comparable to mechanical pocket watches in complexity and cost to create, thus they saw little demand from most people. It was not until the cheaper and more reliable flintlock mechanism appeared that sword pistols began to appear in any numbers of note.

Due to the danger of the bullet and powder being jarred loose with heavy melee combat, these weapons were quite unreliable unless one always began with firing the bullet before engaging in close combat. Due to this there never really was a wide-spread demand for them.

But those who had an interest in such things at the time had never let that stop them.

One such model of sword pistol was even adopted by a formal military force, in the form of the Elgin Cutlass pistol. They were single-shot percussion pistols combined with a short, wide blade under the barrel, and were little more than cleavers milled into the barrels of a gun. They saw only official use on one expedition, and were soon enough phased out of use. Rather than being its own weapon, it would be more accurate to say that the Elgin Cutlass pistol was something that was a part of the Bowie knife's legend, than something actually standing on its own merit. After Jim Bowie's death in 1836 in Alamo, the popularity of that knife design had exploded as legends of him grew. _Allegedly,_ the first Bowie knife had been forged out of a meteorite, even, though little evidence for such exists.

Pinfire ammunition and revolvers changed everything again, and in the 19th century there were several talented gunsmiths who had an interest in creating combined arms. Names, such as Lefaucheux, Lepage, Dumonthier, Rauh and Waldhorn have mostly been forgotten today, but once they stood at the forefront of firearms design and they had all made attempts at combining the two distinct weapons at one point or another. Creating curiosities of all kinds, each sought to further their mastery of both weapons.

But the problem was still that the two weapons had usually completely opposite needs in performance. Thus one usually ended up with a with a gun that was too long, too heavy and too difficult to aim with, and a sword that was poorly balanced, of dubious construction at the hilt and that had a chance of going off in your sheath.

Overall, they did not see much use.

There were combined gun weapons that worked, of course. But those were more often small knives attached to rifle barrels as bayonets, axe-heads attached to muskets and maces with multiple barrels. Henry VIII's famous _Walking Stick_ is still proudly on display in the Tower of London's Tudor display room, as an example of mace-guns. Emiya had even seen a flintlock pistol-whip, once, which worked as the whip part did not much care about the gun's weight in functionality. In Burma there were even rifles and pistols in the shape of a dha sword, where the barrel functioned as the hilt and the stock of the gun as the sheath. Those were weapons which did not have as strict limits to the weight and handling as swords, and even then they were somewhat unwieldy.

Really, the most common and effective versions were made with shorter blades, cutting down on the weight and handling. Many German wheel lock knives that somewhat worked and even a few double-barreled katar punch daggers that weren't entirely useless existed, but ultimately they were still not really _one_ weapon.

In the modern era, with smaller and more compact gun mechanisms becoming increasingly possible to create, the pendulum had swung towards building the entire pistol mechanism in the hilt of the knife, thus further straying from combining the weapons again.

In France, the 'apache revolvers' saw quite a bit of use in the criminal underworld. Combining the features of a knuckleduster, a small wavy knife-blade and a simple pepperbox-pinfire revolver that could be folded to be held in the pockets safely, it was a rather distinctive piece of the 20th century Paris.

The Soviet Union had many designs, including the OZ-54, NRS-2, and the "chamäleon" which Emiya had never managed to find himself. The Chinese also had the QSB-91, and then there was the commercially available Stinger knife-pistol, which he had also run into.

One notable example of a Japanese katana blade attached to a Nambu type 14 pistol had been confiscated by the American forces during the second world war, but Emiya found the thing horribly unwieldy in _all_ aspects. Only the katana blade had been of note in the eyes of his reality marble; the fusion and craftsmanship behind the construction so shoddy.

Usually any combined arms were treated more like bayonets—of which he had replicated many—than one whole; that is to say something which was simply attached to something _else_. The blade-part was what his reality marble noticed, rather than the bulky hilts or built-in firing mechanisms, or the gun it had been affixed to. Simply put, the concept of _gun_ and _blade_ were often too distinct in both the creators' and users' minds, leaving the weapons as something of a half-assed and unfinished product that never amounted to anything.

Partly this was due to the wildly conflicting methods used for crafting the blade and the gun halves, and the different metals and properties necessary for them. Gun parts had to contain and direct the slow burn propellant, while the blade had to be hard enough to hold an edge while not being too brittle. This often meant that the two parts were crafted by completely different people with no direct contact with one another, further muddying their origins. Indeed, Emiya had several combination arms in his reality marble, but only the blades had been replicated in full. All the other parts were simply hollow and empty, much like those early projections he had created as a child. Nothing was recorded in the guns, little could be done with them. Wielding and projecting them was unsettling; as if reading a book with half the pages missing.

Or rather, as one weapon overshadowed the other entirely, it was often more like a book with only with a fraction of the pages filled, and rarely with anything of use. In history, battles which saw bayonet kills were quite rare; the bullet often much more effective than the blade in all cases. There were memories of affixed bayonets and of fleeing enemies, but rare were the actual conflicts that saw their use.

Due to this half-replication—with a few rare exceptions—they lacked spiritual weight, which combined with their low power made them mostly useless in Emiya's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to PseudoSteak and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.
> 
> Thanks to daniel_gudman for helping me with space stuff and giving me advice on how to improve some scenes. Also, told me to re-edit the whole thing, so I did :D
> 
> Thanks to PseudoSteak for proofreading, again!
> 
> Thanks to daniel_gudman for pointing out how I could edit the chapter and rewrite it to be a bit more cohesive.
> 
> Thanks to Zealot & monkdale for space stuff.
> 
> As before, the codex section is more of me realizing that "I can't just keep this part in the middle of the story! It's just too **_much_**!" and sulking as I make it into a separate entry.
> 
> Also, my take on Dumonthier is something like what FGO does to a lot of heroes and historical figures, so take it with a grain of salt :V


	13. Parallel Investigations

Emiya opened his eyes. The pale white orb stared right back at him. _The God's Eye, huh. All seeing, yet wholly uncaring_.

Raising a hand, he looked at it. He couldn't see his palm through the glove covering his skin, but still he felt something new there. A sensation he couldn't quite put his finger on.

He shook his head.

Everything seemed to work just fine. It was just a matter of _diving_ back _out_ , after he had gone _in_. What was that about it being an absolute boundary? About the Moon Cell refusing anyone access outside? "Guess that was another thing you knew nothing about, _Administrator._ Or is this a sign of your tacit approval, Moon Cell?"

He looked expectantly out the window, as if expecting the celestial object to speak to him. The moon did not answer him and he scoffed. He was completely alone. Looking away, he considered his situation.

"AWOL from the military, dying of something in my brain, in orbit around the moon in a stolen skycar almost out of gas that's falling apart, on the run from a paramilitary _-possibly-backed-by-the-government-wetworks-_ outfit and looking for leads on a locked-room mystery murder case that's been cold for fifty thousand years?" He barked a depreciating laugh at that. "Sheesh, I'm never satisfied with just the _difficult_ goals, am I?"

Yet for all that, he felt more at ease than he had in a long time. Not quite as relaxed as he had been just before he left for Mars, but _good_ nonetheless.

He inhaled and considered his options, right then.

Going back to the Navy was out of the question; they would throw him in a military cell on sight, and then he would probably die while waiting for a military trial. Maybe if he asked they would let him see a doctor. But if he simply complained about having head pains or that he knew he was going to die within days, he doubted they would take him seriously.

Even if they did, they might not find anything wrong with him, as they had performed a fairly detailed physical on him when he had first joined. There was no proof that whatever Archimedes had done, or was holding back form occurring, could be detected by means available to humanity. The odds weren't good enough, thus he would turn to other options. Perhaps they would find something wrong with him in time, perhaps not. _No_ , he wouldn't take that risk, not before he had considered all his options. _Take the option with the best probability of success._

For now, he should probably get to Earth again. The moon had settlements, but even Armstrong was just too small.

It would not allow him to blend in and disappear in here, and he could be easily tracked here if he made a landing due to how contained the entire settlement was. Besides, he hadn't turned off any of the normal signals in the skycar, meaning there was a rather obvious trail for anyone to follow. That, and his method of travel would cause people to grow interested, if they realized with just what kind of vehicle he had gotten from Mars to the moon.

As long as they could make the connection between the bodies in the basement he had burned and the skycar, anyone with the right connections would be able to find out he had made a beeline for Luna. That alone could raise eyebrows and make someone follow his trail.

He needed to shake them off before they caught up.

But he wouldn't have enough fuel to make it to Earth, not after the journey he had already gone through, and after idling so long in orbit around the moon. He would have to make a landing on the moon, somewhere near Armstrong perhaps, to refuel. And hope no one questioned his appearance. It was the largest settlement on the moon, allowing him to blend in somewhat, at least. He could have tried to land on one of the smaller ones in hopes of avoiding notice, but since Armstrong Control handled the landings anyway and had already contacted him, he didn't think it would be worth the risk of not finding any fuel if he landed at some smaller industrial complex or hydroponics farm.

He also seemed to remember there being a military installation somewhere, which he really wanted to avoid at the moment.

Emiya began to navigate towards the south pole of the moon, not quite sure yet what he was going to do. It was a ' _work in progress_ ', as things often were. The problem of the license to flying on the moon still remained. Then again, he had something that should work for that, didn't he?

Activating the dashboard computer again, he made a comm-call.

"Armstrong Control, this is... _Suave_ -450-CRB, come in."

" _Suave-450-CRB, this is Armstrong Control, we're listening_."

He closed his eyes, extending a hand towards the panel, as he sub-vocalized his aria'— _Trace,_ _on'—begin insertion,_

The action had become so familiar to him already that at this point, he only felt the jarring shock of his skull collapsing in on itself as he appeared inside that strange world.

He opened his eyes, looking around. _Floating upside down and slowly sinking as always_ , he noted with a huff. Extending his senses, he felt out the skycar and the connection between it and the control center on the other end, in Armstrong.

Pulling out the display that the operator talking to him should be seeing, Emiya noted that it had a display of the skycar model and other general information listed on it. _Joseppi Cardotin?_ He saw an unfamiliar name listed as the owner and decided to answer that he had borrowed the skycar from the owner if they asked. There, he spotted the licenses for operation on Mars, listing that it had sufficient seals and filters to handle the dusty environment along with how far it could fly and with what kind of fuel consumption it had.

 _Ah, it's more than just petty bureaucracy, then. Measures to keep fools trying to fly between_ _planets._ _Makes sense._

Emiya swiped a hand, extending his senses until he found what he wanted; another vehicle was in contact with someone else in the control center, and as expected it had the license for operating on the moon. It also had internal pressurization and life-support systems. Some kind of public transport to Earth, then? _Could use that later, if nothing else._

He eyed it roughly and copied the necessary licenses over to his own file, changing the relevant information as he went to suit himself and his skycar. It only really had to look roughly right at a glance, so that he could land and take off without being stopped. Cutting off the spell, he opened his eyes and continued speaking as if nothing had happened.

"I'll be making an approach for Armstrong now, since I've run out of fuel. Where can I land?"

" _You were informed earlier that—hold on, how did... Krhmm. Sending landing protocols over, make for shuttle bay Delta East by the Eastern side. Further instructions will be sent as you make the final approach. Will that be all?_ "

"Yes, thank you. _Suave-_ 450-CRB out." Emiya smiled and the line was cut. He smiled to himself, then. _Suave, indeed._

He began to move out towards the city with the last of his fuel. Armstrong wasn't very different from Lowell City. Not at first glance, anyhow.

As he made the approach towards the gleaming silver spires dotting the white landscape ahead, he began to notice something unusual. They were all built in a circle, with nothing inside of them, creating a hollow center by the looks of it. Like a crown, almost. It was only when he came close enough to see between the buildings that he spotted what they were surrounding.

A terraformed crater; a complete biodome on the surface of the moon. There were green trees and grass, houses and people walking along the streets and small vehicles moving around everywhere. It looked liked a slice of Earth, transported onto the moon. The dissonance was incredible, as even he had to admit it was wondrous.

No wonder four million people lived here; it was a lot better compared to Mars. It was like comparing a hollowed out industrial city that had been left behind by time, to a thriving tourist city that made the extra effort to look attractive. Not just the level of wealth present and visible, but the way the cities presented themselves made for a radically different appearance.

Letting the VI handle all the driving and following of automatic instructions from Armstrong Control for the landing, Emiya simply looked around and enjoyed the view.

Passing through some sort of bubble—some sort of transparent but thick liquid that divided the void and the air, held in place by mass effect fields—he came to a halt inside of a shuttle bay by the side of the crater. Inside, he flew past many small vehicles like his, parked in neat rows that went for as far as the eye could see, until the automatic guidance found him an empty spot.

As he opened the door and raising his helmet up, he inhaled deeply. The fresh air in the hangar bay rushed in and made him a little lightheaded due to the elevated oxygen content, but it passed quickly. Changing the emptied oxygen supply quickly for a fresh one in case he needed it later, he threw the empty one in the back. He put the helmet back on, as he wanted to keep his face off of any cameras and the tinted visor served well enough there. Looking around, he spotted a VI-interface by the door at the far end of the hall, with no humans in sight anywhere. He couldn't see any cameras either, but that didn't really mean anything.

"Must be automated." He muttered, half-closing the skycar door. He did his best to hide the piles of omnitools and guns under the seats, but he would have to rely on the tinted windows to keep people from noticing anything. Then again, _no one_ was here so it was probably fine. Walking over, he paid the parking fee with one of the credit chits he had acquired, and then walked away after choosing the full service option which would include having his fuel cell charged.

Emiya considered his options, when his stomach rumbled loudly.

He blinked, looking down at himself. _Oh, right. Skimming off all the magical energy from my body will do that._ After his jaunt on Mars, the various spells he had used and the combat he had gone through and then his _flight_ to Luna, he had greedily absorbed the excess magical energy from his body. Which caused it to go into overdrive to produce more again to fill its own void.

In essence, he was _starving_. That realization took him slightly by surprise.

The combined time of a century-or-so on the moon without any need for sustenance and the three months in the military, had left him used to not having to think about when he had to get food. His stomach loudly rumbled, as if agreeing with that thought and making its complaints regarding the current state of affairs known.

"Fine, fine. Food, then go buy a cheap omnitool to figure out the basics, then see if anything is going on. Or maybe the other way around...?" He stepped out of the skycar and mostly closed the door, since it required an omnitool to open the handle-less door from the outside. _A downside of excessive automation_ , he thought with some annoyance.

Emiya considered taking a gun, but he was fairly certain open carrying would garner him too much attention right now. Especially since he would be walking around in a environment suit with a tinted visor, which would probably stand out in a crowd. He walked to the end of the parking lot, walking through a secondary safety airlock that blew at him with how rapidly it set about in pressurizing him for the inside of Armstrong.

Walking out, he blinked at how mundane it was.

There were people walking about on the white and gray walkways, going about their business near him and far away. The surfaces were clean and sleek, without being too sterile like a hospital could be. It was actually a little bit disappointing, based on what he had seen when flying in.

But then he turned around and looked _out_.

Ahead, over the railing he could see down into the large crater the city had been built into. Green grass and trees sprouted between roads and buildings, with a huge park right in the center. Over the city the bubble-like dome hung above everything. Beyond it he could see both the rays of the sun streaming over the crest of the crater, and the darkness of space all around.

Without an atmosphere, even during the 'day' the sky would be quite reminiscent of Earth's night sky. Not quite the same, but similar. Projected text and news' broadcasts were running by at parts of the dome, where everyone could see it from most everywhere in the settlement.

And around the crater's edge, half inside the dome and half outside of it, the skyscrapers he had seen jutted up into space. He had likened them to a crown, but from here they almost seemed like the teeth of some great beast, in whose jaw he was at this moment.

He was taken aback for a moment as he simply looked around. A mother with her child walked past and they smiled at his behavior, as he realized he was gawking; it was obvious even with his face hidden.

Emiya coughed, hiding his embarrassment with a frown. _This place, it's a lot more... fantastical_ _than Mars was._

Not letting the awe get the best of him, he began to walk around, looking at everything and anything that caught his eye. Even surrounded by all the strangeness of this place, Emiya felt rather nostalgic.

He had used to travel all over the world when he had been alive. He had seen places wondrous and woeful. Destitution and delight alike, all over the globe. Cultures and people were similar, yet different. There was a sense of awe and wonder every time he found a place he had never before even heard about, in his travels to find people to help.

There had been some regrets about his life, during his long stay on the moon.

But there were also fond recollections, and those moments had also helped him stay somewhat sane. The valleys in mainland Asia, the thousands of islands of the East Indies, the jungles of South America, the old Mediterranean cities of stone like Barcelona, the plains and desert of the middle east and the arctic tundras of the far north...

The feelings of awe and bubbling excitement he felt at seeing this place. He had felt it many times before, and somehow its return made his decision from before seem all the more real than anything else had up until now had.

Emiya looked down at his hand, realizing for the first time just how many sensations he could _feel_. How the dull distance of simply acting as duty demanded seemed to be receding, the veil before his mind parting to reveal the world in all its colors.

"If I want to remember the answer I found on that day, I'll just have to live my life like that until it makes sense again. Sooner or later, I'll arrive there again." He repeated the words that had nested themselves in his heart, smiling as he stepped forward again.

At the end of this path, once he walked up to that noose again, he wanted to be able to smile just like he had on that day, long ago.

* * *

;

* * *

Anderson sighed, looking at Shepard.

They were heading back to Earth in the shuttle. There wasn't much else they could do and he had to be returning to his starship soon. Already he had pushed back his scheduled return by several hours. He had done enough, hadn't he?

But looking at the silent woman, he hesitated.

She had been quiet since the discovery of the omnitool in the shuttle outside by the shuttle. She hadn't explained how she had gotten inside and he hadn't asked. The police had given her unusual looks, but had hesitated to say anything due to his rank and station. _I guess that's a perk, if something can be in this job. People think I'm allowed to do anything and everything, like in the holovids. Like I'm a..._

He didn't finish the thought, memories of a burning eezo refinery and a scheming turian bubbling up, of accusations and lost opportunities. Anderson shook his head, forcefully concentrating on something else.

The shuttle belonged to Lieutenant Commander Fillion Burnsfeldt, the man who had been missing for almost two days now. The pieces were falling together, just as she had said they would. It was a strange thought, realizing that his gut instinct to help her had panned out like this. He looked at her, then.

 _She has sharp instincts. She'll turn into a fine soldier._ Anderson thought, glancing at her again. _As long as she recovers from this_ , _at least..._

"Shepard?"

She started, looking up with blinking eyes at the call of her name. She stared at him and around them, uncomprehending for several second before she realized they were in the shuttle again. She hadn't spoken a word since the Alliance Intelligence Agents had arrived and taken over the scene.

"...Yeah?"

"There's no proof yet, your friend might still well be alive." Anderson tried to comfort her, but the words fell flat even to his own ears.

She didn't say anything to that, merely looking at him.

After she had brought forward the omnitool, the two lieutenants who had interviewed her earlier in regards to the missing technician, had showed up flashing their badges around. The moment the omnitool had been activated, a beacon had turned on and called them in, apparently.

There had been some posturing and warnings, but after half an hour Anderson and Shepard were simply told to leave the scene, as the Alliance Intelligence Agency took over. But Shepard had still seen enough to draw her own conclusions.

With the house in the shape it was, finding out how many people had died inside was all but impossible. There could have been no one, or there could have been dozens inside. They had only found pieces of hardsuits as proof of anything.

A sharp exhale, half a wet cough.

Anderson looked up, startled to realize that she was sobbing quietly. She was leaning forward, hands to her helmet as she gripped it tightly between her fingers.

He swallowed, not sure what to say or do all of a sudden. He had had to watch men and women die, had had to walk to their homes and break the news to their loved ones, had had to watch comrades and civilians alike confront mortality, before.

Yet, every time still came as a punch in the gut. _You simply do not get used to death, not without losing something in the process._

"He—he said that he—" She tried to say something, but it disappeared halfway through. More to herself than to him, he thought, as it was barely above a whisper. The rest was lost out to the quiet sobs.

Anderson wanted to step forward and place a hand on her, to bring her some comfort, but he did not. They were not that familiar; he did not know how she would take it.

"Why did—It's not fair..."

He could have said that those who enlisted knew they might die, that everyone who signed up accepted that eventuality in service to the Alliance. But that would have been too harsh. No one signed up to be stolen away in the dead of night and to die inside an inferno, possibly only just waking up to be surrounded by the fire.

 _It would be a horrible way to go_ , _I hope he was at least unconscious through it._ Anderson thought, wincing at the sudden memory of dozens of screaming voices in the midst of fire and death.

Of the men, women and children in the work camps who had been overrun by the molten metal streaming out. The horrible cacophony of shrieks of pain and keening cries of terror, punctuated by ear-splitting explosions. Greasy black clouds licked by orange flames, the acrid stench that stung their eyes and made breathing nearly impossible. The smell of the burning flesh and the sight of the dead everywhere.

He had tried to forget it for a long time. Back then, as he ran out he had only thought of escape and getting Sanders out alive from that mess, but he had never forgotten what he had seen there. No matter how much he had often wished to.

The deaths on that day, when that turian spectre had blown up the element zero factory, still haunted him to this day. He didn't know what to say to her, not even knowing what to think of all this himself. Burnsfeldt had been an annoying man with a tendency for turning everything into a matter of politics, with rather strong views on how humanity should behave on the galactic stage, but Anderson wouldn't have wished him dead.

He fell into a sullen mood, suddenly reminded of old pains and failures, due to everything that happened today. The flight back was long and quiet, both merely sitting in silence. Finally, as the Flight Lieutenant announced that they would be entering Earth's atmosphere soon, did one of them break the silence.

"What... _what_ should _I_ do _now_?"

Anderson looked at Shepard, having avoided looking at her until now, because he simply did not know what to say or do. He swallowed, looking away as he considered what he could say now that she confronted him directly with her pain. Loss was something too personal to simply comment on in a shallow manner. How it affected every person was different. Every case was different. Every life, every death, was different.

Careless remarks in times like these were a unacceptable.

"I never met him, but... It's obvious that you respected him quite a bit." Anderson finally remarked.

"He... helped me get into the N-school. He helped me with a lot of things. I never really thanked him for that. Not enough."

"Then... if he helped you this far and you wanted to come here..." He began, looking at her to see if she would object.

Not everyone was N-material and his next words might push her onto a path she might not wish to tread on. But seeing no objections forthcoming, he finished the thought he had begun.

"Then perhaps you should make the most of it. Honor him, by going as far as you can while remembering him. Do what he would have wanted you to; do the things you would have done together."

She looked at him quietly, brows furrowing as she looked at the floor in deep thought. She inhaled, crossing her hands as she sat in silence.

"Shepard..." Anderson began, not even certain how he would continue. But there was a feeling deep in his chest that he had to say something more, still.

" _Sir, we've arrived._ " The comms announced as the shuttle lurched slightly, The side door opened, letting sunlight stream in.

Shepard stood up, as oxygen streamed inside and filled the cockpit. Reaching up, she undid the seal on her neck and lifted off the helmet. Shaking her head and scratching at her brow with a gauntlet-clad fist, she sighed. Looking down at the seated Anderson, she tried a smile, but it was obviously brittle.

"Thank you, sir. For listening to me. And for..." She hesitated, looking away. Inhaling, she nodded to herself. "I'll do that. I'll make him proud."

Anderson nodded, standing up to extend a hand to her. She blinked at it, before accepting it gingerly and shaking hands.

"Best of luck, Ensign Shepard."

She nodded and then saluted him as she stepped out and began to run back to the villa. Anderson sighed as the shuttle door began to close.

" _Lifting off, sir. To the Hastings?"_

"Yes." Sitting down heavily, he replied. The he spoke quietly, voicing his thoughts with a whisper. "Life goes on as normal, regardless of the everyday tragedies."

" _...Sir?"_

"Nothing, Flight Lieutenant. Just the errant thoughts of someone feeling their age, nothing more."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya had went out and returned to the skycar quickly enough, never taking off the helmet until he had returned to the obscurity that its tinted windows provided.

Having eaten, he wiped his fingers clean as he savored the last bits of the sauce they had used in the sandwich. Piquant, yet not overbearing. Slightly salty, yet not too much so. It brought out the pickled cucumbers' flavor quite nicely. They had used some kind of cheese as a base, giving it a rich taste.

It was very _good_. He would have to look it up, the name was cheesily enough 'lunar sauce', as it was produced from beginning to end on the moon. Apparently, they used some form of locally produced synthetic milk to make it. The market apparently existed since the moon was still a tourist attraction and the old tales of the moon being made out of cheese gave it a good niche appeal.

He found that more than a little bit unusual, but it _was_ good.

Having bought a simple civilian-line omnitool, he quickly noted how much the complexity scaled down. It was about the relative price of a smartphone, as he had seen in the many middle-eastern open air bazaars while traveling there back in his time. Usually he would load up on them when he saw some, since he had a bad habit of breaking them during his fights.

The Aldrin Labs' _Bluewire Tool I_.

A rather basic omnitool and apparently a cheaper version of one of the ones he had picked up, something which he hoped would allow him to understand the other one better. It would suffice for now. He also specifically asked for the customer manuals in print, knowing he would be breaking this thing within a day.

Though, with all this he was beginning to run out of credits. Having only emptied the pockets of those he had slain, his resources at the moment were not very deep. The refuel, omnitool and food were already putting him quite near broke. He could probably try and hack himself some more credits or project something valuable and try to sell it, but he hesitated to go that far quite yet.

Even on Earth during his life, he had avoided simply projecting paper money or valuables as much as possible. It was for all intents and purposes fake goods and money, so it felt like he was cheating people when he used it. Certainly, one or two forged bills would be swallowed up by the system without a problem, but where did the line begin for where it began to affect people?

At what point would he be hurting people through his laziness? Could he justify it to himself, that he might be devaluing currency or causing inflation? Oh, the possibility of him causing it might be minimal to nonexistent.

But he might still be _contributing_ to it. He refused to take part in such a thing.

He knew that the banks could essentially create ten times the currency they nominally had for handing out loans, but he wasn't an economist and hadn't had the time to look into the matters exactly, so he wasn't sure how exactly they handled the consequences of such. Not quite knowing how it would affect things, he simply kept his nose clean and avoided it. Rin had once lectured him on the dangers of such, only to immediately suggest forging some artwork.

Emiya shook his head at the memory.

Then again, money had never been a problem for him. He could repair most anything with minimal time and tools, a valuable service everywhere, regardless of the time and place.

Sighing as he shook his head, he considered his current situation. Money was a _means_ , not an _end_. What he wanted to use money for was more important, right now. He needed to figure out those, first. As he saw it he currently had three goals.

Or rather, two goals and one condition.

Firstly, he had to cure his... _brain problem_ , whatever it was. Archimedes had been rather vague and Emiya hadn't found anything wrong with Structural Analysis of himself, but that might only mean that it was fine until he suddenly dropped dead. Like a dam that was holding back a million liters of water, until finally a small crack gave way and let loose it all in a torrent of fury and destruction.

Without a body, he would be but a wraith in the wind. His magical energy would sooner or later deplete and he would disappear. Of course, there were methods he could use to extend his existence in such a circumstance, given that his Independent Action skill would let him maintain himself to a degree. Already he had used it to great degree; lacking that skill, he would be effectively constantly stuck in his body.

Emiya considered the methods he knew about that he _could_ use if he wanted to live on in just his Servant body; like devouring the souls of sentient creatures and performing tantric rituals. But with such means, he would have to ask himself every day whether the price of tomorrow would be worth it. Worth whatever or _whoever_ he was sacrificing to keep going.

For souls, the closer it was to his own intelligence, the better it would be for consumption. He could devour animals, but those would only slow down the inevitable. For long term survival, it had to be _sapient_ creatures. In combat, it might be acceptable, but for every day? Forget simply trying to find people who he thought it was acceptable to kill and violate like that, he could barely fathom what it would do to _him_.

"No. I have no intention of devolving into a monstrous bloodsucker." He muttered to himself, taking a sip of his beverage.

And tantric rituals were _finicky_. For starters, the logistic of having to have sex every single day would get annoying. It would restrict his movements too much and keep him tied down to locations where he could find a sufficient number of willing partners. Settling down was not an option, either. It would cause irreparable harm to someone in the long term to have their life-force constantly drained. He wouldn't wish that on anyone. A powerful magus might be able to handle it, but those were in short order and even if by some miracle he found someone, it would give them disproportionate power over him along with all the other problems.

Moreover, he could not actually be certain that he would find a willing partner; he had only ever had the one lover and that relationship hadn't ended exactly on a happy note. And forcefully taking someone was utterly _unacceptable_. At that point, he might as well simply rip out their heart and devour it whole. It would even give him more magical energy, that way.

But tantric rituals were also problematic for _other_ reasons. For one, he would have to achieve simultaneous climax with his partner for optimal efficiency. For another, in the midst of such a ritual, it was possible for their souls to touch and for his spiritual imprint to affect any partner's.

Even Masters sometimes dreamed of their Servant's past. The intimacy coitus would bring, would be a hundredfold that. It seemed like an unnecessary risk, to be sleeping around and dropping hints of his true nature everywhere he went. And lastly, there was the boyish part of him; still rather sexually conservative, even for someone from his era, who thought such things weren't very proper. But he ignored that in his reasoning, refusing to admit that something like embarrassmentwould stop him.

No, keeping his body alive was his number one priority at this moment. Everything he did as a Servant required magical energy and having his body allowed him to reset his Independent Action, which had already proved vital.

Emiya closed his eyes, cycling through the weapons and artifacts he remembered inside of his world.

There were swords that could keep him on his legs until the last drop of blood had fallen from his veins; there were shields that could grant him immunity to all pain and fear; there were scythes that could drain the life force of others and use it to heal him. But nothing came to mind that could handle something wrong in his brain. Then again, he didn't even know _what_ it was that would kill him.

There were too many uncertainties.

Meaning he had to find specialized medical assistance and quickly. Which brought him to the condition for that to be possible; he could not stay within human territory.

For one, he was on the run from the military. For another, he was fairly certain he was in the crosshairs of a paramilitary organization of dubious affiliation and power, too. An organization, which had deep pockets and hidden connections to the aforementioned military.

This meant he had to get out of the Sol system, and possibly the local cluster as well. Which would not be easy, given how all travel would be bottle-necked through the Charon Relay.

His second goal also tied into that. He wanted to solve the mystery of Mars. But for that he needed to know more about the Protheans, those precursor aliens who had built a galaxy-spanning empire only to disappear suddenly fifty thousand years ago. They had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving only those he had found hiding themselves in a hole so deep that nothing should have been able to find them.

He had clues, he had hunches, but he would need more information before he could figure out anything else. The _gun_ weighed heavily in his mind; that call for help by someone just before they snuffed out their own lives, echoing through time.

Which meant he had to find out more about the Protheans. About the history of the galaxy in general, too.

At least he knew where to start.

He would begin at the Citadel, thinking it the best place to find both medical assistance and clues about how to further investigate the Protheans. Simply going to an alien species with more advanced technology would not probably help with his brain problem; they would not have the expertise and knowledge necessary for handling a human patient, most likely.

But on the Citadel, that mighty melting pot and meeting ground for all the major races of the galaxy, it was entirely possible for people with both the technology and the knowledge to help him to exist.

Emiya set down the napkin he had used for wiping his mouth as he put away the trash from all the food he had brought back. He would have to dispose of all that properly later, so that the food he had bought wouldn't be linked up to him. At least he had eaten enough to sate his hunger for now.

Thus, it was time for work.

* * *

;

* * *

A man sitting in a dark room frowned, squinting at the display before him.

He reached up to take the cigarette out of his mouth, inhaling slowly. Just enough to get the taste of smoke in his mouth, lighting up his eyes with the glowing ember at the end of the wrapped tobacco. Reaching over, he tapped away the ashes at the end of it as he considered the information before him.

Burnsfeldt had gone silent. This had only been noticed after he failed to check in at his normal post in N-school. One of his other associates dropped a word and he had sought to contact his operative.

Sought, being the keyword.

Here he now sat, looking at what little data was available to him. News reports. Police comms. Reports from his other operatives who had an ear on the ground in the Sol system. But even so, there was precious little to be had.

The omnitools had all been disabled. The safehouse had been sanitized _thoroughly_. The entire squad Burnsfeldt had requested had gone silent, the leader included. Some of those men would not be missed, but three of them were of some value. Burnsfeldt was one of them. Officer Cardotin was another. The operative that worked as an instructor in the Alliance basic training had been valuable as well, but more for his position than anything else.

He could be replaced. They all could.

But it would take time and money. Especially if this somehow leaked out and managed to poison the waters for Cerberus. He needed to contain this. Already several of his operatives were working to keep the worst of the dirt underground.

For a moment, he considered recalling Operative Lawson. She was an up-and-coming talent in the organization, already with several impressive successes to her name despite her youth. _No, her operation cannot wait._

He shook his head, rather given the recent vacancies in usable personnel, he would have to assign someone to that operation. _Hmm, yes. They should get along well enough, and it is about time they were introduced._

"Take it from the top..." He spoke to himself, taking a sip of his whiskey, the ice cubes clinking in the glass as a contrast to the silent shuffle of his bespoke suit.

"Fillion notices oddities in the subject. All records confirm his existence as one 'Shirou Emiya', yet they only stretch as far back as three months. Suspicious indeed." He eyed through the files that he had acquired. Once, he had been out there in the field. With gun in hand and a mission to accomplish.

But now he served by coordinating and planning. By leadership, rather than direct action.

"Finding a worrying pattern, he opted for immediate and direct action, extracting the subject from Ares Station in the middle of the night and moving him to a safehouse in Lowell City. So far, nothing stands out."

He reviewed the helmet footage. With the latest and last report by the operatives, he had received a full update with all the relevant files. They could not retain a secure live-feed at all times, since that would raise eyebrows. Even a mere conversation required heavy encryption and a short duration for any safety to be maintained.

Strapping down the subject to the interrogation chair in the reinforced and hidden basement, finally the first problems began to arise. As they injected the subject with a stimulant to counteract the tranquilizer used for quick and quiet extraction, nothing seemed to happen. These kinds of things happened, which was why the tranquilizer and stimulant had been tested repeatedly. This was also why Doctor Cardotin was such a valuable asset; his expertise in the area made him an expert when it came to quick interrogation.

He reviewed the footage from everyone, multiple times. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary, even as the hour stretched and the subject remained unconscious. Finally, he settled on the biomonitor feed from Cardotin's omnitool. He looked closely, trying to find something that stood out. Anything.

Finally, he noticed a change.

Suddenly, as if by the flick of a switch, there was brain activity. He narrowed his eyes, inhaling on the cigarette and enjoying the burn as he did.

"How _peculiar._ "

It wasn't anything sophisticated enough to say what a person was thinking about, but it did tell him that there was brain activity. It was a combined suite of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Magnetoencephalography and Electroencephalography, nothing more. He lacked the education to make any guesses as to what any of it meant in further detail, but it was something. He would forward it to an analyst and see if they could piece together something more. For now, he would look at the bigger picture.

And what a strange picture it was.

He looked it over several times, finally re-watching the entire interrogation, or what he had access to anyhow. Everything that had happened after Burnsfeldt had reported in was a mystery to him. _There,_ it _happened again._

" _'We know about the churches in Barcelona. Tell us where the rest of your cell is. Who is your contact?'_ "

Frowning, he listened to the conversation again. Burnsfeldt's voice spoke out and for just a moment, the subject seemed to be _'out of it'_ for the lack of a better term. And just at the same moment, a sudden spike in all brain activity seemed to occur. As if the entire brain had overclocked for an instant, before returning to normal.

"This is _it_ , then." He mused. "The subject was restrained and drugged. But upon hearing something in that question, he somehow called for help. Or the phrase activated a hidden mechanism, some form of hypnosis? Barcelona, the church..."

He frowned. It was strange, realizing that Burnsfeldt had perhaps been right in his initial assumptions, after all. But for the subject to be able to call for help would have required something that surpassed their technology. He had been nearly naked and scanned several times, before he woke up. That meant an outside player was getting involved in Earth politics. _Unacceptable. To so arrogantly strut into our territory. This will not stand._

He leaned back, taking a sip of his whiskey as he stared at the ceiling and let all of his thoughts flow around. The strange switch-like brain activity. The sudden surge. The Church. 'a dip in the grail', 'Kotomine'.

Perhaps Burnsfeldt had been more right than even he had known himself. The grail; the Sangreal; the blood of Christ. Usually imbibed in religious rituals, usually replaced by wine, in recreation of the last supper. But being 'dipped' in it? That must mean something.

A baptism usually occurred by a convert being dipped in water. Perhaps this genetic modification was hidden as a form of religious ritualism? A second baptism; in the blood of Christ to represent how they would tread in sin? To accept a path of self-sacrifice, in letting their bodies be so heavily tampered with. But the baptism usually also involved devouring a piece of the body of Christ as well. Perhaps that meant something _more_ was done.

The idea of the small, hard piece of bread in his mind. It rather reminded him of a small microchip. A chip capable of functioning as a hard switch for all brain activity? Able to communicate when certain keywords were activated?

That name, 'Kotomine' stood out as well. An authority figure? The scientist who performed the 'baptism' for him? The Japanese certainly had several noteworthy companies involved in biotechnology. An avenue worth investigating later.

Several notes Burnsfeldt had left behind stood out in his mind, then. How the subject hadn't seemed to ever lose control over himself. How he had through unknown means managed to fake a condition that took him out of the combat rosters. _Treating his body like a machine... Self-sacrifice to absolve Man of sin? It is almost... admirable._

He chuckled. This was all pure guesswork; worthless until he found something more substantial to base his decisions on.

After the subject proved himself to be too incoherent for a proper interrogation, they took a small break while injecting him with some medical scrubber. This would also act to neutralize some of the truth serum, but he lacked any footage to worry about having to doubt what was said under that condition. It also wasn't enough to neutralize the tranquilizers, thus the subject should have remained restrained.

Setting aside the stump of his cigarette, he considered the other reports. His operatives had arrived at the scene of the safehouse, finding it nearly melting from some form of fire that had been set inside of it. _That means some form of military-grade incendiary. And lots of it._

Yet none of the traffic cameras had spotted any unknown vehicle making for the safehouse at any point around the report coming in. Nor had he found anything afterwards to work with. Officer Cardotin's skycar had gone missing, but its beacons had been disabled. The skycar had been reported leaving the city according to Lowell Control, by flying straight up and out of atmo. With the driving VI, it was possible that the shuttle was filled to the brim or that it had been completely empty and was nothing more than a distraction.

It had supposedly flown off to the westerly direction and exited the city, after which Traffic Control ceased its tracking of the vehicle. It was _gone_. But it couldn't have gone far, given what it was. If it had carried passengers, it must have been flown somewhere else and had been abandoned once a starship had come and picked them up.

It wasn't a vehicle rated for traveling between planets, and staying on Mars after his cover had been destroyed would not be acceptable for any hypothetical undercover operative. He would have to look through the records to see if any suitable starships might have been in the area.

A daunting task, considering the mining operations ongoing in the asteroid belt at all hours of the day. He sighed, deciding that there was nothing to it but to simply do it.

His terminal chimed and he glanced at it.

An additional update, rated priority 2 in relation to this case. He inhaled, opening it and reading the header. "Footage taken from Ares Station, following extraction of serviceman Emiya."

Pushing the file, it opened and began to play. He blinked, looking at the terminal camera in what looked like a security center. A night guard was looking at the screens, obviously bored. _What is this—_

Suddenly, the guard's eyes glazed in the video and he went limp. The chair was pushed to the side and a _dark wraith_ rose out from the shadows. Clad in black, from head to toe. Like the darkness, pooling out from within the man who had just fallen unconscious, wearing a smooth matte black helmet, and an intricate-looking armor. The chest especially seemed almost ceremonial in design.

It had appeared from nowhere; none of the systems had seen anything.

Yet undoubtedly, it was a man. Tall, broad of shoulders and in excellent shape. The figure worked rapidly at the terminal, before fading away just as quietly as he had arrived, the guard waking up as if nothing at all had happened.

The video stopped and he had to contain the shiver running up his spine. Almost reflexively he performed a perimeter scan with his eyes, his cybernetic enhancement allowing him to see much more clearly. He sighed, chiding himself for the worry. _Still, carelessness will get you killed._ He ran a full security scan by his terminal, before he settled down again.

He recalled the video. The guard had gone out, as if a switch had been flipped in his head suddenly. He licked his lips, suddenly feeling them unusually dry.

"Just what are we dealing with here...?" He pondered as he went about to analyze the footage he had just received; the haptic interface seemed like a good place to start.

* * *

;

* * *

Here he was once again, floating inside the virtual ocean inside the omnitools. Or perhaps it was more accurate to call it an indoor pool, given how isolated it was.

Overhead and below, the great ring representing the omnitool itself, and beyond that to the left was a great wall of white. He ignored them, since he was too busy thinking about the omnitool he had been working on. It was one of the ones he had taken from the two who had been interrogating him; the two who had seemed like they knew what was going on.

Emiya sighed.

"What is this? An entirely different operating system? No, even more than that, it's like the system that's visible when using the haptic interface has nothing to do with the actual omnitool?"

Emiya shook his head, diving back out of the omnitool.

With the simpler device for comparison, it soon became obvious that both of the omnitools he had acquired from those two men was on a level beyond comparison in complexity. They looked similar enough on the surface level, but the inner workings and structures were completely different.

"They're _what_...? Running a second system on top to run the normal stuff, but have all of the tracking, surveillance and control systems embedded directly into the real system which is behind the first one?"

Emiya sighed. _No wonder nothing works after I pull it all out; everything else rests on those working. It's like pulling out the load-bearing walls of a house and expecting it to keep me dry after the ceilings collapsed!_

Like this, he would not be able to use the omnitools at all. He had already found several programs running a timer to when it would encrypt or wipe everything on the drives, requiring a regular reset by the original owners once a week to keep it from becoming just so much junk. Additionally, they were constantly trying to connect to something, which made him relieved that he had thought to isolate them so heavily.

But at least he had not found any physical self-destruct or explosion mechanisms wired up in the omnitools. That meant he could get rid of his steel block and just replace it with a Faraday pouch that blocked the signals. He had used such even back in his days with his cell phone and mobile equipment, but for this he would have to make it at least triple the thickness of the material to be sure that it would be properly isolated.

"What a mess." Emiya said, looking at the clock. He had been in Armstrong for almost half an hour now. He should get going soon, for if someone had noticed him they would undoubtedly be coming for him soon.

But there was still something he found interesting here. There had been mentions of a base in one of the mails he had read in some of the grunts' omnitools. In the context of being some sort of meeting ground or launching point, especially for those about to leave the sol system.

Was it perhaps the base on Ganymede they had mentioned, on one of Jupiter's moons? But how could he get there without raising too many eyebrows?

He faced the same issues now as he had earlier with Mars, only the scale was even larger. The needs were the same as were the problems. His short shuttle flight to the moon had already shown him how difficult it would be to get to the Charon Relay without a proper starship, but those were not quite as easy to acquire as a simple skycar. Stealing one would net him a lot of attention and make a clear trail for anyone looking for him to follow. Trying to hitchhike aboard one would be difficult as he had no idea where each starship would be going after the relay jump, and because weight aboard ships was carefully monitored due to the difficulties that existed in entering and exiting gravity wells.

And if commercial starline security was anything like airline security from his time, he doubted he would be able to pass through undetected due to his recent escapades.

But if there was a hidden base here, from where a clandestine outfit launched its operations from...

"Perhaps I can use that." He concluded.

It was an attractive option, serving multiple ends. He could get out of the system undetected, find out what this 'Cerberus' organization really was, figure out some of the things they had said and then use their resources for his own ends. Of course, infiltration of an organization like that was never that easy. But he had enough advantages available to him, which might just make it possible.

But for that, he would have to access one of the two more vital omnitools more deeply. And that was easier said than done.

They were encrypted from the get-go. Which meant that he could access and look at the data just fine. It just looked completely _wrong_. Simple encryption could be as basic as reversing all the letters in a word, or inserting a random letter after every vowel, to make it more difficult to read. For computers that worked with sequences and logical rules, the possibilities for encryption were practically _endless_.

Which meant that he would not be able to do anything about the data that was encrypted, not without the actual cipher for it. He could not reason what it did, what it was for, when it might have been created or modified, or if something had been deleted. Even with the super-advanced computers of today—even the largest and most powerful mainframes—the encryption methods available in _his_ day would have been enough to stop any brute force method of breaking the encryption. Dead in the water. And just as much as computers had advanced, so too had encryption methods and tricks.

Diving in did not change much in that regard. It was like looking at a digital picture where every pixel was randomized, creating nothing but indecipherable chaos.

Really, this was where the skill of the hacker came in. At least in his time. A large part of hacking— _or 'cracking' as it was originally called_ —a system was simply about finding a weakness to exploit, so that you could simply avoid the difficulties of taking it head on. Something which allowed you to bypass all the safeties and do what you wanted more easily. It could be something like an unexpected bug in code, that could be leveraged to compromise a system, or getting your hands on information such as where the physical hardware was located, or the password of someone who had access to the system.

Usually the largest weaknesses were always the _people who used the system_. Human beings were lazy and thoughtless as a rule, when you looked at it. If someone had to remember a dozen passwords, writing them down somewhere or using something personal as a basis for them, to make it easier to remember, seemed like an easy and convenient way to keep track of them all. Thus an encrypted system that could take centuries of brute force password guessing from a supercomputer, could be opened with a single day's work from a talented hacker.

Then again, usually Emiya was the one who had to do a day's work to collect the information to hand over, but he had learned a lot of useful skills there so he couldn't really complain.

But that had probably changed by now. As the obvious weaknesses are discovered with time, policies and protocols would be put in place to counter them by those who stood to suffer from hacking attempts. For example, force the users to make passwords with strict requirements, forbidding personnel to open or access mail or data from unknown senders, keeping systems out of a wider network to prevent intrusion or having physical hardware under lock and guard at all times.

Information security had been mindbogglingly complex even when he had been alive, and now they had had a century's worth of time to perfect those measures. And who knows what else had been learned from contact with advanced alien species who undoubtedly had their own methods and systems.

The methods he knew were probably antiquated and _quaint_ in the eyes of any security specialists who operated today.

Emiya scratched his head, looking at the omnitools.

But at least he had plenty of time to figure it out, even if he was in something of a hurry. An unusual thing he had noticed was that in here time seemed to flow a bit strangely.

Not in the expected ' _at a constant, but faster rate_ ' as one might think. Rather, when he did nothing at all, time seemed to stand still. No magical energy was expended, beyond the smallest trickle that was so minute as to be non-existent. And when he looked at the internal clocks, not even a microsecond had passed regardless of how long he waited. But it wasn't like time froze, either, as he had noticed before, that time did pass. He experimented with performing mental arithmetic, to see if the flow of time scaled with his own actions. To see if it would matter if he walked around inside the dark world, walking on the blue grid plane.

He counted them, each ten and a half steps across in regular squares. He walked ten thousand squares and checked the time again.

But nothing. Neither showed any results. It was actually rather unusual.

It was first when he started moving from one _thing_ to another _thing_ , that he began to notice time passing again. Then, as he began to operate and use the omnitool's functions, time seemed to continue flowing again. If at a much, much slower rate than in reality. And with it, so too seemed his magical energy consumption rise.

It was probable that he had a set amount of 'real' time he could spend in a dive, but that time would pass at different rates depending on what he was doing inside the computer.

Emiya vaguely remembered that the ' _brains_ ' of a computer was the central processing unit, which was a something like the microprocessor unit only much, _much_ more complex. That had also been back in _his_ time; the CPUs in the omnitools probably dwarfed anything that had been available in his time by several orders of magnitude in both power and complexity. _Gordon Moore, eat your heart out_.

He remembered that the measures which were used to rate such things roughly came down to two things. How many cycles could the device perform in one second; clock rate. And how many things it could do in a single second. The former was simple enough to measure in Hertz. The latter was a bit more complex, with a couple of different measurements used, none of which he could even remember anymore. _Floppies? Mips? Something like that._

"So does that mean that diving into a weaker system consumes more magical energy than diving into a high end one? That I'm forced to bear the burden of upholding a perceivable reality inside of a weaker machine, while in a stronger one I can just coast along?" He shook his head.

It was something to experiment on later; it seemed to line up with what he knew about the world egg theory, somewhat. It was actually quite fascinating, even if he had never been an academic.

Opening a folder and cycling through every file inside of it a dozen times caused time to pass at a noticeable rate as the seconds ticked by. Which was rather impressive, considering the folder was several terabytes in size, at least. Then again, he wasn't pulling it out on display on a graphical user interface, merely looking at it from within, so perhaps that cut down on the processing time? He wasn't sure about the architecture, so it was difficult to say. Maybe he was directly accessing the data in the permanent memory while it normally had to be brought up into the working memory or the cache to be viewed, which affected how long it took?

"So does as much time pass as it takes for however many cycles is necessary to pass, or is it for how long it takes for the actual operation to be completed? Or was there even a difference? How many floppies is it if I open a vid?" Emiya wondered, before shaking his head. "No, those were the save button icons. Or was that diskettes? Floaps? Flops?"

He was distracting himself, as he hadn't found anything that could help him get a reasonable look at anything important or useful despite trying to find a solution for... He wasn't actually sure how long he had been in here. But for a considerable amount of time. Sighing, he rubbed his brow. A chime could be heard, muddled and distant and he looked up.

Something zoomed past him and Emiya had to blink.

It was the first time he had seen something moving inside of this omnitool by itself. He turned to look at the thing and realized after a second that it was some kind of program. Moving forward, he took a closer look at it.

A blue sphere of shifting panes of light with a smaller white core, holding rows of data on those panes as it continued to float about. It didn't seem to notice him at all. But it seemed rather complex. Almost intelligent.

"A VI?"

He hadn't ever actually looked into those things, simply taking them for granted. Essentially smart and relatively adaptable programs. They were apparently in use everywhere, as humans had something of an affinity for them with their innate laziness. He understood that there was some distinction between a VI, _Virtual Intelligence,_ and an AI, an _Artificial Intelligence,_ but he wasn't a hundred percent certain on the strict definitions. Apparently there were laws in place against the latter, though he wasn't sure exactly why. There were plenty of AI in the Moon Cell, though only a few were actually pleasant company.

Emiya had had a tendency of running into AI modeled after people he had known in life, in the Moon Cell. He wasn't sure if that was a practical joke by the Automaton, or if it was still observing him and seeing how he reacted to what it threw at him. _Given how rarely I've been employed, it wouldn't surprise me if I am just a glorified test rat._

Mostly his duties— _when he had such, anyhow_ —had been to put down such high-level AI, who _could_ go out of control, and over whom the Moon Cell had relinquished direct deletion rights for some reason or another. A lot of the times, the messes he had to clean up felt like they could have been rather _easily_ prevented with the most basic of oversight from someone with any foresight or common sense. But the Moon Cell was adamant in its refusal to become intelligent, even as it handed out sapience to many of its high-level programs like it was cheap candy or something.

The AI he had met had been thinking, feeling and acting beings, that seemed no different from humans to him.

This thing was not an AI though, obviously.

For one, it didn't seem to even perceive him at all. It was more like an Attack Program in that regard. The rogue AI used such things often enough as their pawns for him to be somewhat familiar with them. Those things could not think or even act independently, beyond relatively simple functions, lacking anything resembling a mind or a soul. Even in combat, at most they simply ran around and attempted to attack through crude methods that could be handled easily enough by even a novice.

But it wouldn't do to simply assume something.

"Hey." He spoke, willing the sound to reach the VI as he did.

It turned to perceive him, before turning back around. How Emiya could tell that it had turned and perceived him, he wasn't sure, since it hadn't actually moved. But it seemed that it was not within its programmed parameters to be able to react to anything unexpected within the system like this. Perhaps a measure to make sure it did not expand outside of its original purpose? He wasn't sure exactly how one went about making a true AI, but he assumed letting it learn how to react and adapt to things would probably be on such a list.

Emiya blinked, noticing that the VI continued to moved around, organizing and sorting bits of the _stuff_ which he perceived when he looked at the encrypted data.

"It has the encryption key?"

That should mean it would be possible for him to be able to do something with the data, after all. He wasn't sure if the program itself was encrypted and working somehow despite that, or if it was something else. But it represented an 'in', something which he hadn't been able to find at all, while trying to figure this place out earlier. For a second, he considered taking it apart and seeing if something would appear, like a key that would simply turn everything coherent.

That felt like it had _some_ logic to it; like a game of sorts. Defeat the enemy, receive what you need.

But then he hesitated, looking at the harmless ball floating around and ordering around data without a care in the world. He had no guarantees that taking this thing apart _would_ yield any results, and it might just lose him the one mean he had to interacting with the omnitool at large. There was also a part of him that felt like it would be like tearing apart a little puppy because it had swallowed his car keys.

No, he could still try other things.

"Hey, you. _Stop_." Emiya moved up to it and place a hand on it. The VI tried to move, only to realize it was stuck and could not. To Emiya, the VI's movements felt like the resistance a light breeze would offer when you held onto a piece of paper. "Can you understand me?"

The VI turned around and looked at him again, before trying to leave. He suddenly felt very silly for having tried talking to it directly.

"Enough." He said, extending more magical energy into the connection and forcing it to create a connection with the VI. It seemed to be startled, before turning back to him again and—

01001111 01100010 01110011 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001010 01110000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001010 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100101 01100011 01110100 00001010 01110010 01100101 01110001 01110101 01100101 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01100001 01100110 01100101 01100111 01110101 01100001 01110010 01100100 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110100 01101111 01100011 01101111 01101100 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001010 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100101 01100011 01110100 00001010 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101101 01110000 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100011 01101111 01101110 01100100 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110100 01101111 01100011 01101111 01101100 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001010 01100110 01100001 01101001 01101100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01100101 00001010 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001010 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100

Emiya blinked. _That seemed to do... something. Though I have no idea what._ He shook his head, trying to get rid of the inflow of sudden noise the VI was throwing at him through the connection.A completely incomprehensible noise, like an irregular but repeating staccato beat. It actually made his teeth ache a little, as if someone was pressing a tuning fork to his face.

"What are you doing?"

The VI rippled, panes shifting about as it seemed to be struggling with getting a handle on this situation. It tried to send another similar burst of ' _noise_ ' at him, but he waved it aside with his hand instinctively before it could come through. Another peculiarity about this place, he realized; he could wave aside 'sounds'.

Emiya frowned, then closed his eyes and focused. _I should try to make this thing think I'm using the omnitool like normal, see if that changes anything._ A screen appeared, floating above the VI. On it a glowing female figure appeared in the same blue glow as the floating orb.

"What are you doing?" He repeated again and the VI finally seemed to not just notice him, but understand what it was dealing with.

"Unauthorized access detected. This omnitool is for the personal use of Joseppi Cardotin only. Cease and desist immediately or the police will be contacted. Any tampering, deletion, access or attempt at tampering, deletion or access of data, attempted use of applications, information or meta-information on this device is a class 2 felony under the cyber-crime article—"

Emiya ignored the rest. It was progress, but he was still being stonewalled by this thing. Well, at least now he could _understand_ that it was stonewalling him. Glancing at a clock, he noticed that time was running much faster now. At this rate, a whole ten seconds might pass soon enough.

"Running the holograms and the haptic interface must be a real processor hog, huh." He noted.

It seemed to support his theory about the passage of time being related to how much the omnitool was processing. Or perhaps how much of what it was doing he was witnessing?

"Cease and desist or this platform will be forced to contact the local law enforcement and—" The VI continued as it repeated parts of its earlier speech, threatening him again.

"So how do I turn this thing into something I can use?" He wondered, crossing his arms and cupping his chin thoughtfully.

On the Moon Cell, programs and magic weren't too different from each other. Spells and code could both be brought under the umbrella term of 'codecasts' on the moon. He hadn't actually seen it, but wouldn't that also mean noble phantasms could be brought under that classification?

Noble phantasms were crystallized legends; self-contained and functional pieces which replicated a legendary feat, skill or event under the right circumstances. They were wholly different from foundation-based magic or belief-based systems such as the Church's sacraments, or even the old systems of magic which relied on the powers of the divine spirits. They were also obviously different from programs which ran on code, written to cause a specific function to occur.

But still, it was the best idea he had right now. Focusing, he closed his eyes.

"—Trace, _on"—begin importing asset, assessing functionality, converting for virtual space,_

He exhaled, opening his eyes and looked at the jagged dagger in his hand.

Rule Breaker; the cursed blade that was brought forth as the noble phantasm of the Witch of Betrayal, Medea of Colchis. He had only seen it in passing during his life, but on the moon with nothing but time on his hands, he had been going through the weapons in his reality marble.

If he hadn't been so bereft of anything to do, he would have probably never realized its true potential. The witch had died within minutes of appearing before him and he had only realized his ability to replicate items years later, after all.

Emiya turned to look at the VI that was still lecturing him about what would happen to him if he did not stop using the omnitool, threatening him with legal action now. He shrugged and flipped the dagger in his hand to an ice-pick grip. He raised his arms and looked at the VI. _Here goes nothing..._

He brought down the blade. "Rule Breaker!"

The VI did not even try to dodge, having no frame of reference for being stabbed, much less for a mystical dagger that nullified all contracts. He was fairly sure that in the real world it would not do much of anything if he stabbed an omnitool with this noble phantasm. But inside this virtual reality, shaped so strongly by his perceptions, so alike the SERAPH on the moon?

He had a smidgen of hope that it might just work.

The world around them rippled, as if the surface of water disturbed by something breaking through, only in four dimensions. He felt like he was almost jarred loose and out of the dive, but held on with gritted teeth until the sensation passed.

Around him, the digital ocean calmed itself as the wave passed.

Opening his eyes he looked at the VI. It had gone quiet, at least. He reached out to it with a hand and his magical energy again.

"Hello?"

It suddenly whirred to life, the blank slates spinning around quickly as the white core expanded and shrunk rapidly, pulsating as the display above it began to form anew.

"Hello and thank you for purchasing the Aldrin Labs mark sixteen personal assistant VirtuaI Intelligence. Aldrin Labs is a leading manufacturer of omnitools, Virtual Intelligences for high-performance needs, software and—"

"Skip." Emiya said and the VI seemed to blink for a moment as it did as told. This wasn't _quite_ what he had hoped to accomplish, as he had been aiming for shifted loyalties, rather than a full reset. But if the property of 'undone with no harm' applied, then hopefully the rest of the omnitool would be fine. _Oh well, done is done._

"Would you like to take part in the Aldrin Labs customer feedback system, where a certain amount of user information may be forwarded along with meta-data and telemetry—"

"No. Skip." Emiya said without hesitation.

The VI blinked again and if he did not know any better, he thought it might have seemed annoyed at him. It was actually surprisingly personable like this, though he still noticed how limited its actions appeared.

"Please fill in all relevant data to being using this Virtual Intelligence software; thank you for purchasing the Aldrin Labs mark sixteen personal assistant VI, we hope to hear from you again. _Error_. Non-standard operating system detected, incompatible plug-ins detected, unrecognized drivers detected. Connecting to home server for assistance... _Failed:_ connection timed out."

Emiya blinked as he looked at the VI as it seemed to freeze in place, handling the slew of errors it was encountering. He frowned, noting "You handled it before just fine."

The VI's human-like behavior seemed to activate again at that.

"Requesting clarification: is this a re-install of the Virtual Intelligence upon a system where it or another Virtual Intelligence has been previous installed?"

Emiya raised an eyebrow. "Uh, yes?"

"If you wish to perform a complete re-install, please denote any and all priority files for immediate use before the first boot, to simplify and hasten re-installation." It seemed to scold him, though its polite tone did not change at all.

"Duly noted." He grinned at it playfully. "But can you figure it out?"

"Performing full system scan, now. This may take up to several hours, depending on partitioning of drives, fragmentation or corruption of data, and how much of the maximum capacity is currently in use. Certain data may be lost during this process, as a full system copy is necessary; please back up all vital data before initiating this process." It chimed, before disappearing in the display and being replaced by a prompt with two options.

"Well, refusing here will just put me back in square one." He shrugged, pushing the 'accept' button with a finger. A spinning ball that he presumed represented that it was busy working right now, appeared.

Under it was a simple prediction regarding how long it would still take.

' _4 hours 31 minutes 54 seconds remaining_ '

Emiya blinked.

"Huh. Not even _magic_ can make loading screens disappear."

* * *

;

* * *

Juha Kolkkonen exhaled slowly, feeling the air coming out of his mouth tickling his nose inside the helmet.

He almost wanted to take the damn thing off, despite the atmosphere on Mars being what it was. He despised worlds such as this one, where the atmosphere was so inhospitable as to necessitate wearing a suit at all times when outside. He looked around, kicking lightly at a pile of cooled slag, hardened into a pile of who-knew-what.

The moment the omnitool of the missing technician had been turned on, it had received a signal to announce its location to Alliance personnel. At first, Kolkkonen had thought it a lucky break; that someone had screwed up or that the serviceman had somehow escaped. That was until he arrived at the scene and found the young N1 and the famed N7 performing an _off-the-books_ investigation of their own.

He had taken them into custody for all of five minutes, citing obstruction of justice and meddling in an ongoing investigation, but upon checking their omnitool logs, and the shuttle and Ares Station records, he couldn't find anything wrong in their behavior per se. They hadn't been doing anything strictly forbidden, even if their motive was plain as day.

So he had let them off, interviewed them and then told them to stay out of trouble. Neither was related to his case, as far as he could tell.

Ashford was outside, still coordinating the recently arrived forensics team to scour the surroundings. The insides were a complete lost cause, after all. With advances in forensic technology, it was amazing what could be gleaned from even the smallest sample. But even that had limits to it.

A burned body could be analyzed and a DNA sample could be re-constructed to match to existing records or to create a simulated appearance. Buried evidence could be located using advanced scans that noticed the irregularity of most anything and could detect even the most minute changes in an environment. Virtual Intelligences could analyze and simulate most every scenario given sufficient data, creating sets of possibilities of what could have happened on any scene.

But none of that could help them here. It was all useless now.

"Damn it." He cursed, kicking at another pile.

According to their best assessments, there had been three people here, at least. Of course, given that that was all based on the remains of individual hardsuits, it was still nothing more than a wild guess. Meaning this lead had grown completely cold.

Then again, it had been a longshot.

Two weeks prior, there had been a break in into an Alliance office on Gagarin Station. Nothing had apparently been stolen, but the surveillance system had a small _glitch_ in it, that lead the higher ups to believe that someone had broken in and used the terminals there without permission.

The systems used the latest in visual analytic VIs, using Photo Trap-methodology to compare two snapshots and see if anything had been moved. It was potent enough that if one took a photo of a lawn of grass and then walked across it and back, the Photo Trap would be able to detect any and all blades of grass that had been moved, allowing one to follow the footsteps as an obvious trail.

Of course, out in the field this had limited applications as one rarely had pictures of everything ready, and even if one had they would have to be updated so often as to invalidate the concept entirely. If you had to have constant updates for accurate reference, just have a damn camera and a security VI instead.

But in high security installations where the facility had to be locked down for the night? It was perfect. Throwing it in a closed system that simply could not be tampered with at all until morning came and the guards checked in, and one had a cheap and reliable system that could tell the smallest change in a room.

The evidence had been clear, a chair had been sat in, the carpet had been walked over, a single pen was out of place and a sheaf of paper was missing. Someone had sat by the terminals and accessed the system, despite all other systems clearly arguing that that had not been the case at all.

As soon as the Alliance realized one of its research installations had been ghosted by someone, they called in the investigators. That was where he came in, as a Special Investigator for the Alliance Intelligence Agency. Officially, he was a part of the department of internal affairs right now, but that was merely to facilitate a smoother investigation with the locals. Really, his position in _the firm_ could at best be described as _fluid_.

He had arrived at Mars shortly after interviewing the relevant parties on Earth, his top of the line starship fast enough to make the distance next to none.

On Mars, a second Alliance facility had apparently been ghosted by someone in the last 24 hours. It was a much lower security base, certainly, and what was missing afterwards was completely different in nature, but it was the only lead they had at this moment. After all, how many infiltrators of that level of skill could be in the solar system?

Sighing again with disgust, he turned around and walked out. At the hole punched through the wall—since all the doors and windows had melted shut—he had to climb up a ladder to get back out. He looked around, scowling at the dull brown sky and wanting nothing more than to be gone already. _I need to go back and grill them at Gagarin Station harder. They were holding out on me; there has to be something more to this case._

Walking up to his partner, Ashford, he nodded for them to walk a bit away from the rest. Tuning their comms to an encrypted channel, they shook hands to allow their palms to connect, and then began to talk. With the encryption key randomized and shared only through a specially made data port on their palms, safety at this moment was as high as it could be.

"Found anything outside?" No one would be able to listen in to them right now, as the key was 2048 bits long and had been randomly generated just now and shared through only that physical channel.

"No." Ashford said, not shaking his head as he answered. Their masks prevented lip reading, but it was possible for someone to gleam something from overly expressive body language, a technique that was used often in conjunction with analytic VIs to great effect. "Too many people contaminating the scene and the wind's erased most everything here, anyway. Cameras were useless, as expected. What about the inside?"

"Hopeless. How did we miss this? And what's the connection between this N6 and a fresh technician?"

"The technician, Shirou Emiya was personally invited by the N6, Fillion Burnsfeldt, to join the N-school. That aside, no connection on record."

"N-school?" Juha blinked, looking at his partner. Then he chided himself, consciously relaxing to keep his body language as neutral as possible. He was better than this; though it had been a rather shocking revelation.

"Yeah. Had a medical condition that got him sent to Mars instead. Shitty luck, I guess." Ashford spoke.

"Why didn't this show up earlier on his records, when we went to Ares Station?"

"It was just an invite; didn't even go to the tests or anything. Weird case."

Kolkkonen frowned, feeling _something_ out of place with that, but not quite able to put his finger on _what._ "Alright, did the palm prints we got from the helmeted guy using the terminal get any hits?"

He had some hope for that. It was a little known fact that most any haptic adaptive interface read your finger and palm prints every time you used them. It was what allowed the Citadel-standard palm-print readers to work, even with armored gauntlets on. And also what gave them the edge they needed in tracking down cyber-crime quickly, when it came to casual offenders.

Humanity had quickly and happily introduced the standard to their own tech, adapting the existing protocols for their own use. The Alliance Intelligence Agency had had a field day with that, once it was implemented. When their mystery man in black had shown up from nowhere and used the Ares Station terminal, he had left his prints in the system.

A fact which they had immediately capitalized on.

"Partial prints only, like we noted. Too worn out and poor for any decent scan; it's like the guy's hands are worn-out leather or something. Like he sand-belts them every day, or something. Wouldn't even hold up in court if we _did_ find the guy. Ran them anyhow. Failed to find any matches for obvious reasons." Ashford spoke.

"Shit. Well, I assumed as much. It was too big of a lucky break from someone who could ghost their way in without tripping a single alarm."

Ashford concurred. "Yeah. Seems like a red herring or a taunt to me from the start."

Kolkkonen made a noise of understanding, inhaling slowly as he considered what he knew. "Let's assume we have _two_ perps; that Ares Station and Gagarin Station aren't related."

"Two people with the skills to infiltrate a place under Navy guard in one system, weeks apart? Seems unlikely."

"Sure, but we've no proof of any connection between the cases either."

Ashford nodded. "Right. Okay, we don't know jack about GS's motive, since they're not telling us shit."

"GS? Right, _Gagarin_. What about the AS perp? Motive?"

"The technician obviously. Nothing else was even touched. Unless someone broke in just to tip over a few crates and read through the security logs." Ashford replied immediately.

"Right; we know he's hot stuff. The kind of material that could get anywhere, but chooses this place in all the galaxy. Was he looking for something here, or hiding from something? Did you run a background check?" Kolkkonen pondered out aloud.

"Yeah, got nothing before enlistment. Then again, _street urchin_." Ashford said, as if that it couldn't be helped.

"Well, the AS perp kidnapped or picked up this 'Emiya' for some reason, in the middle of the damn night. Recruiting a new talent? Leave behind the omnitool as a red herring? Probably depends on how the techie kid reacted. Could have gotten a bullet in the head and been left to burn for all we know."

"Yeah. No proof of life of him since." Ashford agreed.

"Think they guy on camera is someone else? A third party?"

Ashford disagreed immediately. "Two ghosters I can buy, but _three_? That stretches probability a little bit too much. One of them could be the AS perp?"

"What about Burnsfeldt. He's been missing since the inauguration party, according to the records. Anything on him? Like how did his shuttle get here?" Kolkkonen asked.

"Lowell City Traffic Control doesn't have any record on the man arriving, they didn't have any idea when he could have shown up. Then again, he _is_ the foremost infiltration expert when it comes to hacking. He does fit the bill for a guy who could do the break ins."

"What does his record say?"

"Apparently he's done a lot of penetration testing on high security facilities. Classified stuff, but he's pretty highly rated by the big wigs." Ashford replied.

" _Really_. Could he be our man? He certainly has the technical skills necessary for such a ghosting. And he was within spitting distance from Ares Station, as it turns out." Kolkkonen mused.

"No, I doubt it." Ashford denied that possibility. "I checked his records. He hasn't been anywhere near Gagarin Station during the time of the first break in."

"Like that means anything. He could have been sitting in a hot tub on Earth and still cracked the system. Send in a drone by mail package and have it perform whatever he needs." Kolkkonen objected.

"Hmm. Point."

"But let's assume our mystery man in black is the GS perp, since Burnsfeldt lacks motive and has an alibi. With the time window, it seems like the guy showed up _after_ the techie was taken." Kolkkonen thought out loud.

"A partner of some kind? Realizing something had happened and picking up the trail?"

"Could be. We need to figure out where the hell these guys came from and where they went." Kolkkonen said.

"But we're not going to figure out anything here. What next?"

Kolkkonen considered that, before inhaling as he thought of something.

"Put an APB on the owner of the house, too. Have the two other ones picked up anything yet?" Kolkkonen asked.

"No. Their credit accounts and mail are under three-step surveillance, but nothing so far. Then again, with the Burnsfeldt's shuttle just _appearing_ here, I doubt we would find the man, assuming he is still even alive."

"Fucking fire. Forensics analysis reveal what it was? Never seen anything like it."

"No chemical traces or radiation markers found. It's something completely new and untraceable." Ashford answered.

"Tch. Alright, we're going to Gagarin Station again and drilling those pencil-neck coders again. They're holding out on us, big time. We need to figure out what GS's motive was, maybe there's a link."

"Alright, I'll call the shuttle in." Ashford noted and pulled out his omnitool. Their advanced flight VI would be able to pick them up and then they could jump aboard and fly away. "I'll put up the All Points Bulletin now. Make it planet-wide or system-wide for physical markers?"

Kolkkonen considered.

"Let's make it the whole system. There'll be a lag, but maybe we'll find a lead. Who knows, maybe they've flown into Luna or something."

Ashford chuckled. "As if we'd be so lucky."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled as he opened his eyes, noting that he had returned to his body.

With the reset VI still doing its thing, there was no point in staying there to wait. It would be fine inside of the Faraday pouch he had made, while he was in the real world. It would save magical energy if nothing else.

A little less than a minute had passed since he dived in, mostly from interacting with the VI. Which meant he had still only been roughly half an hour in Armstrong. He frowned, reaching to the backseat of the skycar and pulling up the rest of the omnitools, and wondered what to do with them. They were all more or less valuable and light, but he didn't really have pockets at the moment for all of the stuff once he left the skycar. Which he had to do, since it was a glowing beacon for anyone trying to investigate the house he had been kidnapped to.

The omnitools were something of an inconvenience. He couldn't just wear them all, nor did he have pockets or pouches to put them into. The environment suit hadn't been designed for anything like that.

Additionally, carrying all the guns would be a problem, so he decided to just leave them behind. Instead, he would take one of the better pistols and a rifle with him. Right now, he could simply dive in to hack them to make them usable. Though he would have to turn off the aim assist since he lacked a military-spec hardsuit to link it up to, but that wasn't really a problem.

As long as it shot consistently straight, he could handle it himself. Even like this, the built in computer would handle a lot of calculations to negate environmental factors.

Ignoring the rest of guns in the back, he began to prepare the skycar for launch again. Staying any longer wasn't a good idea. He had looked around inside the settlement and had been relieved to have been wearing his helmet the whole time, even if it drew him some attention.

In the 21st century, there had been a handful of cities where he had usually avoided all activities for one simple reason. Security cameras. Chongqing, Beijing, New York, Chicago and London came to mind but there were lesser examples as well. Simply put, the amount and spread of cameras in those cities was such that from the moment you entered the city to the moment you left, it was entirely possible for your every movement to be monitored and recorded.

Lowell City had had traffic cameras, but those were supplementary to the traffic control system and did not cover _everything_. On Armstrong, that wasn't the case. He couldn't find a single surveillance-free location during his short jaunt inside.

Which meant that he could not stay while he was so easily linked to the stolen skycar. Perhaps he could dive in and delete all the footage he could find, but that would attract attention. Better to misdirect and avoid such overt moves.

At this range, the _Suave_ could handle flying to Earth just fine. It might crash-land, but that was fine, since once he was on the ground he would be able to disappear much more easily than here on the moon. He turned on the engines, locking the doors as he punched in some coordinates in the flight VI outside the settlement, which caused it to start hovering in the air and to begin moving out.

Still, he needed some new clothes. He had been seen in this environment suit, walking around inside in plain view. Sighing, he closed his eyes and projected an old and familiar garment. His old longcoat appeared in his hands and he looked at it with a nostalgic smile for a short moment, before he put it on inside the skycar. It was a little bit big for his current body, still, just as the skycar was a little bit too small to be changing clothes inside, but he managed. It felt familiar and comforting as he put it on, even over the environment suit he was wearing.

It reminded him of simpler days. _Fitting, since I'm starting this journey anew, huh._

Made out of black synthetic fibers that had been treated with shear-thickening fluid—except for the joints where he needed mobility—it was pretty effective when it came to personal defense. Even if he had abandoned the idea for his later designs, it wasn't bad per se. It was an early project, from before he finalized his alternating diamene weave. The thing that he right now wanted from it, was that it had large pockets on both the inside and outside, allowing him to store away the Faraday pouches and the omnitools. Additionally, there were loops and pockets on the inside, for the purpose of hiding guns when he lacked free holsters.

It had been a common enough occurrence for him to pick up guns on the fly, and store them in his longcoat as he moved around on a battlefield.

Reaching back, he grabbed two pistols and a rifle. He placed the two pistols by his stomach, allowing them to settle into the loops that hid them inside the folds of the black cloth. They were snugly hanging by his lower ribs, out of view from the front, and not visible on his silhouette by the contours of the longcoat. It didn't particularly allow any quick draws, but that should be fine for now.

The rifle he placed into a loop next to his leg, just below one of the pistols. It would weigh down the longcoat in a suspicious manner, but it allowed him to keep his hands free. Then he took the oxygen capsules to his environment suit and put them into the rest of his pockets, closing each with care. He still needed them, after all.

As the skycar rose up and began to move out, Emiya looked around.

The shuttle bay was still completely empty. Armstrong Control did not seem to care too much about him leaving right now either. He considered the skycar he would be abandoning soon. It would work as a decoy, giving him some time to avoid any pursuers. He had almost grown attached to the thing, thinking about all that he had done in it on the way over. It also made him realize that he might have a chance to think and make his _own_ starship sometime in the future, assuming he survived long enough.

Grinning slightly at that thought with anticipation, he shook his head.

 _Next time, I'll do a better job_. _But for now, I need to vanish_ , he thought as he exited the shuttle bay the way he had come in originally.

Flying outwards, he passed through the shuttle bay's bubble-like outer perimeter. Immediately, the console on the dashboard began to bleed with an incoming call.

"Hello." He answered cheerfully.

"... _Suave-450-CRB, this is Armstrong Control, please note of your departure prior to take off as per flight regulation. An unscheduled departure is a traffic misdemeanor and_ _a second strike will be added to your record, which—"_

"Sure, sure." He answered and closed it. He really should read up on flight regulations, but for now getting their attention so that they had on record that he had _left_ was fine.

He started flying outward, following the moon's surface as he dialed down the power so it was just keeping him at a hover, allowing the earlier thrust to keep him moving. Slowly, he continued putting in less and less power, hoping that this would help him disappear from Armstrong Control's notice.

Making it around a mountain that hid Armstrong behind it, he continued on. After some 150 kilometers of flight, he finally began to slow down. It was actually surprisingly difficult to come to a stop in a void with a hovercraft since there was no air resistance, which meant he had to skid on the ground to come to a halt, which made him wince a little. _That'll scratch the paint._

Parking and turning down everything, Emiya considered his plans. For now, he needed to cover his tracks without being too obvious and then sort out his options.

Taking out the Faraday pouch with the omnitool, still busily updating itself, Emiya extended a hand.

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

He dove right in, ignoring the sensations as immaterial.

It had been shocking at the first and somewhat novel after a while, but now they didn't even really register beyond the intellectual. He had been shoving metaphysical glowing hot, molten iron rods into his spine every night voluntarily since he was nine years old.

Really, at this point pain wasn't really something he bothered to notice any more.

He arrived in the digital world of the beyond. Looking up to the side, he noted the giant wall of white again. Regardless of what or where he dove, it would still be there as long as he was near the moon. Looming. Shining white. Overwhelming in its size and power.

The _Moon Cell_. He could just _reach out_ and be inside that place again. SERAPH's first layers were easy enough to access and there he would not expend any magical energy to maintain his existence. In orbit, he could just dive into something and _there_ it was, which was how he had entered originally. Even through his Faraday pouch, which should have isolated the omnitool completely from the rest of the world. The skycar and Armstrong Control certainly were.

He shook his head, ignoring it for now.

Checking up on the VI, he found it still sorting through its files and ignoring any of his attempts at asking for updates on its progress. Shrugging, he dove back out and looked at his unconscious body sitting in the skycar as he had appeared in his spiritualized state.

"Hmm. I should do something about that."

Emiya inhaled and closed his eyes as he brought up a familiar weapon into his mind's eye. Modifying the shape of most weapons was a bit problematic, since that would affect their structure.

He _could_ append the change in shape afterwards as if he had physically bent them by force—like he had with the ice sword noble phantasm—but that would weaken the weapon considerably. Much like how bending a sword would cause metal fatigue, so too would new changes to a replication diverge it from the original. Altering the structure of a weapon was more of an art at this point, he had realized. Sometimes it was worth it, sometimes the drop in power or efficiency made it worthless.

There were some weapons, however, which could be more easily changed with his methods.

Gan Jiang and Mo Ye's namesake Kanshou and Bakuya, for instance. For now, he simply created the form of a anklet in the mould in his mind and _poured_ the sword out.

"—Trace, _on"—being projection,_

The white ring-shaped Bakuya appeared around his body's leg in a flash of light and sparks. It would not be possible to remove, without considerably effort. With this, he had a rudimentary way of finding himself. The husband would always seek out the wife, after all.

Emiya materialized and grabbed his body, tossing it over his shoulder. Reaching in, he took the bag of trash and made sure that he hadn't left behind anything in the shuttle. There could be nothing here that could link it to him; no fingerprints, no DNA, nothing. After a thorough scan of the skycar, he considered it good enough. He looked around until he found some suitable cover and then leaped over two hundred meters in a single bound.

 _That should make it more difficult for anyone to find my body if they track down the car before I get back_. He thought as he put himself down on the ground between two rocks. Quickly checking that the environment suit was still fine and how much oxygen he still had, Emiya then lifted a third rock and hid his body. It was like a three sided pyramid. He almost felt like a pharaoh.

Fact was, he didn't have a lot of information right now. He knew where he wanted to go—the Citadel—but he didn't know _how_ to get there and _who_ he needed to be avoiding as he did.

Emiya looked at the skycar parked two hundred meters away, in the middle of nothing. He would have to part with it soon, but he didn't know if he wanted to stay on the moon where some Cerberus base was apparently located or whether he wanted to ride back to Earth and try to find a starship heading for the Citadel there. Thus, he still needed the skycar for now. Which meant that he should wait for the omnitool to finish rebooting, so that he could gleam information out of it and then decide.

But that put him at risk of being tracked, since the skycar _was_ stolen and was linked to one of the people he had killed in some form. He wasn't sure who would be coming for him, but he might as well find out.

Which meant he had to return in his spiritual body and infiltrate Armstrong Control.

"Nothing to it but just doing it." Emiya mused, spiritualizing and turning around to run.

Mars had been a dull brown; a planet of never-ending desert. A dead world. Luna wasn't much different, really. It was just white. Just like on Mars, the gravity was much weaker which made it somewhat difficult to keep moving. He had seen the videos of astronauts making short hops to move forward in his life, but it did not seem to be working for him very well.

So, he took long leaps. Single bounds crossing vast distances as he glided through the void. Around his waist, his red mantle seemed to be moving in some phantom wind, despite the lack of an atmosphere. It fluttered, as if being pushed back, and he tried really hard not to think about it too much.

A short while, he landed through the protective dome around Armstrong. Looking around, he noted that nothing had changed inside. People were still walking around, the lights were on and business was as usual. Not that he had expected anything different.

He looked up and found a security camera, nodding to himself as he jumped up to it and uttered the aria.

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

Emiya dove right in and began to look around. He found the system the camera was hooked up to immediately. Following it, he found the internal security center, where people were bustling about and keeping the settlement running. Looking around and checking the feeds and VI activity logs, he noted that no one seemed to have noticed him leaving the settlement earlier in the skycar. Meaning they hadn't been paying him any special attention or tracking his movements inside.

Also, even as he continued to observe things from here, even able to look at the personnel working the terminals and the VI scurrying about, no one seemed to notice him. He almost cracked a joke about a ghost in the machine, but he felt it wasn't quite fitting. He wondered what the man who had originally coined the term would think of an existence such as himself, since it seemed a rather direct refutation to his thoughts. _Not the time._

Ignoring the asides of his mind, he moved on to another nearby center. Armstrong Airspace Control. The part of settlement that kept tabs on all activity around it, as much to help incoming vessels with navigation as to observe other dangerous objects flying around in space. Lacking an atmosphere, the moon was quite vulnerable to flying space debris and even starships, were they to go out of control.

Thus it was in their self-interest to keep an eye on everything nearby. Just so that they knew when to press down the finger hovering above the 'big kinetic barriers on!'-button they had. Well, actually it was a VI that handled that, but there _was_ a physical button as well. It was red. And in a hinged glass case.

He even found a log on his own approach, noting that they had been observing him for a while with sensors. Luckily he had had to start slowing down far before he rolled in anywhere near the moon, which meant they hadn't seen him at anything near his top velocities or acceleration. They probably thought he had been in transit for days, rather than merely hours. That would probably still get people asking all sorts of questions.

Emiya shook his head.

He wanted to keep those records, but he wanted to wipe out something related to it instead. He observed the center's operation for a few minutes, before he finally felt secure in acting out his plan. He found all the conversations recorded of him talking with the operator and deleted them. Thus they would not be able to create a voice recognition software for identification. That would raise eyebrows, especially since the operator would swear to have been having a conversation with him even if the actual logs were missing. He made sure to check if there were any copies, but he couldn't find any, before he moved on.

He moved back to the internal security center and began to look at the security footage recorded here. He noticed quickly enough that most if not all footage was stored in triplicate, but they cut down on it by having the cameras only function when an extra sensor detected movement or a heatspike. It still represented an absolutely massive amount of recorded data, but nothing he cared about really.

He found the footage of himself walking around, back when he had been on the station, along with the credit transactions in the respective systems. Reviewing the logs, he found nothing which could be used to identify him, thus he left it all be. The credit chit he had used wasn't related to him and nothing he had done would be able to be traced back to him, as far as he knew.

Moving back to the Airspace Control, he settled down. He checked that they were still aware of his skycar parked some 150 kilometers away, if only passively, as no one seemed to care about him anymore. The operators had filed that misdemeanor, but since it wasn't in his name it didn't really matter. As long as he got rid of the garbage in the skycar, there would be nothing to link him to it later. Then, checking that the magical energy expenditure was acceptably low, he pulled open an extranet connection and began to investigate things.

He had been studiously avoiding certain topics until now and as a result, he probably did not know a lot of words and terms he had heard today as well as he should have. He needed to know who was who, and what was what, in the galaxy at large.

So, floating around in the digital ocean with a nice e-guide on the Citadel, he settled for his impromptu stake out.

He didn't have to wait long.

* * *

;

* * *

"Hold up." Ashford spoke, raising a hand.

Kolkkonen looked up from his omnitool, where he had been reviewing everything he had collected about the separate incidents so far.

"One of the APBs just got a hit. Cardotin's skycar is on the _moon_." Ashford spoke, blinking incredulously.

It was a strict policy of Kolkkonen to have 1 g gravity and breathable atmosphere on any vessel he spent time in, thus neither wore their helmets right now.

He blinked, tilting his head.

"Wait, _what?_ Who towed it there and _why?_ "

"Armstrong Control reports that it flew in under its own power." Ashford spoke, still looking at his omnitool.

The platinum blond scoffed; that was patently ridiculous. A shuttle could make the distance, but a skycar was little more than a hovering ground vehicle. Certainly, on a planet like Mars with such a low gravity, it _could_ get into low orbit. But that did not mean it could reasonably be used for interplanetary travel.

"That's impossible. A starship must have brought it nearby and then let it glide in on its own. Those things can't go more than, what... 200 kilometers an hour on Earth? _At most?_ It doesn't have sufficient acceleration to make it to the moon by the time it went missing. Not without running out of fuel halfway into the journey and losing its mass effect field. Much less slow down at the destination."

Ashford shrugged, not particularly debating the point. "Should we turn around?"

They were headed for Gagarin Station, just beyond Pluto. At this point, Luna was in the exact opposite direction, and while their top of the line shuttle was _fast_ , it had already been flying for half an hour towards Jump Zero. That meant they would have to not only reverse course and fly back the half hour, but they would also have to slow down from the speed they were currently moving at.

"Yes, obviously. But it'll take too long. Any personnel on site? Have the locals lock in the skycar and put a quarantine up. Have them put a lockdown on it if they can, but tell them to avoid doing anything... Shit, no this is too complex." Kolkkonen answered sitting up to adjust their course as he tried to think of what he could do.

"I'll see what they can do; tell them to keep an eye on it and nothing else. I'll contact Earth, too. Have them keep an eye on the damn thing, too. It shouldn't be able to escape the Earth Airspace Center's range before we get there."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's good. It'll work. Oh, and Ashford?" The other looked up at the call of his name. "Put an information lockdown, too."

Ashford blinked. "You think there might be leaks?"

"I think _someone_ was cleaning house. The disappearances don't make any sense unless they were killed. Why would they abandon their lucrative and powerful positions, all of a sudden, otherwise?"

Ashford inhaled, before nodding.

"I'll make sure they think it's a routine arrest, but tell them to just find the skycar and keep an eye on it, then. I'll tell them I'm from the bureau of transportation investigating license fraud or something."

"That'll work." Kolkkonen grinned. "No one would want to listen in on some bureaucrat drone on about fly-zone violations."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya blinked. _Who did they think they were fooling?_

Someone had apparently picked up on the skycar and was coming in. Within the hour, apparently. From beyond Jupiter's orbit, by the sound of it. He didn't for a second believe a clerk in the department of transportation had access to that level of transportation. _And isn't that ironic?_

He shook his head, chasing extraneous thoughts away.

He could smell _spooks_ a mile away. Or light-minutes, as the case was right now. He didn't dare back-trace it to the other end, since he wanted to stay where his body was in case he needed to quickly return to it. But in continuing to listen in on the conversation, he dismissed the e-books and began to pay attention.

The conversation was short, but succinct.

' _Keep an eye on the skycar, but don't do anything else until we arrive_ '.

Emiya frowned. It seemed like it was time for him to lose his ride, then. But first he had to check that his plans were all in motion. He made sure that his orders for the necessary supplies had gone through and that no one had noticed the sudden disappearances of single credits from numerous accounts across the settlement.

Plotting out what to do, he mentally filed away where the car was in relation to another settlement, and where it in turn was from Armstrong. _I've done all I can here, time to go._

He pinged the skycar from Airspace Control and dove through the connection before it closed behind him. Opening his eyes, he dove out and appeared inside of the skycar. Looking to the side, he could see the three rocks still hiding his body hundreds of meters away. No one had come snooping around while he had been gone.

That was good.

He turned on the engine, powering up all the systems. Then he punched in a few coordinates and made a flight plan around the moon, which would take it flying for another ten minutes until it could see Earth. After that, it would fly up and leave the moon behind, making a course for the Atlantic ocean. At this distance, the flight VI didn't seem to have any problems with accepting that. It was a pity to sink a skycar, but he wanted a decoy that would make them scratch their heads, now that he knew the ride was tagged and too hot for him.

While they were doing that, he would be going off in the opposite direction while no one was looking.

The skycar began to hover and move.

Phasing through the door, he stepped out as the skycar began to lift off and leave. He slapped the rear of the chassis, like it were a horse, as a sign of affection as it began to drive off.

"Bye, and thanks for the hard work."

Turning around, he walked up to the three stones where he had hidden his body. Reaching out a hand, he dove into the omnitool to check up on it.

He blinked as he arrived inside of it again.

"System configuration complete. Please proceed with the installation as normal." The VI interface greeted him.

Emiya grinned. _Time to do some digging_.

* * *

;

* * *

Codex:

**3\. [ Kanshou & Bakuya ]**

A black and white pair of curved steel swords, forged in ancient China by the swordsmith couple Gan Jiang and Mo Ye. Measuring 90 centimeters from end to end, and quite wide, they are quite unconventional in design. Especially for an era that favored straight bronze blades of lengths between 40 centimeters and 60 centimeters at most.

Unlike most swords made of steel throughout human history, they had been cast into moulds rather than merely heated up and forged with a hammer, explaining why the smiths had had so much trouble with creating them. According to legend, the King Helu of Wu had ordered the swords to be completed within 3 months, yet all in all it took 3 years for the commission to be completed. In the earliest days of metallurgy, bronze had been the height of technology. But since copper and tin were relatively scarce materials, they never quite reached the scale of production that later iron and steel products reached. Additionally, due to the weight and structural strength of bronze, it was not possible to create longer weapons purely out of that alloy.

The swords were forged in the Spring and Autumn period using the methods and materials of the era, which included both bronze and cast iron. The former existed in a myriad of forms, six of which were the most well known and praised. The latter was mostly used as an ornamental material, as due to the process of smelting iron requiring the use of phosphorus and sulfur, it resulted in a brittle metal that was lesser to the bronzes in all aspects but cost. In both cases, the metal was heated up until it turned to liquid and was then poured into a mould for the desired shape. Indeed, due to the prevalence of the blast furnace method, wrought iron was an almost wholly unknown material for hundreds of years.

Thus at the time, _bronze_ still reigned as the supreme metal of arms, and Gan Jiang had been an accomplished swordsmith in the use of casting methods, rather than the later blacksmithing techniques, where the metal was heated up until it was soft enough to be hammered into shape. But for his masterpiece, he had wanted to use something different than bronze. Hearing rumors from the west of Vedic craftsmen known for their water-patterned white metals, he sought to recreate it for his swords. He knew that the basis for his swords had to be _iron_ ; the substance that was harder, tougher and lighter than bronze under the _right circumstances_ , but could not yet be melted down for casting into moulds due to that toughness.

When one wished to craft iron at the time, the common methods available were to introduce alchemical elements that lowered the melting temperature of iron into the material, but this produced only cast iron, which he knew would not be sufficient for his purposes.

Thus, gathering additional materials and techniques for the swords he wished to create, he journey far and wide. He visited all the kingdoms, master smiths and alchemists he could find and asked all for their advice. Finally, after a year, he thought he had cracked the secret to crafting the fabled water-patterned white metal.

For the sword itself he gathered river sand which was commonly used to create cast iron; material that would create what was later known as pig iron. He reasoned, that as long as he did not weaken the materials through alchemical means, he could create a purer form of metal. Commonly swords were made quite short, as bronze could not hold up to the stresses involved in combat if stretched out into longer weapons. But, Gan Jiang reasoned that this tougher and lighter metal could be made into much larger swords than before, as long as he could work with it.

In the _Book of Diverse Crafts_ compiled in the same era, six bronze alloys were listed, all with various properties and different uses. Harder alloys—with more of the expensive and rare tin metal, which gave them a whitish hue—were used for weapons so that they were capable of holding an edge, but this also made them weaker to stress and capable of snapping if used too strongly. During the Warring States period that followed, swordsmiths sought to combine these myriad materials to create a layered sword that could have a softer and tougher spine while also retaining a harder edge, by combining two or more of these alloys. These swords would be known as 'twin-colored swords', for the white-yellow high-in-tin blade and the reddish-brown center with more copper, the most famous of which managed to survive over 2500 years without a single speck being able to stain its blade by the time it was discovered.

But Gan Jiang was a man ahead of his time; to make the blades for the King of Wu, who had commissioned the sword, he decided to unify all the known metals used by the craftsmen of the lands. Thus, the six gold-metals were unified into the sword alongside the iron. He reasoned that while the new material was temperamental, if it was supported by the softer alloys and held rigid by the harder ones and with a blade of the hardest of all, it could create swords beyond anything made before then.

The plan was not to simply throw all of it together, as thus the six bronzes would all mix and become but one worthless material, even with the iron. Instead, he prepared the two moulds beforehand, placing inside the layered six bronzes so that they would not be in contact with one another once the molten iron would be poured in. The softest would form the back and spine, the hardest the edge and tip. The moulds he prepared took six months to craft; he created one, while his wife created the other. Side-by-side they worked the whole time, pouring themselves into those moulds just as the iron would be.

And to balance these properties of man's knowledge, he then sought for the properties of natural providence. He found the essences of the five mountains— _Tai_ , the Tranquil Mountain. _Hua_ , the Splendid Mountain. _Southern Heng_ , the Balancing Mountain. _Northern Heng_ , the Permanent Mountain. _Song_ , the Lofty Mountain—to further empower the swords. Later men knew these essences as chromium, manganese, vanadium, silicon and molybdenum; materials commonly used in modern high quality steel alloys.

Once Gan Jiang had brought them all together, he began to work to melt the iron and essences into one, but failed repeatedly despite all of his efforts.

The technology to heat pure iron or the various essences enough to be workable, much less to _melt_ them, simply did not exist. Gan Jiang reasoned that he lacked sufficient _qi_ , the life-force of humans, to heat the fire enough. He sought the aid of women and children, casting cut off nails and lengths of hair to inject more power into the fire, but nothing would melt his materials.

Despairing at his failure and knowing that the King of Wu would execute him if the swords were not completed, Gan Jiang did not know what to do. Unable to stand by and watch him suffer, his wife Mo Ye cast herself into the fires and used her life-force to raise the temperature of the furnace, wishing as much to save her husband, as to complete the masterpieces they had been working on for three whole years already.

Her _qi_ mixed with the fire, giving it a life of its own and a powerful heat that could have scorched the heavens themselves. The collected iron and essences melted, forming into one liquid material. As if through her will manifesting in the fire, the slag and impurities all rose to the top and were expelled from the steel alloy being created. With that, Gan Jiang could pour his metal into the prepared forms.

But having lost the most precious thing in the world to him, Gan Jiang's motives changed halfway into the process as he continued his work. Just as fire burns away all but the un-transformable ash, Gan Jiang's fears, greed, hopes and dreams in these swords were burned away. All that remained was the wish to complete the swords; to finish the work he and his wife had begun. Because they were beautiful, he did not stop; as if questioning the meaning of being a 'swordsmith' as it had brought him his greatest sorrow yet unable to abandon his work and make his wife's sacrifice for naught. Lacking a will, they were empty of fighting spirit that intended to beat others, of desire to be famous, of competitive spirit that tried to surpass other weapons or faith to accomplish some great deed.

Mirrored swords without vanity; representing the duality of a husband and wife, of yin and yang.

As the wife-sword was drawn forth from its mold first, it broke Gan Jiang's spirit and he could not continue with the process, left speechless and weeping at the sight of his creation. Leaving the as-yet unnamed Bakuya out in the open and the still-hot Kanshou in its mold, the two swords were tempered differently. The white-wife blade was allowed to _normalize_ in the open air giving it a cloudy gloss while the black-husband remained for a longer time at a higher temperature, where the surface of the blade was slowly oxidized giving it a darker lustre. This also branded into the Kanshou the turtle-shell pattern of the metal wire that had been used to reinforce and support the structure of the mold. Thus despite all other things being the same, the two blades acquired completely different finishes from tempering alone.

Afterwards, Gan Jiang handed only of the swords to the King of Wu, an act which caused his later execution and the subsequent death of the King of Wu at the hands of an assassin wielding one of the swords at swordsmith's son's request.

But in Emiya's eyes, those later events were meaningless in comparison to their origin.

The construction method _should_ have made them poor blades, as cast iron often is. But due to various mystical and mundane circumstances, the swordsmith couple somehow ended up with an alloy not too dissimilar to high-carbon crucible steel.

Perhaps it was Mo Ye's spirit guiding the metal into the optimal form and expelling the impurities by the top of the mould. Perhaps Gan Jiang's preparations had been sufficient after all, and his dreams were realized even after he lost all of his meaning. Whatever it was, the iron not only flawlessly poured into the mould and fused with the bronze laminates, but also absorbed just enough carbon to create the form of steel that would later be known as _Wootz;_ the water-patterned white metal _._ Within the steel, cementite nanowires and carbon nanotubes formed, further strengthening the sword until the end product was something far beyond even what Gan Jiang could have dreamed of once.

Even Emiya could not fully comprehend that last part; the leap of faith and desperate actions of a husband and wife, acting as one smith, reaching into the realm of the gods with their work. A masterpiece that reached far beyond their nature. Emiya truly and wholly admires these blades.

But the interesting thing about their creation from a more practical standpoint, was that made it much easier to adapt the weapons' actual physical shape than with other steel weapons. Beyond the final sharpening and polish, as was usual with cast bronze swords, there was little need for further work. In fact, Gan Jiang did as little modification as possible after the pouring, leaving the swords with their unique appearances and crude hilts to keep from overshadowing his wife's work.

Emiya admired that about the twin swords, but that was not always enough. Sometimes, he needed _more_. Thus, unlike blacksmithing where thousands of hammer strikes are necessary to slowly alter the form of a weapon, it was much easier for Emiya to tweak a moulded sword's form by changing the pliable and soft form it was poured into in his mind as he remade them.

It was how he had made Overedge. He simply altered the amount of metal poured, and made the moulds proportionally larger in his facsimile process. Putting in six swords' worth of metal into two forms and repeating the ritual essentially three times, he gained swords that were quite different from the originals. Due to the moulds being unable to hold the pressure of that much metal, the metal began to push outward by the bottom where all the metal above it was pushing down on it, causing the strange feather-like protrusions to appear as it pushed outwards.

The property of the two swords growing stronger when they used as one rebounded off of all six pairs to create a synergistic effect. If he _broke_ them, for a single strike he had the power of an A-rank noble phantasm to use. A first step into going beyond mere reproduction, which took a nameless Faker to the edges of his craft and vaulted him far beyond any other.

They were his first modified weapons and broken phantasms, but hardly the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my dude PseudoSteak for proofreading.
> 
> Thanks to AloofEyeball for getting binary newline fixed.


	14. Approach Vector

Miranda looked up, eyeing the passerby without moving her head.

Her eyes raked his silhouette; took in the color and condition of his skin; the way he walked, favoring one side slightly over the other— _one limb being slightly longer; an accident? Bone break poorly reset? Or genetic defect?_ —and the way his hair seemed to be already receding despite his relative youth told her all she needed to know about him.

_Poor genetic base, does not take care of himself. Inferior_. She sniffed. the analysis lasting less than the blink of an eye. She went back to reading her omnitool. The past few days had been less than pleasant for her, if only due to the incompetence and inability of others to fall in line as needed.

It had been 48 hours of nothing but waiting and re-reading the material and intelligence reports that she already knew by heart.

She had been given a relatively simple task, and one which she intended to accomplish without fail. Just as she had succeeded in fulfilling every other task set before her. Any task set before her, she could handle. Any problem given to her, she could solve. Any conundrum she crossed, she could crack.

But that did not always mean she could do it just by herself. Often times, such as now, teams were necessary.

Not that she ever let something like that stop her when no one would work with her. Miranda sighed, closing the omnitool and flicking away her dark hair as she stood up. _If no one is available, then I'll just have to do it by myself_.

Looking around the park, eyes following the contours of the majestic trees and the perfectly level plane of evergreen grass, she smiled.

At first, one might think that building a park of this size on a settlement—even the size of Armstrong—would seem like sheer lunacy. That it was a frivolous waste of space, especially in as an early settlement as Armstrong had been. And it was right in the middle of it, where the dome above was tallest and thus the capacity for building up was the greatest. It was prime real estate and had always been, yet it had all been dedicated to this green park; with its rustling green leaves overhead and bubbling brooks of crystal clear water below.

But such thoughts would be _shallow_.

This seemingly extravagant beauty hid a deeper meaning just beneath the surface. Something, which she thought rather similar to herself. That function did not precede form, rather they walked hand in hand as intertwined and bound as could be.

The main reason she liked this place, really.

As one considered the needs of a human habitat, it would be obvious soon enough why this place was necessary. One might think it was purely for the fresh air, as the great forests and jungles on Earth had more than once been described as the planet's lungs.

And it was true, that oxygen generation was a great priority for space settlements. But while the genetically engineered trees and grass were nearly on par for weight with similar equipment on the market when they had been first planted, in today's market they fell far behind. Yet still, they had not been removed. But while carbon dioxide scrubbers were cheaper and more effective, they did not remove other kinds of harmful materials from the air, while plants _could._ They could also purify other toxic fumes and airborne volatile organic compounds, maintaining a higher level of air quality without constant oversight. Additionally, the upkeep was much, _much_ cheaper; sunlight was plentiful and due to the settlement's location, so too was fresh water.

Many a settler would swear that the park's air was twice as good as the 'fresh' air that was created artificially, but that wasn't all. If it was merely a matter of oxygen, then small sealed habitats would be much simpler to maintain, as with Mars today.

No, it was much more.

Water purification, waste management, food production, creating compost... Even from a mere practical stand point, the benefits were many and varied. Indeed, the orchards on the moon were still well known and celebrated visual imagery from early human history.

But even so, that wasn't all. Practical problems could be easily solved, even without a need for something this extravagant. No, _beauty_ was necessary for the human _mind_.

This park created a space wildly different from the artificial design and structure of everything else built here. It gave contrast, giving the mind and body a place to relax in. Like a physical switch, that told them that there was more to life than just the prefab walls that had been brought in. According to surveys, every citizen in the settlement visited or watched the park for at least fifteen minutes every day, without fail. Tests showed that the stress levels of those who spent more time in the park was much lower on average, than among those who spent less of their free time there.

Miranda knew, that as the first true settlement on another celestial body, Armstrong had been something of a _social experiment_ as much as it had been a symbol.

To see if living off of Earth was even _possible_ for human beings.

In the early days of space flight—before the discovery of element zero even—mental health had long been a silent problem for those who left the confines of Earth. Depression, anxiety, hallucinations, feelings of worsened mental performance and various personality disorders were rife among those first few who spent extensive periods of time off-world.

Not enough to be a huge problem, but a concern nonetheless. Enough, that time and money had to be allotted to maintain their mental health.

Those who had been in space for extended periods of time before Armstrong's construction were the cream of the crop; the best of the best. There was sufficient time, funds and interest to have each and every one of them screened and psychologically profiled to make certain of their mental fitness for the rigors of space. It was practical to have professionals monitoring their psychological health, as those up there were few and those below were many.

But that wasn't necessarily the case for an _outpost_. It had to house _people_ , not just the top percenters of any given field. Humans from all walks of life who came there to _live._ Where time, space and interest was too scarce for someone to be monitoring everyone's mental health at all times. They could not have a settlement where everyone had to have a personal psychiatrist; it was simply not feasible.

Thus, as with many things, they sought to remove the problem at the stem. Prevention is always cheaper than treatment, as the old adage went.

One of the first things to have been done in Armstrong, as soon as the dome was built and the terraforming process could begin, was planting a single tree in the soil. Right in the middle of the domed crater. She looked out, able to see the tree even from where she stood, towering over the others. It was of a lesser strain today, but it was a symbol to this settlement. Planted into the soil to prove to everyone that it _was_ possible for life to exist here.

According to early—and classified for many years—reports, many of the early settlers had spent all of their free time around it in the first years that passed. Some psychological reports made predictions that the entire outpost's success could hinge on that tree. Such, was the importance of symbols to man.

Miranda knew this fact well.

She was not only physically superior to the vast majority of humanity, she was also intellectually their superior. Be it strength, endurance, agility, reaction time, intelligence quotient or overall health and life expectancy, she was not only a cut above the rest, she was in a league entirely her own. Such a being would without fail garner the envy and resentment of those around it, thus it was necessary for her to not only play the part, but to _look the part_ as well.

For one who was so well versed and rounded, their one failure would become their defining trait, rather than all of their abilities. Thus, rather than being a 'monster' she preferred to be seen as a 'goddess'.

Beautiful did not even begin to describe her.

She knew it and she flaunted it. It was _her_ tree. To look in the mirror every day and know that no matter what she faced, she had been born, bred and raised to surpass it all.

She inhaled deeply, looking at the pollinating bee flying past her into a flowerbed in full bloom.

The park also served as an ecosystem for those living here. At first, during the early days of space exploration there had been some worries about weakened and atrophied immune systems. But among the myriad concerns and physically debilitative conditions that prolonged stays in zero-g tended to bring on, it seemed a relatively minor concern.

But when experts realized, that there was a very real concern for settlers to become utterly vulnerable to all Earthly diseases after mere years of isolation, were the Armstrong outpost to be constructed as a purely artificial and sterile environment, it became a much greater concern. If it was to ever be a living, breathing and long-lasting settlement for humanity, it had to have an ecosystem. Something, which could keep the immune systems of those living on the settlement awake and ready. Something, to give the immune systems of the settlement's inhabitants a kick every once in a while, to keep them on their toes.

She smiled at that thought; she did a lot of that as well. She couldn't help it; she usurped experts in their particular fields with ease when she put her mind to it.

People were envious of her looks, her intellect and her talents. Having long since grown accustomed to that, she took it all in stride, considering it a public service; a reminder that there was always someone better. They could not _be_ her, but they could strive to be their best in emulating her.

Looking at a couple jogging past them, she sighed. _Their children will have his eyes and her ears... The nose is a toss up_.

She had done all the research she could while waiting here on Armstrong. The mission had to be done, regardless of whether she had the necessary manpower, and could be pushed back no further. If she had to do it alone, she would do it alone. If nothing else, it would look splendid on her record.

_He_ would certainly appreciate her hard work, she knew.

Turning around to walk back, she took a long route through the park and domed settlement, before she arrived at the edge of a building. It was one of the industrial high-risers built at the edge of the crater, where the prices on land weren't as high. On paper, this building and its offices belonged to a shipping and delivery company, but in reality aside from the bare necessities for a cover it was a meeting ground for Cerberus Operatives.

She blinked as she arrived by the door.

Someone was waiting there, just behind the door in the lobby. A tall, dark and handsome man.

Eyeing him as she approached, she noted his lean muscular build, his long powerful limbs and those sharp eyes that took in everything. He was wearing simple, dark clothes—something that you could have bought in any store for a dime and then be lost in a crowd in—with an open jacket that could have been concealing a pistol or three. The way he kept his back to a wall without actually leaning against it, standing straight and with his eyes open and looking around without making it too obvious, told her all she needed to know. _A soldier, or someone who has seen combat._

His dark, almost pitch black hair was sticking up, and brought out his brown eyes as they locked gazes. She smiled, raising the corners of her lips _just_ enough for it to be construed as something more. She waited for the spark of realization to appear in his eyes, to see how he reacted.

He blinked, turning to look away from her as if he hadn't seen it. She almost stumbled in her step, then. But she didn't. Hiding her frown, she walked through the front door, moving past him without turning and into the lobby.

The secretary by the rear of the entrance stood up to greet her. "Welcome back, miss Lawson. You have two messages, and a gentleman waiting to see you."

Without stopping, she nodded. "I'll be in my office."

"Very good, miss." The secretary nodded, understanding that to mean she would send for the visitor once she was ready. Or rather, once she felt he had waited long enough.

She continued walking, straight into the elevator that opened up without waiting for her to arrive, allowing her to step right in. The doors closed and she turned around, allowing it to carry her up all the way to her office.

It was nothing more than a space for her to work, with a view of the park and the city over all. It wasn't connected to the cover firm in any meaningful capacity, but it gave her a background she could use if she needed to.

Sitting down, she turned on the terminal and opened it to read the messages. One, predictably was from the man downstairs. A formal introduction and inquiry regarding a position in the company. She read the whole thing in ten seconds, finding all the markers and hidden keywords she needed to know, noting that it checked out. He was a Cerberus operative from another cell, sent to her.

With the clandestine nature of Cerberus' operations, secrecy was paramount. Every cell remained isolated from each other, with only the Officer generally aware of anyone else in the organization. Usually they only reported to their direct superiors, but her position had been quite unique in that regard. She had worked with half a dozen cells and knew just as many more undercover operatives, which put her in a rather special position within the organization.

A fact which many of those she had worked with found more than a little aggravating, she knew.

The only question was...

Who could have answered her call?

She had sent out a blanket request using the media contacts, which meant every Officer in the system had been informed of her specific needs, as long as their VI could pick up on the content. It was a system put into place decades ago, allowing Cerberus cells to covertly communicate through steganographic messages in news articles and adverts. Simply put, it was something like 'if you see a specific phrase used in a specific way in any newsfeed, it meant X'. It was a very complex secret language, which was why it was delegated to specialized VI to translate automatically.

Of course, Miranda knew the three steganographic standards she was aware of by memory, so she only needed the VI to crawl through all of the articles released every day to compile them for her. Technically she was not supposed to know two of them, but she had proved herself useful enough that it had not become a problem so far.

It was only a matter of time until she was made an Officer, so why should she wait until then to know what was going on?

But she could not think of anyone among them who would honestly aid her; she hadn't made many friends or allies in the half a decade she had been working with Cerberus.

Well, she would find out soon enough. Once she called him in, she would be able to find out everything she needed. Then again, by the looks of it, he was just dumb muscle and nothing she would have need of at the moment.

He could wait.

She opened the second message. It was nothing more than a string of numbers, but she smiled as she saw it. The mental arithmetic for the encryption took her mere seconds, leaving her with a few key words with pre-designated meanings. She knew the three methods Cerberus used, but that did not mean those were all that she knew; she had her own secrets as well. It was an update from one of her informants, someone unrelated to Cerberus. _So they're going to the Citadel, too_.

Miranda inhaled slowly, before wiping away the smile and putting away the message. Opening up her work portfolio, she went through the case one more time, reading and taking the time to re-check everything she knew.

Finally, after half an hour did she press the comm button by the desk. "Send him in."

She put away most of her files, taking out the message from the man again. She eyed it through a second time, running the list of keywords and phrases through her mind as she eyed to see if she had missed anything. As expected, she hadn't. _A grunt. I asked for infiltration specialists and hackers, and someone sent me a grunt._

She could smell the insult. The man himself would not know a damn thing about the words he had been instructed to use, but the Officer, whoever it was would have chosen them carefully. Veiled insults in the form of patronizing assumptions of her capabilities and obviously sending someone who was a mere extra.

Miranda sighed, leaning back to wait for the man to arrive. She checked her pistol in the desk, before settling to wait. The man entered, amber eyes scanning the room before coming to a stop before her desk, standing ramrod straight.

"Good day, ma'am."

She almost sighed, then. She needed people who could pass unnoticed, someone who could infiltrate and subvert not only secure facilities but also public events. But before her stood a man so obviously military, that she would not be surprised if he didn't fall into marching step with pigeons when he walked down the street. The wide stance, the polite form of speech, the way his eyes locked onto something without staring, his general ram-rod attitude.

It would stick out anywhere but on a military base.

"How is the weather in Canada?" She asked casually, as if making small talk. Then again, she already knew she did not particularly want this man by her side, so why bother?

"'There have been reports of polar bears coming down for the summer.'" He spoke, as if reading from a script in comparison to her.

She did sigh, then.

Abandoning the rest of the facade, she figured she might as well get this over with. She knew this man knows who she was and what this place was, that much was obvious. He was so rigid she could already see him repeating the other three security phrases, before she even asked the questions.

She had no reason to play along.

"So who sent you?" Besides, she wanted to see this man off-balance. His stoic demeanor was annoying her, for some reason.

Just as she wanted and predicted, he seemed to mentally stumble on the deviation in the supposed script. He blinked, staring at her in confusion.

"...Ma'am?"

"Call me that one more time, and I will throw you out the window. There building is in the shade and we have a disposal unit right downstairs. No one will find you." She promised with a smile, looking up at him as she crossed her finger on the desk as he blinked, a first nervous tell. "You're Cerberus, I'm Cerberus, we're all Cerberus here. Who sent you?"

"I don't know what you are talking about, I apologize for wasting your time, ma'—" He almost spoke the word, but seeing the glint in her eyes he paused, as if every survival instinct in his body screaming out for him to shut up. "—dam."

He finished lamely and she raised on corner of her smile, acknowledging the save. That cool indifference from the lobby was all but gone, as if the mask had been removed.

She preferred him like this, though a certain part felt disappointed.

"Yes, yes. ' _Reveal yourself to no one_ ', ' _do not betray Cerberus_ ', I know the drill. But let's not waste time here. You were sent to assist me. By whom?" She spoke, smiling as she leaned back in the chair. "And none of that 'madam', either. It's on the _list._ "

He licked his lips, half-inhaling as if gathering courage as he stepped forward and handed her an optical storage device. She eyed the thing, before taking it and plugging it into her omnitool. Normally, simply accepting and plugging in such a device was the height of stupidity when it came to cyber-security.

However Cerberus gear ran a completely unique operating system that was developed entirely in-house. Certainly, a virus or other malware could penetrate the first layer, which she used as she performed her everyday tasks with the omnitool. But that was merely a virtual machine being run with a more common operating system used as a front.

Every time she activated the haptic interface, it would shutdown and fresh reboot the virtual machine. By Cerberus' tests, nothing should be able to pierce through that security to reach the encrypted data stored within. Not without an array of super-computers, at least.

She plugged in the OSD, eyeing the data with a raised eyebrow. _Cardotin? That can't be. The man positively loathes me._

Having worked with the 'good doctor' on a few occasions, the two had not gotten along at all. She suspected it was due to the envy on his part, being something of a designer baby himself as well. To know that you had been designed from the ground up to be the best you could, but to then see someone else who easily soared above the glass ceiling you were stuck against due to legalities...

She imagined it must have been frustrating. Her _father_ had spared no expenses and cared for no laws when it came to her creation, after all.

_Which must mean that this man is someone Cardotin either expects will be of no use to me, or someone he wanted to get rid of._ She considered the message.

Miranda looked up, noticing that the man before her had used the time she had been reading to collect his calm. But she had cracked it now; she had a handle on him.

_Sent out, flying by Earth aboard a cargo ship, a week ago. Former marine; M5. Category 6 discharge for assaulting a superior officer. Distinctions in small arms, first aid, urban combat and driving._ Just as she had thought; a grunt.

"Do you have any idea what you were sent here for?" She asked, looking up.

"No, m—" He hesitated, managing to keep the word in.

She smirked, leaning forward as she eyed the rest of the document quickly. Just a basic history of when, where and how the man had been recruited after being kicked out of the Marines. He was too square; nothing she could use or rely on.

Sighing, she closed the file and pulled out the OSD and shutting down her omnitool's virtual machine.

"Well, it seems you have come for nothing. It seems the vacancy has closed, thus your services will not be needed. Send _Cardotin_ my regards." She spoke, her smile anything but as she uttered the name.

The man before her blinked, before nodding.

"Ah, I see. I assumed that, since I thought it a little strange." He spoke, smiling a little as he relaxed.

She blinked and looked at him for a second, not quite understanding what he was implying.

He blinked and seemed to realize she didn't know what he was talking about at all. "I mean, the person in the air vent above us, right now. Good ambush position, I mean."

There was a moment of utter stillness.

_A person in the—_

She exploded into motion, biotic barrier snapping into place as she drew her gun and raised it up to the vents. Looking now, she realized that there was a slight deformation at one spot, as if someone was lying on the thin sheet of metal.

_How!?_ She didn't stop to think, even as she realized that he had been right. She pulled the trigger four times, shots punching through the metal and echoing queerly until one of them hit a kinetic barrier.

She put three more rounds into that spot, until a shout interrupted her. In front of her, the man she had been interviewing had pulled his own pistol and aiming up, though he was not firing yet.

"Hold your fire!" A voice called out and Miranda exhaled as she stopped firing. Someone had been in the ventilation duct, above her this whole time. How had she missed it? "I'm coming down, don't fire."

It was a female voice she noted as she stepped back in case the person dropped down a grenade, while preparing her biotics with her other hand. The ventilation duct was kicked out, landing with a clatter. Miranda inhaled, feeling her annoyance growing.

Her office had been infiltrated—she hadn't realized a thing—who could have—infiltration specialist—no one had answered her blanket call—sounded young—had to be— _Ah, it's that person._

"Hold your fire, I'm on your side." A slim woman spoke as she landed on all four, rising up with hands casually going to dust herself off rather than upraised to show that she wasn't armed. Wearing an all black body-fitting light hardsuit, with a mesh hood rather than a hardhat-type, without any marks or symbols of allegiance. There were no hard parts of plates, nothing that would make noise during an infiltration, she noted as well. Calm, confident, amused by all of this, rather than panicking at being found out.

_Oh, so it_ is _you,_ Miranda thought with amusement, though not lowering her pistol quite yet. She wanted to see how this played out. By watching their behavior for microtells, she was sure she could judge the relationship between these two accurately and come to the truth of the matter. _Now, whose man are you?_

Miranda's mind ran a mile a minute, eyes shooting between the two before her. _Cardotin wouldn't 'piss on me if I were on fire', in his own words. That must mean you're_ her _man, sent to grow closer to me while I am suspicious of her. The right hand keeps my attention while the left hand slips the blade in between my ribs, is it?_

Her gun twitched, considering whether she should be pointing it at him as well. _Revealing her like that would be a bold play, but one which she wouldn't expect me to expect..._

"Hands on the wall!" He barked out, gun pointed squarely at the woman.

There was a hint of annoyance in her body language, but it wasn't conclusive enough for Miranda to say whether it was genuine or a 'tell' for her benefit, in some layered ploy to sell this antagonism.

"Come now, there's no need for that. Just as miss Lawson said, we're all Cerberus here." She spoke, and Miranda could hear the wink as she turned to look at her for a moment.

The man, still one hundred percent military, did not care. He advanced on her, intent on subduing the woman.

_Oh, he will try to wrest her down, she will show off her own abilities while downplaying him as a threat. Then when I invite her along, she'll ask to bring him as well, thinking it will fly below my radar and that I will underestimate him._ Miranda analyzed. _It won't work, but this should be fun to watch—_

He entered her range, she moved.

Miranda blinked. And it was over in that instant.

The female intruder tried to disarm him. But _missed_ as he simply wasn't where she moved, and then _suddenly_ she was on the floor in a joint-lock. The sound of all the air in her lungs rushing out of her as she belly-flopped sounding somehow unreal to Miranda. The man held his gun to the back of her head, holding one of her arms so tightly behind her back, that Miranda wouldn't be surprised if it would pop out of its joint any second now.

Not slowing down for a single second, he began to manhandle her and search for weapons and hidden tools, with her arm wrapped around and held down by one of his feet while the other hand holding his pistol was pressed against the back of her neck.

"Ouch, this... isn't really necess—" The woman tried to start, but he didn't let her as he pressed the gun harder into her neck.

"Speak when spoken to. Failure to comply will result in pain."

The woman tried to speak, but the muzzle pressing into her neck cut her short and she merely nodded to show her understanding.

He reached up his hand and began to un-do the seals on her hood, revealing the face beneath. Dark skin, dark hair. Large brown eyes and full lips, frowning as she expressed annoyance and bewilderment that could only be genuine.

The man looked up to Miranda, having glanced at the face quickly.

"Friend of yours, ma'—"

She raised an eyebrow and he realized that she intended to keep her word, if he finished that sentence.

"—demoiselle?" He finished lamely and she had to smile. _Not bad, he's a quick thinker_. He was beginning to grow on her, but that did not mean that she had dismissed the possibility of all of this being some convoluted ploy to gain her trust.

Miranda put away her pistol, dropping the biotic barrier as she walked up to the two. Her high heels made clicking sounds against the floor as she made it all the way up to them.

Looking down, she smiled pleasantly.

"I can't say I've ever met her before, no." She spoke thoughtfully, arms crossed as she pouted, as if deep in thought.

"Shall I take her to disposal then, downstairs?" He answered promptly, as if reading her script. Playing the _hard ass_ to her _reasonable and willing to discuss_ , following her cues naturally.

She smiled. Perhaps he wasn't so bad after all; dumb muscle was fine as long as it could be predicted and used reliably.

"No, that won't be necessary. Will it, ' _Rasa'_?"

The woman on the floor scowled, then smiled as if her entire being could be turned around at the flick of a switch. "Haha, I guess I've been caught. You really are all that they say you are, miss Lawson.

"And for the duration of this mission, if you will have me, it's 'Dianne Hope'."

She considered the woman on the floor for several seconds, before smiling.

"Well then, welcome aboard Dianne. Please, call me Miranda." She looked up to the man, smiling at him in a way that was all but patting him on the head, as praise for his handling of himself so far. "You may let her go, now."

He nodded with a blink, before looking away as if abashed. Letting go of Dianne, he stood up and offered her a hand. Rolling over, she accepted it and as he pulled her up, she _stumbled_ just enough to end up in his arms against his chest.

"Oh, oh my. I'm so sorry. You were a little rough with me, so I'm still feeling a little weak." She spoke, half a whisper as she looked up at him.

He blinked, swallowing before he pulled himself back while steadying her with his arms. "Apologies. I should not have acted so hastily, ma'am."

"Call me _Dianne_ , it's fine, it's fine. I expect you will defend little old me with equal fervor? I'll feel so much safer knowing I have a big strapping man like you to protect me." She smiled up at him, using every trick Miranda could think of to make herself look small and vulnerable while getting her hooks into the man.

_She's livid at him, huh. Well, as long as she doesn't cause problems for the mission, it won't matter_. Miranda thought with a raised eyebrow.

"Well then, Dianne. If you would step aside for a moment, I am still conducting an interview here." Miranda spoke, before looking at her hardsuit. The fabric was coated in dust from crawling in the ventilation shafts and it was falling in clumps onto the floor. "You may freshen up in the bathroom down the hall, if you wish."

_Get out of my office_.

Dianne laughed, curtsying as she picked up her hardsuit hood and moved out with a smile that revealed nothing.

Turning her head to look at the man before her, she inhaled slowly.

"Well, then. Tell me about yourself. How did you get out of the military? A man of your talents and _discipline_ seems like a perfect fit." She prodded, sitting down behind her desk again.

He hesitated, before exhaling lightly and speaking. "After a field exercise, I was taken off the combat rosters. Following that I had an altercation with a commanding officer and it did not end well for either of us. I was out of the Navy in the blink of an eye after that. No pension, no benefits, no nothing."

She blinked, nodding. It fit with what Cardotin's resume had told her.

"Then I met Cardotin. At first it was going smoothly enough, but I objected to his methods of interrogation. He didn't take it too well." He finished lamely, looking away.

"He never could handle criticism, that man." She nodded along. His methods were overly reliant on his technology and drugs. It was based on the VI being able to gather enough data points to make conclusions, but it was too rough and destructive a method to gather information in her opinion.

There were much better ways, usually. But Cardotin wouldn't have any of it, rather playing around with his toys and his drugs. She half thought he had only joined Cerberus so that he could experiment with as of yet unreleased and untested substances on human subjects.

A petty and small man.

"And here you are." Miranda concluded, considering him. She hadn't detected a single falsehood in his words, even if he was obviously holding things back. She raised her hands to the desk, interlacing her fingers again. "How would you characterize Cardotin as a team leader?"

He blinked, considering it for a moment.

"Sloppy."

Miranda smiled, his words echoing her thoughts exactly.

She could definitely work with this man. He was rough and simple, but she could use him. Build a strong working relationship, based on a _promise_ of something more. Help him grow into something considerable, so that she could then poach him for her own team when she was inevitably made an Officer.

She stood up, walking to him as she extended a hand. "Well then, welcome to the team. My name is Miranda Lawson and I will be the leader for this operation."

He took it, shaking it firmly as he smiled just a little; a pleased micro-expression showing that he wasn't just smiling to be polite, but was quite satisfied with this result. He had a good stoic face, but the most minute of expressions could not be that easily hidden. _Yes, I can definitely use this man._

"A pleasure to be working with you, I'm Emil Nguyen." He said, veiling a pleased smirk behind a polite smile.

* * *

;

* * *

_The hardest thing about all of this, was dying my eyebrows black_. Emiya mused as he followed after the dark haired woman who had introduced herself as Miranda.

Having walked in through front entrance to this place, he had settled on a cover story and personality, with a plan to just stick around long enough to get to the Citadel. Technically, he could have just _shipped_ himself there, with how things had panned out, but he figured he should take everything he could get.

At first, he had walked into this building as a spirit, but on realizing just how huge this place was, he had given up on that approach. Most of the computers and personnel here did seem clean. He had thoroughly searched through the first six floors and found nothing incriminating, despite the omnitool clearly stating that this was a Cerberus base.

It was like searching for a needle in a haystack, thus he had settled for a more direct approach.

He had materialized and acquired some normal clothes and gear. Taking one of the pistols and an omnitool, he had forged a message to be delivered using the media as Cerberus usually did. He figured that even if Cardotin was dead, that a lag between a message first being sent and the article being published could give him some cover in that regard. Then he had forged an encrypted personnel file for himself, that would let him infiltrate this place.

So here he was, walking after a Cerberus operative, infiltrating their organization as a supposed infiltrator. There were levels of irony at work here, that only he could appreciate.

He tried not to stare at her swaying behind as she walked in front of him, but given that she was obviously putting on a show and that her outfit left very little to the imagination in terms of body lines, it was rather difficult actually. Inhaling and focusing on something else to distract himself, he noted that his hair had been easy enough to color in comparison, and that projecting contact lenses wasn't exactly difficult either. Completing the effort of hiding most of his unusual features had taken minutes at most.

With his tan skin and now rather common features, it wasn't very easy to place his origins. It was the kind of mix that had seemed rather common in the Navy, from what he had seen. A rather fitting combination with the unusual name he had picked up from the encrypted files to use as his cover identity.

Once he had gotten access to the omnitool, he had been able to piece together quickly enough what he was looking for; a front company acting as a base of operations and staging ground for Cerberus, located in Armstrong just as he had suspected earlier.

The organization seemed to work using isolated cells, that worked alone with minimal contact to avoid being caught and implicating one another. The basis for this infiltration had come in the form of an unread message from a woman seeking assistance for a mission heading out to the Citadel.

This woman, in fact.

Finding that several days old unread message in the folder labeled ' _that fucking bitch_ ' had been just what Emiya needed. The message had been sent to a bunch of people, apparently. Or rather, it had been decoded by the VI from various news articles and announcements, that used key-phrases and words to hide a secondary message for all Cerberus Officers. It was somewhat worrying to realize that half of all the news sources in the Alliance seemed to be more or less compromised in this manner. It lent more credence to the theory that this organization was backed by the Alliance after all.

There had also been direct mail in the same folder, from about a year prior. And given the previous exchanges he could read between the two, he could gain glimpses of what kind of relationship operative Lawson and Officer Cardotin had had.

It hadn't been very cordial, to say the least.

But that was _good._

She would never think to call up and ask about him, he reasoned. Not that it would change anything; Cardotin was dead. Normally, that would have been an obvious problem, leaving him a very suspicious person in her eyes, if she found out about that fact. But the files which he supposedly had no access to, requiring omnitool clearances he should have lacked, all stated that he had been sent out days before Cardotin's recent and unexpected demise. If she even knew about it yet.

Once he had the encryption key, changing the data and metadata in files like that was easy.

Of course, given that he was already a fairly known entity to this organization, attempting to infiltrate them at such a suspicious timing should have seemed like suicide.

But, as his current appearance was taller, had darker skin and with an additional 15 kilogram of muscle on his frame, he reasoned that it was safe enough. He was here in his Servant body, after all. Connecting him with himself right now was highly unlikely. He could have been standing next to himself and he was fairly certain that no one would be able to guess that they were actually related.

_The benefits of magical self-mutilation and over-exhaustion, I suppose._ He thought dryly.

Next to him, the woman who had identified herself as Dianne Hope—but who had been first called 'Rasa'—walked with smooth and sinuous steps. If she found her earlier treatment at his hands objectionable, she did not show it one bit any more. She was all smiles and flirty behavior.

Which only served to put him more on edge. She was obviously an experienced spy of some kind; just the kind of person who would be able to out him if he said a wrong word somewhere.

Their eyes met as he glanced at her and her eyes sparkled with delight.

If it wasn't for that one flash of genuine anger when he had taken her to the floor, he might not have known whether or not she was faking it. But now he could still see those embers of anger burning, deep within. This woman could nurse a grudge for years, most likely.

Just the type he didn't know how to handle.

Maybe he had overreacted there? It had just been instinct once she had tried to grab him. Already he was feeling like he should have just not bothered with this plan. Well, hopefully he wouldn't be around for whatever she was plotting. He wasn't going to be sticking around for long, after all.

"Well then, how about you share with the rest of us what we will be doing." Dianne asked as Miranda walked up to an elevator.

"Not yet. Downstairs." Miranda answered coolly, motioning for them to enter and then pushing the button for the basement level.

He blinked, realizing that he hadn't been there yet. This was a different elevator than the one in the lobby, thus he hadn't even realized that there was a basement floor. _Should have used Structural Analysis_ , he chided himself. Being able to walk in undetected as a spirit was making him sloppy.

Emiya considered what he had done until now, as he waited for the elevator to arrive at the bottom; how he had ended up infiltrating this Cerberus base of operations in his Servant body.

Once he had sent off the skycar on a one-way trip to the ocean floor on Earth, Emiya had taken his body and begun to run towards the nearest settlement. He hadn't chosen the location he had stopped at simply on a whim, after all. It was one of the hydroponic farm complexes, where corn and beans were produced to feed the settlement.

As the fresh install of the Virtual Intelligence worked out and he gained access to all of the encrypted data stored within, he realized he needed to return to Armstrong. Originally on leaving Armstrong, he had prepared this place for himself so that he could either leave for Earth on a shuttle that would be leaving in a day from the settlement, or return to Armstrong if he did in fact need to return there.

Just as soon as he had put himself on 'ice', he had reasoned.

The thing he had realized about his condition was, that it would not help him one bit if he thought of it as having a certain number of days left to live. He would not be able to get anywhere in time if he did and there wasn't much he could do about it. Traveling took time and there wasn't much he could do about that.

But in dealing with the strange flow of time inside the omnitools when he dove in, he had gained an idea. Rather than thinking in terms of one or two days left to live, he should think in terms of hours or even minutes that were contained in those days.

By changing the resolution, his working parameters changed.

Assuming he had 48 hours to live, as long as he leveraged something like 5 minutes of those two days to simply reset his Independent Action-skill, then he could in theory stay active for nearly two years as long as his magical energy lasted. It would give him a much larger buffer to work with.

Of course, that was an ideal scenario and one he doubted he would be able to pull off. For one, he really only had his body to acquire magical energy, which he still expended even with his class skill. But it might work to buy himself a little bit of time. Even a single day more was a net profit, he reasoned.

Thus, he decided to put himself into cryogenic sleep.

One of the things he had prepared and gotten ready back in Armstrong Control, was a substance known as a vitrificant solution. Simply put, it was something used for cryogenically freezing living things, allowing them to be frozen alive and thawed out without too much harm being caused by the process. It was a rather rare process to perform on humans, but he had lucked out in finding a facility on the moon that specialized in it anyhow.

Freezing living things, that is. Not humans per se.

Fresh 'moon rabbit' was apparently a rather popular meat back on Earth, despite its exorbitant cost. It wasn't a very large business, but when serving to a select few with enough credits, something like that wasn't a problem. The people who were buying their products never so much as looked at a price tag, after all.

Normally when a living being was frozen, the water crystallizing would cause massive damage to the cell membranes, and would without fail kill most warm-blooded creatures. Some cold-blooded creatures had developed special extracellular protein matrices on their cells, which allowed them to resist the damage this process caused, and through research into this, the vitrificant substance was developed. Originally intended for use on human beings who wished to cryogenically freeze themselves so that they might be one day revived, in today's world they were mostly used in preserving live animals over long distances in space.

Simply put, it prevented the water from crystallizing when it froze, allowing the body to be frozen without taking damage. One would think that its ability to keep people alive in an inanimate state would be considered valuable, but apparently the matter of taste was much more important on the free market. Well marbled moon rabbit apparently went for 13,000 credits per kilogram, far outweighing the production and shipping costs.

Upon stumbling on this ranch, he had immediately bought some of their vitrificant using a forged account with the money he had stolen. They had plenty and it had other uses as well, thus it wasn't _too_ unusual.

After getting his hands on the solution he had bought, he created a triple-layered steel box around himself, which would act like a thermos can or like an icebox. Making it airtight, he prepared to remove his environment suit. He had plundered some ice from the nearby glaciers and had it in the box with him, keeping the temperature at -200 Celsius, since heedless projection wasn't an option any more. He needed to conserve all of his reserves as long as possible. He had actually been worried that the oxygen he was breathing might turn liquid before his body could freeze over, but luckily the canister had held as he opened them by hand.

Finally, he had injected copious amounts of the vitrificant into his body as he began to remove the environment suit to remove its protective layers from the chill he needed to be seeped in.

The cold had struck him immediately and about as viciously as a hammer to the face.

According to astronomical reports, the shadowed craters on the south pole of the moon were some of the coldest spots in the entire solar system, even surpassing Pluto in how cold it was.

He could attest to that the moment he had removed his helmet. It had been _freezing_. Words could not describe the sensation properly, as he exposed himself to temperatures that no human could normally survive. Halfway in taking off his environment suit, his limbs had stopped responding to his movements, something which he found more than a little unnerving.

Freezing to unconsciousness in that dark box had been one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in his entire existence—life and afterlife combined.

He hoped it would work, but there was no way to know until he needed to wake up again. Once he thawed out, his body might already be dead as it warmed up from the damage the process had wrought.

Stepping out and observing it from the outside, he couldn't see anything wrong with it, but that had done little to assuage his worries.

After that, he had found some work in his Servant body, putting his repair skills to good use and made himself some clean money. As it turned out, his carefully forged repair licenses were worthless and the one heater he had managed to fix in five minutes was worth the world to those he had talked to. He had made 5520 credits in two hours, a fairly hefty sum which gave him enough to get started.

They threw him some strange looks, no one quite knowing where exactly he had come from, given that there hadn't been any arriving shuttles or starships. But ranchers were practical people. As long as he could save them money, they didn't ask too many questions.

After that, he had made it back to Armstrong on the shuttle as he had planned earlier, shipping his body and his excess gear in sealed steel boxes separately.

In using the regular transports to return to Armstrong, he had had plenty of time to go through the omnitool he now had access to. He had learned a lot of things from the VI, some of which was of immediate use, and some of which might be of massive value somewhere later down the line.

One of the immediate uses had been in regards to a 'project gateway', which was a Cerberus operation to establish credible fake identities both in Alliance space, as well as the other Citadel territories. It included both the identitag and medicards necessary for passing as a citizen in nearly all territories. Not just fakes that would pass through a quick inspection, but a method to insert and replace data as necessary in databases where information was stored. Cardotin had had several identities, several of which had never been used before. Emiya had taken the liberty of crafting himself a new identity using one of those as a basis by editing the local files.

Hence, Emil Nguyen. He was a new man.

For _now_ , anyhow.

Any database check would see through it in an instant, since it had been constructed for another face and another genetic background. But it was a start, something to show him the way. If he wanted to truly slip out of the Alliance's and Cerberus' radar, he needed to figure out how to create new identities, himself. Right now, he just had access to something that had been created before. If he truly wanted to be able to disappear, figuring out how this 'project gateway' functioned would be a major step in the right direction.

The easiest way he figured, would be to see the process himself.

Thus, he had decided to face extraordinary risk of being found out and decided to attempt an infiltration, so that he might find out more. Of course, he could at any time simply spiritualize and return to his body, so it wasn't like getting found out would be entirely disastrous. He had even decided to use this front company to ship his body to the Citadel. That way, he would be close by to it the whole way and make sure nothing happened to it.

They arrived at the bottom, the elevator making a slight 'ding' as the doors opened to reveal the basement. Emiya blinked, as it looked like they had stepped into an entirely different world.

Right next to the door lay an open crate with dozens of rifle stacked in staggered rows. Unmarked, black weapons that did not look like anything he had seen so far. _They're supplying their own weapons? That requires an infrastructure beyond just some black ops funding..._

And behind it he could see folded and packaged hardsuits, easily dozens in just the pile he could see. If all of these boxes contained more, he reckoned there was enough to outfit an entire platoon, just lying around as if it were commonplace materials.

There were dozens of workers scurrying about, using mass effect field generator forklifts to move around boxes and crates, loading up prefab storage containers that would be moved up into the floor above, where they could be attached to starships. Some looked to be entirely mundane and legal, but most of it was high-grade weapons and armor.

Emiya carefully controlled his face as he stepped forward to follow after Miranda. _This isn't just some small wetworks operation I've stumbled into, is it?_

* * *

;

* * *

" _Docking now; attaching static banks. Try and not touch any metal surfaces if possible. It should be fine, but let's be careful just in case._ "

There was a strange sound, as if a bolt of lightning in the distance followed by a rumble. Kolkkonen exhaled slowly, rubbing his brow with a dry hand. _This is why I hate space..._

"Thanks, the build up is evening out now. Any idea on what caused this?" Ashford asked over the comms, looking out the window at the much larger Alliance cruiser that had come to their aid after they had suddenly become stranded.

They had been hurrying back towards Earth, having received a hit on the all-points bulletin put out on a person of interest.

But suddenly, at the last stretch between Mars and Earth, their flight VI had suddenly and unexpectedly thrown all of their engines in reverse to facilitate a stop while throwing various warnings and alarms at them.

When it came to traveling through the void, there were usually several concerns and difficulties that had to be observed.

Travel time was one of the oldest and still most challenging ones, but mass effect fields had allowed that to be mostly circumvented. Fuel was always another, as there was only so much one could bring with into space from gravity wells. Space and weight was always a concern. Heat generated by engines was another, usually handled with either radiator fins or special material plates to allow the heat to dissipate after it had built up to the ship's specific capacity. Food and water had to be thought of as well, of course.

But one of the most difficult and often unexpected difficulties of space flight with mass effect technology, came from static build up.

Simply put, the larger your mass effect field or the faster you went, the more static electricity would build up in your eezo core. If left alone, this could result in a catastrophic discharge into the hull, which could result in the total annihilation of the entire crew and destruction of all electronic equipment aboard the ship.

Needless to say, that was a rather undesirable outcome.

To prevent this from occurring, it was necessary to ground out this build up of static charge in the core by turning it off and parking somewhere close enough for the electric discharge to bleed out. In the vacuum of space, this was not possible, thus it was entirely possible to become stranded in the void without mass effect fields.

Just as they were, right now.

Certainly they still had their conventional antiproton drives for propulsion—a powerful and reliable system that functioned by the reaction that occurred when anti-protons were allowed to come to contact with matter inside of a magnetically shaped nozzle at the end of the starship. This violent reaction where both antiprotons and protons annihilated each other gave the shuttle considerable acceleration, even without a mass effect field.

But it was no FTL travel, leaving them essentially stuck despite the distance to Earth being only _minimal,_ at least according to conventional thought in the age of interstellar travel.

All because of too much static electricity.

It wasn't an entirely understood phenomena, but it was well known that where you flew could affect it just as much as the other factors could. Flying in atmosphere was one such example, but since speeds approaching _c_ had other issues in such densely packed environments, it was rarely a problem. Biotics often suffered from excess static energy, resulting in painful shocks after prolonged use of their powers.

The heliosphere was another. Simply put, the heliosphere was something akin to the atmosphere of Earth or the rings of Saturn, but to the sun. It was the area affected by the waves of solar wind, extending outwards from the star, reaching somewhere around Pluto.

It was also known that flying through certain gas formations and nebula could accelerate the build up, but too little information still remained on the subject.

" _No idea. Though the nerds are pretty sure it's not from the drive cores, but from the hull building up a static. Earth Control is looking into it, but there's no word on why yet. People've been talking about solar wind or a gamma-ray burst, but that's already been dismissed as idle speculation. The 73rd flotilla was mobilized to help out vessels that might have been stranded, like you. There's been a few ships that've had problems, but no fatalities, luckily."_ The helmsman of the SSV Moscow reported.

Kolkkonen exhaled slowly through his nose, clenching his fist slowly. They'd lost hours with this delay, forcing them the call in to the Alliance Intelligence Agency branch office on Earth to send someone out in their stead while they called for help.

Which meant that the cat was out of the bag. One field team could keep a secret. The entire local branch could not.

If someone had been cleaning house or plotting something on Mars, any chance of figuring that out was gone, now. All because of some static build up.

"Any word on the skycar?"

Ashford shook his head. It was just as he had feared; someone had leaked the information and now their lead was gone.

Kolkkonen sighed again. _This is why I hate space._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya closed the door behind him, hearing the automatic click signify that the room had been sealed.

By the meeting desk near the middle of the room, Miranda and Dianne had already sat down. Moving towards the table, he remained standing as if he was not expecting to be a part of the meeting in any meaningful capacity, and simply wished to be out of the way of those who would.

He knew it would cause Miranda to chastise him, having something of a grip on her personality already, but it would serve as a reference to the personality he was trying to project for them. It would reinforce the personality he was trying to come off as. A stick in the mud, a man taken out of the military but from whom the military had not yet been taken out.

Miranda looked up at him, smiling with a raised eyebrow yet saying nothing.

He felt sheepish, just as she wanted him to. There was a startling capability for non-verbal communication in her, despite the strange distance with which she conducted herself. It was as if there were two completely opposite personalities in her, waging for dominance.

He coughed, sitting down and she nodded with satisfaction.

"Alright then. We don't have much time, so I shall be brief. The freighter will be leaving in two hours. Before we board, I will explain the basics of this operation." She spoke, crossing her fingers on the table. "Two weeks ago, there was a break in on Gagarin Station. Someone managed to get in and out of a Systems Alliance laboratory that was under top-level security during the night shift. Nothing has seemingly been taken or touched, but one of the sensors insists that there was a break in."

Miranda brought up a picture of what looked like a general office area, somewhat subverting Emiya's expectations of the place as he had expected something different having heard the word 'laboratory'.

"Alliance Investigators arrived within hours of the break in being detected. They went through the place with care, but found no evidence of anything untoward occurring, and while a pair of investigators were still assigned to the case, it had effectively been labeled cold due to the complete lack of any leads after a week of nothing turning up." Miranda explained.

"Until now, I suppose." Dianne nodded. "What changed?"

"In 36 hours Synthetic Insights will be hosting their annual ball in the Citadel." Miranda continued, looking at Emiya. "Are you aware of what that is?"

Emiya considered it before shaking his head. "I haven't heard of Synthetic Insights before."

She nodded, pulling out her omnitool.

"I'll send a basic dossier, but suffice to say, they are one of the largest companies in the galaxy right now. Making more than entire industrial planets annually, they have been around for more than a hundred years now. Based on Illium and Noveria, they still have holdings in the Citadel even if they produce nothing there."

Dianne nodded. "Having offices on the Citadel, the Presidium especially is something of a status symbol."

Miranda paused, letting her finish before she continued again.

"Indeed. They make anything and everything related to omnitools and information technology, to VIs and even some AI-related research. One of the four corporations given license by the Citadel Council to research Artificial Intelligence, actually."

Emiya listened and glanced at Dianne, who seemed to be listening in just as intently.

"The ball is an annual event, where they flaunt their wealth and affluence, and they have often unveiled new products and services there in the past. It's become something of a weather vane in terms of what to expect for the new year, where most if not all of the major companies and interests send one or more of their representatives to attend."

"Okay. So, big tech, bigger party." Emiya summarized.

Dianne huffed and Miranda smiled, as if indulging his simple description. "Yes."

"So whoever broke in at Gagarin Station is going to be showing up at the party?" Dianne continued, smiling at Miranda who narrowed her eyes at the dark skinned woman for interrupting her again.

Emiya carefully chose to keep his mouth shut, pretending he wasn't noticing anything. _It's like those two all over again..._

"Yes, or so we believe. The invites for the ball were sent out a week ago by Synthetic Insights, but through some as of yet unknown method, a second message was sent alongside each and every one of those invites." Miranda continued.

"Wait, aren't those handwritten asari calligraphy? Individually sealed and sent out by hand? That would require quite a bit of work for someone to subvert for their own use." Dianne cut in.

Miranda nodded. "Yes. The message stated that there would be an item procured from the Systems Alliance on silent auction during the party. There is no direct connection with Gagarin, but..."

"It's as good as, given the circumstances. Assuming it's true, anyhow. Did the Alliance announce anything about the break in? Any proof on it being a real deal?" Emiya spoke, considering what he was told.

"No way to tell, but the Alliance certainly thinks so and consider the matter to be of vital importance. They are sending in an intelligence specialist for the first time to the ball. He is attending under the cover of seeking to procure some of the grayboxes in bulk for the Alliance, but Cerberus intel suggests his primary reason for attending is to retrieve the stolen goods at any cost." Miranda clarified.

"Hmm, a silent auction? Someone is using the party as a place to sell the stolen item? Has Synthetic Insights issued any statements? I can't imagine they're happy about being used like this." Dianne asked.

"They've denied sending out the messages, going so far as to send out a second invite without them."

Dianne whistled. "Those calligraphists don't come cheap."

"But the Alliance still think it's going down." Emiya said.

Miranda nodded.

"So what are we doing? I was assigned for this team by a certain someone, and I can't imagine he would waste my talents on nothing." Dianne asked, raising an eyebrow.

For a moment it seemed as if Miranda had been surprised by something she had said, but before Emiya could quite catch the nuance, it was gone. She frowned and inhaled, carefully trying to keep her face neutral.

"We are to either acquire the item on sale for ourselves, or to ensure that the Alliance guest receives it. It must not be allowed to fall into anyone else's hands. If it comes down to it, we must track down and erase all who might have had access to the item to prevent a leak." Miranda stated, looking Emiya straight in the eye.

"It's that sensitive?" He asked and she nodded. "Understood."

"This should be fun, then." Dianne concurred.

"Well then, let's go over the venue for the party. Since it is on the Presidium, we will not be able to bring along much equipment, but in regards to that..."

Miranda began to talk, pulling out all kinds of maps and plans. It was obvious that she had been busy, compiling eventualities and possibilities while she had been waiting for them. Even so, Emiya's mind drifted.

He had no real interest in this operation, beyond some curiosity as to what everyone was looking for and to see how Cerberus operated. Still, he might as well play along for the time being. As long as he got to the Citadel, he could simply vanish as needed and leave these people behind.

But optimally, he would have a chance to see them use the 'project gateway', which would allow him to learn how to create new identities himself.

How well that panned out, remained to be seen.

* * *

;

* * *

"It does not match any known database, then." He exhaled, narrowing his eyes as he leaned back in his chair.

Behind him, the star illuminated the darkness of the room he worked in.

That was sort of to be expected. For someone of that mysterious man in black's talents, spoofing or entirely forging a palm-print readout in a haptic adaptive interface was entirely possible. Even probable. But given the nature of the print, he was inclined to believe it was real. It was nothing more than a gut feeling, but one he could not deny outright.

Something about it told him that.

Handprints were unique to individuals, this went for alien and man alike. Though not all species had similar differences, they all had unique distinguishing features that made each palm-print unique. Thus they were used as an identification standard all over Citadel space. There were ways to physically alter those prints, either through scrubbing the skin, burning deep enough or using chemicals. But permanently altering a print enough that it could not be identified was difficult and made it unique in other ways.

This man had apparently achieved such. It was as if the skin had both been burned from the inside and as if the skin had been worn away continuously. It was nearly impossible to get a clean read out, thus he had forwarded it to a specialist on Cerberus' payroll.

In the woman's words, ' _these are the hands of a bricklayer who washes his hands with acid and dries with sandpaper_ ', apparently. Still, she had done her best and he had gotten _some_ results back; the palm lines and the outsides of the left thumb seemed to be in relatively readable condition.

But even using just those enhanced results, he hadn't been able to find anything on record. It had been a dead end, after all. Probably a red herring, despite his gut feeling arguing against that.

"No matter." He spoke, reaching for his whiskey glass and pulling out the next item on his list. Sipping at the amber liquid, he smiled with satisfaction. "So they managed to retrieve it whole before anyone else arrived."

That the Alliance Intelligence team had been grounded—or rather, the opposite; _spaced_ —and could not catch up to the lead they had discovered, had been a blessing. Not only did it give him another trail on the mysterious entity that had taken out Cardotin's entire team, it also let him recover the Cerberus property before it could be investigated by another party. The tracking software had been disabled somehow—and there were people looking into that right now—but it would have still been embedded in the system.

He still couldn't believe that the skycar had managed to make it to Earth. But somehow, it had. And now he had to figure out how that was possible.

First he had pulled in all the data he could find from Earth Control—the facilities which monitored all local system traffic—and sent it forward to a team of analysts who could make sense of it for him. The information had quickly enough been summarized for him to digest.

Earth Control had to track and monitor millions of objects orbiting and flying around Earth's immediate vicinity, at all times. With the advent of kinetic barriers, the old problem of scattered debris in Earth orbit had somewhat been solved. But due to contact welding and the passage of time, a lot of those objects had managed to fuse together into larger objects which could pose a considerable risk.

Deflecting a chip of paint was one thing thing. Deflecting a twenty kilogram projectile moving at several dozen kilometers a second was an entirely different problem. Thus most preferred to simply dodge such debris if possible at all, which required information as to where such objects were and how to avoid them. There had been petitions to clean out Earth's orbit several times, but nothing had ever gotten off the ground since it would be a such costly operation.

Thus, Earth's monitoring systems were quite advanced, to be able to track and warn of such objects. Even so, they were still held back by the limits of sensor technology.

For one, objects moving at FTL could not be perceived until after the light coming _after_ the object arrived. It was _faster than light_ , after all.

But once the light did arrive, spotting an object traveling at FTL was quite simple; it was like finding a car driving at night on a highway with all of its lights on. It could be seen for lightyears even with antiquated measurement devices. A variety of unique radiation would bleed out, glowing against the darkness of the void like a torch. The faster one went, the more strongly these markers would show up. But only _after_ it had passed by, the nature of FTL meaning that the object would have been long gone by the time it was detected.

There had been concerns regarding FTL vehicles being used for space-to-planet bombardment, as such objects could not possibly be detected in time to be prepared for. To counter such, FTL nagivation systems were hardcoded with certain restrictions and communication with vessels capable of FTL were always monitored heavily and kept in constant communication, in one form or another.

But that wasn't always enough.

Which meant that a sphere of sensor satellites had been pushed out at various points around the planet and solar system. If any of them detected a suspicious starship, they would send an FTL-tightbeam back to Earth with the information. This meant that it was in fact possible to detect most, if not all FTL traffic within the solar system.

But that was for vessels that were able to fly at speeds faster than light.

Something which the skycar should decidedly not have been capable of. Even on exiting Mars' immediate vicinity, the mass effect field scans showed that it's eezo core remained incapable of such feats. It was a commercial land speedster, something that would have taken weeks to get to Earth, normally.

Certainly, that would have helped it avoid being noticed by the sensors to a degree, like a bicycle riding down the highway at night would not be noticed by cameras on the look out for drivers going over the speed limit. But even so, since it had reach such speeds as it must have had to, to be able to get to Earth so quickly, it _should_ have been detected.

So how had the skycar— _which should not have been able to travel at faster-than-light speeds_ —travel at faster-than-light speeds _and_ remain wholly undetected by the trained expert personnel whose biggest job was to know about everything in motion within the solar system, during all of that time?

The answer was rather simple, actually.

Virtual Intelligences.

There was simply too much information for any number of humans to practically filter through at every second, when it came to space. Even just the local system, a relative backwater on the larger galactic scene, was still a terrifically huge region when you thought about it. Even assuming that it was possible to monitor everything, the amount of data to sort through was immense.

Thus it was all shunted onto VIs, that could sort through data with immense speed, efficiency and accuracy. It was well known fact that VI were better at recognizing patterns and medical VI were known to be much more reliable than mere medical personnel. Due to that, in most professions including Airspace Control and medical practice, the use of Virtual Intelligence assistants was not only commonplace, but something of a necessity.

But there existed a problem with that reliance. Simply put, Virtual Intelligences did not know how to _fail._

When a human stumbled on something they weren't entirely certain about or an entirely new circumstance, they would grow cautious and careful. Generally at least, depending on their training and experience. A VI did not; it would simply shunt the result into its algorithms and throw out a result which it thought would work without an instant's hesitation or afterthought. Certainly they could be given failsafes and checklists to run through, but all of those required that the people who coded and created the VI knew everything that could happen and could predict every possible outcome before it had happened. That was simply not possible.

Which meant that when a VI failed, it generally failed _spectacularly._

According to the records he had acquired, the skycar had started out relatively normally. It had flown out of Mars and set a Hohmann transfer orbit for Earth, which while unusual still made some sense. The VI had thought it peculiar, but nothing too problematic; the fuel and distance calculations had not exceeded safety limits, thus it was still entirely possible for the skycar to have flown back to Mars under its own power for the duration the skycar existed on Mars' records. It was filed under ' _aberrant vehicle_ ' and never brought up to any human attention. Not until it would become stranded in space, at least. Then an Alliance patrol vessel would be notified and they would attempt to contact the skycar.

But then the skycar turned off everything _._

After that, the various VIs began to draw conclusions which no one could make _heads or tails out of_. According to one model following the entire incident, the skycar must have split into _seven_ distinct entities, and then collapsed back into one as it began to slow down near the moon without traveling the distance between the seven points it had been in at all.

One of the Earth Control analysts had suggested a probability drive of some kind, based on superpositioning or something, but he had been dismissed entirely since quantum mechanics decidedly did not work like that. The analyst had been demoted since then.

Though it had been flying dark, predictive programs were quite efficient and while the footage of it was unclear, the VIs were adamant that it had kept going the route and velocity it had for another ten thousand kilometers at least. But then something had _changed_.

There was a flare, nothing more than a three frame flash of light which did not fit any existing models, followed by the skycar vanishing. The trail had somehow been lost, due to the new heading and acceleration the vessel showed, and its trail had only been later assumed through connecting it to where _something_ was spotted later on. One of the Cerberus analysts noted that the new heading reflected a renewed Hohmann transfer orbit which would reflect a new greater acceleration, assuming it was still heading for Earth.

But since the trail lacked all the markers of FTL-travel, leaving just a bright patch of indefinable nothingness for the VI to analyze, nothing conclusive had been arrived at.

But the assumption was that the skycar had been flying on that path. Since it had arrived at Earth, _somehow_.

There, supposedly it had begun to leak a trail of vaporized water, causing the VI to conclude that there had been some form of endothermic ice asteroid that had suddenly appeared in the solar system from nowhere. At least until it the calculations returned FTL speeds for how fast it had been going, despite all mass effect field sensors returning a zero reaction response. Analysts were relatively certain that this 'asteroid' was in fact the skycar, except for the fact that the amount of water it shed was over four times the mass of the entire skycar when it had left Mars.

Absolutely _no one_ knew what to make of that.

Given the rated engine on the skycar, it shouldn't have been able to lift off at such a load, much less get off of Mars. And that was without addressing the six unidentified phantoms that had been moving on a parallel course at barely sub-luminal velocities, spitting Cherenkov radiation everywhere as if a catastrophic mass effect field breach had occurred, until they completely disappeared some time later.

As that information reached various officials, a dozen starships had been scrambled for immediate rescue attempts, to search for any survivors in what was presumed to be a tragic accident. Of course, they had found nothing.

Since last he had checked, three major nations had all formed independent committees just to investigate that phenomena.

Another conclusion the VIs had drawn was that the skycar's eezo core had suddenly exponentially increased in size, to account for the sudden increase in acceleration. This had been dismissed by his analysts already, as just like the VI had noted the skycar lacked almost all of the FTL markers. It was as if the skycar had been moving at FTL, _without_ moving at FTL. None of the known radiation was showing up; none of the expected signals that made it stand out against the nothingness of space.

Even biotics had these markers—the ' _blue flare_ ' of dark energy fields fluctuating—when they applied their powers. With hovercraft such as skycars and shuttles, it usually remained indistinct and controlled for optimum efficiency. But at higher velocities and especially at FTL it would light up like a bonfire.

Always, without fail. Until now, that is.

By the time the skycar had been detected by Armstrong Control, none of the VI in the heliosphere network knew what to do, resulting in no one being informed of the strange state of affairs as the entire network kept bouncing around the conflicting data and churning out junk results.

Earth Control had only realized what had happened after an Alliance Intelligence all-points bulletin had been put out on the skycar, and the VI were questioned on the matter. VI logs were reviewed, questions were raised and no answers could be found. It didn't help that a strange magnetic storm seemed to be raging in the region that had been traveled through. Several ships had been brought to P-static saturation suddenly by flying through the region, with more than one being stranded and unable to discharge the static build up in the middle of space.

No one knew what was going on and everyone seemed to be looking for the skycar for one reason or another as they scrambled to figure just what the hell was going on. Had the skycar been found by anyone else, they would have torn it apart and found all of the evidence pointing at Cerberus when they did.

It would have been a disaster of unmitigated proportions for him.

His own men had already hauled in the skycar and begun to investigate it, but so far nothing unusual had been found, beyond the various firearms in the back and the signs of wear and tear from the flight itself. With the crash landing into the ocean, it had taken considerable damage to the front of the chassis, but he was confident that if there was something unusual with the skycar, they would find it.

His terminal beeped and he glanced at it; a message from Operative Lawson, stating that she had assembled a team and would be leaving shortly. He considered dealing with it, even knowing it was a low-priority message.

But he was exhausted.

Looking at the time, he noted he had been working close to 45 hours now. Enough being enough, he decided he would continue tomorrow after a good rest. With a swipe of his hand, the terminals closed and the already dim room fell into an even deeper darkness.

He inhaled, trying to forget all the data for now and frowning as a strange thought popped into his head. _It's as if someone was trying out a new kind of FTL drive, or something._ Shaking his head, he pulled out his cigarettes only to notice he had run out.

"Damn it."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya looked up, taking in the massive freighter before him.

It was big. Bigger than any other vessel he had boarded or seen until now, short of actual seafaring ships back on Earth, back when he had been alive. Like a giant flying whale, it was alreadyhuge on the inside and from what he could see, additional cargo could be attached to the hull and transported that way as well.

The Brigadoon-class freighter; the _MSV Demeter_.

It would be their ride to the Citadel. For both _body_ and _soul_ , for Emiya. He could see the package he had paid to have shipped to the Citadel from where he was standing, but he carefully kept from looking at it to reveal nothing to anyone who might be keeping an eye on him.

Carrying a large suitcase, he inhaled slowly.

He had geared up, taking equipment as necessary. Miranda had told him to take anything he thought he might need, since he had 'left behind' all of his gear when using civilian ships to get to Armstrong and had nothing more than a pistol and his civvies right now.

Accepting her 'generosity', he hadn't held back. Taking two hardsuits—one of both sizes for himself, since no one was looking—along with guns, grenades and any other equipment that caught his eye, he packed up and was now carrying a rather considerable armory with him.

"Hey now, we're not going to a war-zone. What's with all the stuff?" Dianne asked, walking up to him from behind.

He turned around to look at her, carefully controlling his expression lest he reveal his wariness toward her.

"I probably won't be of any use inside of a fancy ball. Which means I'll be waiting outside, in case we do need to put someone down. With the level of security we can expect on the Presidium, it will probably be a suicide mission. Might as well go in heavily armed and buy myself another few minutes in that case." He fibbed on the fly.

She hummed at that, her eyes narrowing.

Miranda walked up to them, carrying a smaller but still considerable suitcase of her own.

"Actually, you will be attending the party with me. Dianne, you will be infiltrating the compound through the service access as noted before. As outlined in my original plan, I expect you to hack into their feed and give us a secure comm channel to keep us updated on the inside." She said, glancing at Emiya as he reached to take her suitcase.

Saying nothing, she simply let him take it from her.

"That's..." Emiya hesitated. It hadn't been in the original plan for him to actually be attending the party.

That would make it harder for him to leave, but arguing too strongly would be bad as well. Well, maybe he could work it to his advantage. _I should raise my background as a concern, see if I can't get them to reveal how 'gateway' works._

"Is that really wise? After all, I am a cat-6. My presence will probably stand out."

Miranda smiled at that, satisfaction at having thought ahead of him plain to see as she handed him a datapad.

"Congratulations Emil, you're now an up-and-coming electronics investor. Or should I say, mister Durana. You've become a rather wealthy man in the space of an hour."

On the datapad was a picture of him which he did not remember having given them, with a new name next to it. _Damn, when did she have time to do that? She must have taken some security footage and edited it to fit the profile._ ' _Emil Durana'_. _At this rate I'm going to lose track of who I am._ He groused internally.

_Then again, I suppose it's fitting for someone 'nameless'._

"Is it a complete identity?" He asked. If she had been able to make a foolproof fake identity this quickly, then it should be fairly easy for him to make one himself, as well.

As long as he figured out how she had done it, anyhow.

"Not quite. We'll have to finalize it on the Citadel, but it will hold up to some scrutiny, at least." She answered and he nodded.

_Right, infiltrating was a good idea, then. I'll have to pretend for a little while longer._ He glanced at Dianne, also making a quick scan of the sealed box his body was in. It was being loaded in, just as he had expected.

Among all of these boxes and packages being shipped into the Serpent Nebula, what he had paid to have transported would simply disappear and be nothing more than a single line of data in some database. As long as no one thought to forcefully open up the box, anyhow.

He noted that all of the containers and boxes that were on open display in the basement floor, with their numerous eye-catching and curious contents, had been thoroughly sealed and been hidden away here at the 'ground level' where the starships docked.

So this 'Cerberus' operated on multiple levels, some of which were more legitimate like he had noted at first, and some of which were aware of the darker dealings beneath the surface?

"Time to go. The crew is mostly in the dark, so don't go talking to them unless you have to. We don't want anyone asking questions, so keep that in mind." Miranda spoke and began to walk as the freighter's side opened to let them inside.

Emiya nodded, following after her, carrying a suitcase in each hand. They boarded the freighter along a long walkway that was tilted so that boarding the starship was rather easy, even with a large container. Next to them several forklifts were busily moving containers and boxes in, losing no time.

He felt like he was walking inside the yawning maw of some great whale, eyeing the almost skeletal support structures inside of the ship. Barebones, was the only term Emiya could describe the décor with, as the priority had obviously been to minimize the starship's weight so that they could maximize the amount of cargo that could be transported.

Workers glanced at them, but no one sought to stop them as they boarded.

Arriving at an elevator—little more than a cage attached to the pulley system, really—they began to ascend beyond the ceiling of the vast belly of the freighter, into the 'spine' of the whale. The doors opened and they continued, walking through the dull bare steel surfaces without pause until they arrived at the bridge.

A man standing by a terminal turned around and frowned at them, but said nothing.

Miranda was all smiles as she walked up to him and handed him a datapad. "You'll find all our information there, captain. I trust there will be no problems or delays? We are in something of a hurry."

He grumbled, accepting the datapad and taking a quick look at it, before punching in some adjusted numbers into the terminal. Presumably to account for the weight they added to the ship.

"There are empty cabins by the starboard side, one floor up. The trip won't be long but you can rest there." He spoke, turning around half-hoping they would leave.

"You heard the man. I will stay here and oversee the proceedings." Miranda addressed them, glancing at the captain who seemed to sigh at her decision to stay.

"I'll take a look around. Familiarize myself with the ship." Dianne said, turning around and walking out without waiting for anyone to acknowledge her words.

Emiya nodded, turning around and following her.

He'd take the bags up to one or other empty cabin, and then take a walk around himself as well. For one, he had to make sure his body came along as scheduled. For another, it was a good chance to get a closer look at a proper starship. As lot of what he had done on the way to the moon had left him with a lot of questions, he decided that this was an opportunity he didn't want to miss.

Finding the engine room wasn't particularly difficult, even if those working on the ship kept questioning his presence there. He waived them all to take it to the captain, which seemed clear most of them off.

Being a commercial freighter, it used the economy ion engine model of propulsion. It basically created a propulsion through positively charged ions being accelerated with electricity. It was a rather old but cheap method of propulsion, whose biggest drawback that it only worked in vacuums. But it was reliable and most importantly, _extremely cheap._

There wasn't much he could learn like this, without the freedom to experiment and take apart the system to test the different pieces individually, but he still took the time to go through it all. Whereas the shuttles' and skycar's eezo cores had been small enough to be reasonably carried by a human being, the dense ball of element zero used for the FTL drive on this freighter was the size of a school bus.

He had acquired some literature regarding the functions of eezo cores in ships, since he had arrived and what he had read had stood out to him as somewhat unusual. During his flight from Mars, he had noted several things happening.

The two most important of which had been the build up of heat and static electricity. Apparently, those two things were major concerns for all starships and had been well documented and researched.

Heat was a rather easy thing to understand; everything, from the engines producing energy, to the crew breathing and walking around, caused some amount of heat to build up. This heat would in normal circumstances disperse and not be a problem, but since the ship existed in a vacuum it had nowhere to go. It was like a thermos bottle in that regard.

There were means of keeping this under control, the most common of which being radiators and heat sinks that could be let loose. For the former, various designs existed but they all placed a hard cap for how long the ship could operate before everyone inside was roasted to death. The rate of heat radiated simply did not exceed the rate at which heat was generated with modern technology, necessitating that after intense operation that the ship stop and cool down. For disposable heat sinks, there were material concerns and costs to consider, making them rather unreliable for long distance travel.

He had had to dump a considerable amount of water into the tiny skycar he had been riding, and water had a rather high specific heat capacity. It was used to cool down many things, he remembered. Even back in his time it had been used in nuclear power plants, among other places, as a cooling medium. But for a starship of this size? It would probably need an amount that was simply not practical to bring along. Thus, radiators of various designs seemed to reign as the standard.

The second problem of static was not quite so simple. Emiya had at first thought it was simply a matter of the triboelectric effect, that of static build up due to friction between two different materials. It was what happened, when an inflated balloon was rubbed up against fabric or hair, for example. In contact, electrons from one material would be taken into the other, causing it to become statically charged, which would then be released in the form of a static shock once a threshold was exceeded.

It had been a problem even back in his time, he vaguely remembered. Airplanes could build up a charge due to friction with the air, and the old american space exploration agency NASA had had specific rules in regards to their spacecraft, when it came to that problem as well.

He had looked into this and had found that ' _P-static_ ' was still a problem in aeronautics, marking certain regions of space to be dangerous to fly through, as it could cause various problems with communications and other sensitive equipment. There was even the possibility of static charge building up in the hull, like it could in the core.

But it wasn't what he had experienced.

The research was crystal clear on that; precipitation static was a problem—and under the right circumstances it could cause similar problems—but it was not the same thing as what happened with eezo cores building up a static charge. He hadn't found any detailed explanations on that, but the difference was clear according to everything he could find.

' _As positive or negative electric current is passed through an FTL drive core, it acquires a static electrical charge._ ' was the official explanation for the problem, necessitating regular docking near where it was possible to discharge.

But that felt strange; if electrons in the form of a current _passed through_ the eezo core, then how did it build up as static? It was a somewhat contradictory statement. Certainly, with electricity passing through regular metal conductors, things like eddy currents and internal resistance could cause some of the voltage to be 'transformed' into heat, but all the electrons still passed through the material.

Emiya had spent a good ten minutes simply examining the freighter's eezo core, as he had tried to reason out how that explanation worked, but no matter how he looked at it what he had learned from other eezo cores remained true.

The designs of all were such that a direct current went through, without any loss of electrons as it continued on in the closed circuit. If the eezo core acted as explained, then it would have been something like a half-capacitor, _or something,_ and the amount of electrons in the circuit should be dropping as the eezo core built up a according to how all of them had been built, it was obvious that the amount of electrons going in equaled the amount of electrons going out.

The official explanation did not make sense.

It was like a water wheel that spun in a river, but also somehow created water out of thin air for no discernible reason. It was actually somewhat baffling and it was obvious that much of the literature on the subject skirted that fact without going into any detail on it.

As if no one wanted to admit to the problem.

He found it _fascinating_. But it was obvious that he would be able to figure it out here and now. After half an hour, he decided to return to the bridge, as the workers seemed to be preparing for take off already, and he was starting to be in their way regardless of where he stood.

Arriving at the elevator again, he stepped inside and turned around, only to come face to face with Dianne. He blinked, realizing he had not heard her following him at all.

She smiled up at him, stepping into the elevator. "Going up?"

He blinked. "...Yes."

She nodded, pressing the button as she settled next to him. _Was she following me the whole time?_

The major reason he had spotted her earlier was due to intent flaring as she had been listening in on him and Miranda. If she had been watching him the whole time he had been walking around, did that mean she had figured that out? That she could suppress her self that strongly? _That kind of mental discipline does not come easy, this woman is dangerous._

"Did you have fun looking around?" She asked, as if ridiculing his suspicions with her friendly face.

"I am familiar with this starship now." He answered blandly.

"Hmm... I see." She tilted her head as she listened to him, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, she decided to press on. "I didn't take you for the engineering type. Your service record didn't have any mentions of it."

Emiya carefully kept his face and breathing under control, turning to look at her with a raised eyebrow. He wasn't sure what she intended to reveal by mentioning that she had access to the files he had sent Miranda. For all he knew, they existed solely on _his_ and _Miranda's_ omnitools. Unless Miranda had uploaded it to some other terminal, it meant Dianne had hacked one or both of their omnitools.

"Engineering?"

She didn't buy his act for a second, but the face she put on only refused his denial with a playful look.

"No need to be shy. I saw you down in the engine room, staring at that FTL drive. Any girl would feel jealous when a man looks at something that's not her, with eyes like that."

Emiya blinked, mentally shifting gear in the moment as he inhaled slowly. She was baiting him, trying to get him to flirt with her. But that way lay incautious words and veiled truths. _Deny, deny, deny._

"Erm... I don't get it." He stated bluntly and as she was about to continue, he spoke again. "I mean, the drive core looks pretty big. I was just wondering how many guns you could make out of it."

_Play dumb, admit nothing, never answer anything directly._

She pouted at him, not breaking character at all. It seemed like she had settled on an avenue of attack against him and wasn't going to pull out now. Miranda was the distant and cold type, only hinting at something more to string along men and to get them to do her bidding, whereas it seemed like 'Rasa' was more experienced in more direct methods.

Then again, to Emiya Miranda seemed like the kind of person who did not know _what_ she wanted, and even if she did get it, she would not know _what to do with it_ once she got it.

But if she was playing the distant, hard to reach woman, seeming like an easier catch in comparison would probably reel in those men who were disappointed or cowed by Miranda. Or so he reasoned that Dianne was thinking; he wasn't the most experienced when it came to such matters.

Regardless, he wasn't going play any games with her. For various reasons.

"Fine, be like that." She pouted, looking away.

He inhaled, turning to face the door of the elevator as they continued to rise. A sudden urge to look at her; to just glance, gnawed at him. He tried to ignore it, but for just a moment his curiosity overtook him.

Emiya glanced to his side. Their eyes met. She smiled at him, as if they were sharing a secret. He quickly looked away, before he could think about what he was doing. He knew he had lost something there, even if he wasn't sure _what_ it was.

The elevator doors opened and she strode out with a spring to her step, looking over her shoulder at him as he followed. Oh, s _he's definitely planning something,_ he thought with some grim exasperation.

Making it back to the bridge, Miranda glanced at them returning together with a narrow eyed gaze. Dianne smiled as if nothing was wrong while Emiya sighed on the inside, studiously pretending that he hadn't noticed anything. _So it was as much to mess with Miranda as me, then._

"Excellent timing, we will be taking off shortly." Miranda spoke imperiously, without even bothering to glance at the captain sitting on a chair a few meters to the side.

He was slumped over, as if accepting his powerlessness in this situation with sullen silence, and had resigned to simply let her get it over with so that he could go back to his normal schedule. If not for the flickering gaze and tapping index finger, Emiya might have mistaken him for being asleep.

Emiya looked out the bridge window—a strange addition to the starship in his opinion, given that it was nothing more than a structural weakness. It wasn't like you could see anything with the naked eye, anyhow.

You flew by instruments in space or you didn't bother at all, as he had already learned from his own short jaunt through the void. Well, there was a certain romanticism attached to the bridge, so maybe that was why.

The bridge view showed the outside, as the starship had only been backed into the side of the skyscraper's hangar, so that it fit as the seal on the inside. That way they didn't need to fit the entire thing in and could work without worry about the lack of atmosphere.

As the crew began to prepare for take off, Emiya moved to the side to keep out of the way while Miranda remained imperiously in the middle of the bridge, as if _she_ was the captain of the ship. The crew eyed her curiously, but seeing the actual captain silent, none of them said a thing.

The ship lurched and was freed. Rather than taking off, it felt like it began to float. If the shuttles and skycars that functioned with fusion torches for propulsion acted like small rockets, then the freighter seemed more like a hot-air balloon as it began to rise. Slowly, it began to move forward and to the right as it banked away from the domed city behind they were leaving behind.

As the freighter began to ascend at an angle, the ship's captain looked up at Miranda.

"It'll take well over—"

"Five hours to make it to Pluto, yes. I am aware. Well then, good job everyone." Miranda spoke, nodding as she turned to walk away with a satisfied smile.

Emiya frowned, glancing at the bridge crew who were throwing questioning glances at her back as she left.

"Dianne, Emil. You may do as you wish, but upon arriving at Charon Relay, I expect you to be here." Miranda spoke to them, before walking off the bridge.

"She sure knows how to make an _impression_ , doesn't she?" Dianne commented, looking with raised eyebrows at where the brunette had left.

Emiya kept his mouth shut, moving to get out of the way of the crew on the bridge. Behind him, he could feel her gaze on his back.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya settled down in the cabin with the suitcases he had brought.

Having some free time, he began to read on his omnitool. It was one of the ones he had taken from the Cerberus grunts, with a complete wipe and fresh install done to make sure nothing would link it to its previous owner.

Just the basics without which he could not pass off as who he was supposed to be, along with some reading material he had downloaded.

But he couldn't get his mind into reading, his mind too awhirl with thoughts. If he could have, he would have dived into Miranda's omnitool right now, but he wasn't sure if it would be detected. Moreover, the moment he spiritualized, his hair-dye and clothes would fall off, undoing his disguise.

Which would be a bit troublesome, all things considered.

Sighing, he closed the omnitool and stood up. He needed to get his mind off of things. There wasn't much he could do, aside from trying to fish for information, but he wasn't sure if he could actively try to discuss things with either of the two women he was now supposedly working with. They were both quite smart and the more he talked, the greater the chance was for him to say something that would out him.

Later on it might be alright to pose risky questions, but until they had arrived somewhere where he could actually disappear if he was discovered, it was better not to take any risks.

He grabbed the larger suitcase he had brought along and opened it. Reaching for a hardsuit, he closed the case and set it aside. He had only worked with the Onyx light armor he had received in the Alliance Navy before, so getting a closer look at this would be good.

Opening the clear packaging material, he ran a hand over the hardsuit. Unlike his previous suit, it was quite rigid. At a glance it looked black, but on closer inspection he could see it was actually a very dark shade of green. One could immediately notice that it was asymmetrical in design, made so that the left side was a bit thicker and tougher, the most obvious piece of which was the left shoulder having a small shield-like pauldron.

If he were to shoulder a rifle, it would cover half his face to give him additional protection. Overall the design was obviously based on the Aldrin Labs' Onyx hardsuits; the helmet, collar, torso and limbs all used similar basic designs as the first layers, but with additional material used on top for added protective value. The material also felt to be of higher quality. He wasn't sure what exactly it was, but he was fairly certain it was of higher quality than the synthetic materials of his time. _I wonder how it stacks up to my gear... I might get to update soon._

Emiya as much dreaded that as he was excited by the prospect. Making new gear was difficult, but also often quite rewarding.

He couldn't find any markings anywhere on the hardsuit, which he supposed made sense for a black ops armor. Looking it over, most of the design seemed familiar enough from his time in the Alliance, but he wasn't quite sure about it all. There were pieces and electronic components he had not seen before and he wasn't sure if it was due to the medium weight-class or if it was something Cerberus specific.

As before with his previous Onyx armor, it was something completely new and thus lacking anything he could reasonably read for pointers through Structural Analysis.

"Well, nothing to it but to try it on, huh." He shrugged and began to undress.

While you could wear clothes with the hardsuits, it was optimal to wear it on bare skin or specially made clothes, like he had had in the Navy. It was a matter of feedback from the sensors being accurate enough for the Heads Up Displays read out and for other statistics to be accurate. He began to put one leg in, figuring that while he wasn't familiar with the system he would learn quickly enough.

It was different enough that he would probably fumble around with it for a few minutes before he got it on, which might be bad if someone saw him hesitating with a suit he should be mostly familiar with from before. Or probably, anyhow.

So better to fumble around alone before it came to that.

Which was when the door opened with a swoosh. He looked up at the sound, crouching with his one foot into the suit and wearing nothing but his underwear.

Miranda blinked as their eyes locked.

Emiya blinked, taking in the strange situation he was in.

"Ah..." She hesitated, obviously as bewildered as he was at having walked in on him nearly naked.

He kept eye-contact, standing up as he drew the hardsuit up his feet and began to put it on, as if nothing unusual was going on. His mind accelerated as he considered the puzzle he was trying to wear; assuming the base design of an Onyx armor—this had to go there—but that meant the arm had to—but only if—so he would have to, and so forth.

Emiya without a word, with calm and unhesitating motions put on the hardsuit. Finishing the last seal; only lacking the helmet, he looked at her. She was still standing by the door, having frozen still as she looked at him.

"Was there something?" He asked calmly and causing her to blink. She frowned, looking up at his eyes, from where she had been eyeing his torso.

"No, I..." She shook her head. "You certainly seem experienced with the Skunkworks Freedom armor. There weren't any mentions of you having seen black ops missions requiring its use. How surprising."

Emiya blinked. Had he put it on too quickly in trying appear casual? _Well damn..._

"Ah..."

"No matter. You shouldn't be needing it at the ball. I actually came by to get your measurements." She said with a tilt of her head. She smirked, raising an eyebrow. "So you'll have to strip again."

Emiya cleared his throat, obviously not stripping as he looked at her.

"Measurements?"

She nodded. "We'll be attending a party, won't we? You'll have to dress to fit the part, so I'll be having a bespoke suit made for you at the Citadel. It will be ready by the time we arrive. But I'll need your measurements."

"I see." Emiya answered, nodding. "Then I'll use the hardsuit's internal sensors through the omnitool to send over the exact sizes."

She half-scowled at him, obviously aware that they could have done that just as well. _Did... did she want me to strip for some other reason?_

Emiya ignored such thoughts, turning on the omnitool and hooking it up to the hardsuit. He ran the basic diagnostic and analysis, before running the custom fitting program.

It was as if he had been wearing an airtight plastic suit, which was suddenly connected to a vacuum which sucked out all the air. The joints and limbs reeled in excess material and stretched out to accommodate his body and physique. Moving around his arms and squatting down a few times, he let all of the measurements finalize until the omnitool let out a satisfied ping with all of his data. It fit him like a glove, now.

The hardsuit turned slightly stiffer again, but it was much more comfortable now. He had had to repeat this process often enough for it to become almost habitual, as he had had to trade in his Onyx hardsuits in the Navy, as they eventually all become too small for him.

Hopefully that was over for the most part now.

"Here you go." Emiya said, sending over the data through the short-range comm to her omnitool. At the same time, he took note of the address it listed and saved it into his contacts. With that, he should be able to track it later and attempt a dive if he got the chance.

She half-glared at him, accepting the data packet with a sniff. Eyeing him for a few more seconds, she shook her head and turned around to leave.

_What was that about?_ He shook his head; it didn't matter.

She stopped just by the door, looking over her shoulder at him. "We'll be arriving at the relay soon. On the other side we will be taking a private cruiser to the Citadel to make it in time, so be ready to depart as soon as we are through."

"I thought that the party wouldn't be starting until tomorrow?"

"Yes, but we will have to do some groundwork first."

Emiya blinked, before nodding. "Understood."

She left, the door closing behind her and leaving Emiya to frown in the cabin alone. _Damn, that means I'll be separating from my body._

He still had well over 15 hours of Independent Action-insured life left, but who knew how long it would take for the freighter to arrive at the Citadel if they separated now? Should he simply vanish and stick by his body instead as a spirit? No, that would reveal that he could disappear off of a starship in transit, and all the effort he had expended to infiltrate them so far would be wasted then.

The freighter should catch up soon enough and he could dive into the system to return here anyhow, probably.

Besides, he was kind of curious as to what Cerberus was actually after on the Citadel, and reading up on Synthetic Insights had been rather promising. He would have to get into contact with them or someone like them either way. It was a good way to get some more information if he stuck around for a while longer.

He was fairly certain he could tough it out for another day, even without the help of his Class skill, but it wouldn't be easy. _But for now, I need to reset my Independent Action, then. Every hour counts_.

Which meant that he needed to do it now, before it became a problem. He sighed, knowing that he couldn't wait much longer. Placing a hand on the floor, he extended a minute amount of magical energy. He couldn't detect any people, cameras or sensors here, thus it should be safe enough to do it.

Opening his eyes, Emiya grabbed the hair color kit again and took off the hardsuit. Walking into the cabin's bathroom naked, he closed the door and locked it to give himself another layer of privacy.

"Alright, let's make it quick." He told himself and spiritualized. His hair-dye and contacts fell to the floor, as being physical objects they did not disappear with him. If he appeared again right now, his disguise would be completely gone, his white hair and gray eyes immediately apparent.

He went through the floors, appearing in the massive cargo hold where he knew the steel box containing his body was being stored. He found it quickly enough, even without having to project the blade to locate its partner.

Closing his eyes, he crouched inside of the box. Its surface was cool to the touch, but nothing unusual really. But inside of it, he could sense the deathly cold keeping his body in stasis. He exhaled, extending his hand.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

The sword of glowing red, like molten steel made solid despite the contradiction in states, appeared instantly. It began to melt the ice even without any excess magical energy being pushed in. Vapor began to fill the steel box, quickly beginning to heat it up. He inhaled once, before possessing his body again.

It was dark.

The terrible cold assaulted him immediately as he had dove in; the absolute pain of being dead without having died. Pain.

Cramped. Cold. Painful. Death; even nonexistence would have been preferable to this—but he ignored it all. His heart wasn't beating. His lungs weren't working. The blood in his veins felt like solid iron, even if it hadn't frozen over completely. His brain was frozen through, yet he still felt some semblance of his mind and soul exerting itself as he focused. His body was utterly frozen, each and every nerve screaming at him.

He ignored it, willing minute amounts of magical energy to circulate within his body. Agony.

Time seemed to stretch on for eternity, his only companion being suffering. It was fine, he told himself as he repressed it all.

It was sluggish, but within a minute he could begin to sense something beyond the absolute cold.

He focused on the warmth—painful beyond words—he could sense and—

— _thud_

Emiya's heart beat once.

He immediately canceled the ember sword and stepped out of the body, appearing in his spiritual state next to himself. Panting, he closed his eyes and shook his head. His Independent Action had been reset, but he hadn't been able to acquire any magical energy. In fact, he had wasted a little bit of it with this effort. Shaking his head to dispel the ghostly sensations still crawling up his limbs, he projected three swords made out of ice to cool the icebox down again.

It would not do if his body continued to warm up, he needed it in stasis. _I'll have to do this every day, huh..._

Without having to worry about not being found out, as he did right now, it would probably be easier to figure out some method of handling this more cheaply and painlessly, but for now it couldn't be helped. A little bit of pain was fine.

Making sure that his body cooled down back into a stable state, he exhaled and turned around to leave.

Returning to the cabin he should be in, he looked around. Nobody seemed to be snooping around or to have noticed his disappearance.

Materializing in the bathroom, he exhaled. Looking into the mirror, steel eyes stared back at him. He frowned at his white hair and eyebrows, knowing that it would be a pain to get them colored again. Still, at least he had thought to bring the dye along.

"What a bother..." He spoke, reaching for the bottle.

But he hesitated. _Well, while I'm at it..._

Every time he spiritualized, he would have to re-do the disguise anyhow. So might as well make the most of it right now. Exhaling, he turned around leaped out.

He found Miranda quickly enough, sitting alone with her omnitool. She obviously wasn't reading up on anything in regards to the mission, as she was simply looking at a scant few lines of numbers with a small smile on her face.

Emiya hesitated for a moment, not certain why, but feeling like he was intruding on something private like this. Shaking his head, he extended his hand, looming over her in his spiritualized state. Focusing on the omnitool, he spoke the words.

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

Opening his eyes, he found himself in that dark digital ocean once again. He inhaled slowly as he continued to be submerged. Looming over him, like a great star, was Miranda. She was still smiling lightly, her private small joy frozen in time.

Scowling, he closed his eyes and flipped as he landed on the blue-grid plane. Ignoring her, he looked around and made note of everything.

Like this, he could tell that encryption key was based on the owner's DNA along with a 32-key password that specified which part of the genome it was supposed to be reading. There were also voice passwords and codes for specific functions.

Well, he was just after data right now, so he focused on copying everything he could get his hands on. At a glance, he could pretty much confirm that she didn't really have anything more interesting than what Cardotin had had, since she wasn't an Officer in the organization. Still, he took what he could get.

Even looking around and checking the cache, he couldn't find any traces of how she had generated his new identity. She had three other identities stored on the drive, all with seemingly complete histories and backgrounds. It was probably some kind of external service, then. Feeling annoyed that he had somehow managed to miss it when she had made the identity she had handed him, he continued looking around.

Gathering anything and everything interesting looking, he copied it all as best he could into a pile of unsorted data. After going through everything he had been able to find, he looked at the compressed ball of 'data' he had in his hands, frowning.

"Now how am I supposed to get this out of here, again...?"

He was pretty sure he couldn't just dive back out with this thing, since it wasn't actually anything real. It would probably just disappear the moment he was outside. He was fairly sure the thing he was holding did not have any physical component, not like bits stored on a computer were or anything like that.

Shaking his head, he connected himself to the starship's network and jumped into that system without diving out. Noting that he was still holding the ball, he created a folder of sorts in an empty sector of the drives and placed it there. He would have to figure out how to get it later, but for now it would have to do. As long as the starship did not perform a complete scan on its own drives, it probably wouldn't be found out either. And as it was, he doubted it would appear as anything more than junk anyhow.

Diving back out, Emiya appeared on the bridge in his spiritualized state. Looking around, he shrugged and returned to the cabin where he was supposed to be right now.

Materializing before the mirror he exhaled, staring at his gray eyes with some exhaustion at all of this running around.

"Sheesh. Alright, now to fix my appearance."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya arrived at the bridge, looking as if he had just taken a shower and nothing more as he stopped.

"Hmm?" Dianne made a sound as she looked at him, her eyes raking his body and taking in his wet hair.

"I'm not late, am I?" He asked, knowing he wasn't early.

Miranda glanced at him, but said nothing.

"You took a shower? You should have asked first." Dianne said simply, looking at the bridge window. In the distance, you could just barely see the Charon Relay as a small speck of light against the darkness of the space between stars.

Emiya blinked. "I apologize, I did not know I needed permission. It will not happen—"

"No, I just figured we could have shared and saved on water." She continued, smiling coquettishly up at him.

Emiya blinked.

Someone on the bridge coughed. It might have even been the captain.

"...Right. Duly noted. Waste not, want not." He answered, squarely pretending she hadn't said anything unusual.

She grinned. "It's a promise."

In front of them, Emiya thought he could see Miranda glaring at them from the corner of her eye, but it was gone before he could make eye-contact. Glancing at Dianne, it was obvious that she had seen the same thing, given the satisfied smirk on her face. _I really need to get away from these two._

Studiously ignoring what had just happened, Emiya stared at the approaching mass relay.

It was huge, even from millions of kilometers away that much was obvious. And the warp and pressure it exerted on the fabric of space-time put his teeth on edge. It was something he had not frame of reference to, even with everything he had experienced so far. It was said that the mass relays were nothing more than highly advanced and upscaled mass accelerators, but that could not possibly be true.

Emiya inhaled slowly, trying to keep his trepidation from showing as they approached. It had been discovered soon after the Mars ruins, laying near Pluto on the outer edges of the solar system.

Shaped like a massive tuning fork with a glowing core and spinning gyroscope-like parts to it, not even having been encased in massive amounts of ice and being disabled for who knew how many thousands of years had managed to put a scratch on it.

Even with the FTL technology available to humanity right now, practical travel to any other solar system was not possible. Even the closest system, Alpha Centauri, was too far away for anyone to want to go there even today. The things which made galactic society possible as it existed, were the mass relays that had been left behind by the Protheans.

Massive machines, powered by obscene amounts of element zero and technology no one quite understood. They functioned like instant jumps between two distant systems, accelerating ships to speeds even beyond what the fastest starships could possibly manage.

Travel between two points was essentially instantaneous and without any time dilation. A fact which had been considered wholly impossible in Emiya's time, according to all understanding of physics. Standing here, even at this distance and sensing the unreal power this one mass relay exerted on reality, that fact seemed to finally sink in.

There was something about mass effect technology which should not be possible. It broke too many laws of physics, even according to the careful attempts at making sense of the world today by the greatest minds the galaxy had. No one quite understood it, even if everyone had built their civilizations around it.

Emiya let out a shuddering breath, considering something for the first time which he had been ignoring until now. _What the hell is element zero...?_

"First time seeing a relay?" Miranda asked and Emiya suddenly realized she was standing right in front of him.

He hesitated, before nodding.

Nothing in his file should necessitate him having left the system, so there shouldn't be anything wrong with admitting it.

She smiled at him reassuringly. "Don't worry, you won't feel a thing."

He nodded. _But I already am._

But he said nothing as they continued to approach the relay. Even with the massive distance still left to cross, the freighter had long since stopped using its engines to accelerate and in fact had already begun to slow down a little bit so that they would not be arriving at too high a velocity at the relay.

They slowed down and ahead the massive structure loomed. It was easily over fifteen kilometers long and somehow he could feel a headache building up as they approached. It pressed in on him like some massive drum, the rotations of the central rings and the pulsating light in the core drawing him in.

He realized almost immediately that it was made out of something so far beyond his understanding that he almost retched then and there. Controlling his breathing, he swallowed his nausea and focused.

Miranda put a hand on his shoulder and he almost jumped, but controlling himself he merely turned to look at her. He ignored the pounding forge right next to him, a thunderstrike assaulting him with every rotation and a burning pressure pushing at him as they drew ever nearer.

"Are you alright? You're turning pale." She asked.

He made a little huff as the right corner of his mouth rose up a little. "Just nervous. It's nothing."

She smiled at him, almost maternally amused by his reaction but accepting his stoic front nonetheless.

Emiya felt like he was standing on the precipice of a cliff, on the edge of the sun or looming just outside of the reach of a black hole. He half wanted to escape this thing, but another part of him wanted to jump through the front of the freighter and get his hands on the thing looming ahead.

"Never seen anything like it..." He mumbled.

Miranda next to him made a sound of agreement.

"It's quite something, alright. Thinking that someone once built these... It's quite amazing. I hope I'll one day be able to make something that'll leave as great a mark on the galaxy."

Emiya blinked, tearing his eyes away from the relay. Looking at the brunette next to him, smiling wistfully as she watched the mass relay, he considered her silently.

Shaking his head, he turned to follow as the bridge crew began to prepare for using the Charon Relay. It was apparently quite a simple process, requiring little more than making contact with the relay and flying alongside it.

Realizing that they were about to enter, he inhaled slowly. But before he knew it, the was a _spike_ in the fabric of reality and then they were in motion. The relay simply vanished to his senses and he looked back with furrowed brows. Eyes seeing nothing but the dull metal walls of the bridge, he blinked.

Looking around, he could see a blue corridor of some sort around them as they moved. _It doesn't feel any different from regular FTL, huh...?_

He didn't know what to think of that. Well, at least it worked and he was on his way to the Citadel now.

That was something, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of wanted to do something more with Armstrong, since I was beginning to realize how awesome the place was, but it didn't pan out since I have a timer on Emiya's head.
> 
> Thanks to Wuolong77 for correcting me on cryogenics and mammalian cell structure, among other things. Fine gent, that.
> 
> Thanks to the stupendous PseudoSteak and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.


	15. Citadel Shindig

Emiya considered the space station ahead, visible through the bridge window as the cruiser approached it.

Words had failed him with the mass relays, but this was even beyond that. In a completely different way, but still overwhelming nonetheless.

He looked up, and up, _and up_. As close as they had come, it just seemed to never end.

It was massive beyond words. A central ring, with five fan-like extensions forming a spinning and habitable station that acted as the seat of galactic society. Some twelve million inhabitants of all races lived there, with a rough two million being humans included in that number, despite their relative youth on the galactic scene.

_Humanity always did enjoy pushing its borders_ , Emiya noted.

The cruiser slowed down, approaching the space docks on the Citadel. There was a flash of unease, but then it was gone, as if buried beneath ten thousand years worth of dirt. He frowned, not quite understanding what it was, but comprehending nonetheless that something about this place was putting him on edge.

_It's probably just the numerous mass relays behind us,_ he thought with a shake of his head. _From here, with a sufficient force, you could reach everywhere at once in the galaxy._

The one had been off-putting, but the countless mass relays all resting on this side, just _floating around_ in space... They had made him feel unsteady on his feet. Intellectually he understood it; the power necessary to sling a ship halfway across the galaxy had to be on that scale. Yet, he still felt that strange vertigo and had to fight purple of the Serpent Nebula seemed to go on forever, and for some reason he had a strange belief that any number of mass relays could have been hidden in that unknowable mist-like region.

Shaking his head, he looked up at the Citadel and pushed away thoughts of the mass relays to the back of his head.

This was...

There was something about it, like the smell of copper and the taste of acid on his tongue as he saw it. But as he tried to understand it, it continued to elude him. Something about this place was _off_ , but he couldn't quite place it.

Earlier, he had somewhat numbly followed Miranda, taking their gear with him as he walked to board a shuttle to be taken aboard another vessel that would take them the rest of the way to the Citadel. Apparently a civilian cruiser would be allowed to dock much more quickly than a commercial freighter would be.

Probably had to do with the sizes of the ships.

"Dianne, as soon as we've docked make a scouting run for the ball. I want a complete and updated layout of the venue, at least three hours before we have to walk in there. That includes guest list, security specs and the party plan." Miranda spoke, arms crossed as she looked at Dianne. "If they're having pot roast pie for dinner, I want to know about it."

The woman with a darker complexion nodded, accepting the order without any of her usual commentary or witticisms. _She has a troublesome personality, but once on the job she's serious, huh._

"Strap yourself up, Emil. I need you looking dangerous enough to scare off a krogan by the time we board." She continued, looking at Emiya.

He was wearing his 'civilian' clothes, since he had assumed that they would be boarding as regular civilians. But he had brought along the suitcase of Cerberus' gear from the freighter, so it was fine.

Nodding at her, he said nothing as he turned around to go change.

Having geared up and wearing two pistols plus an assault rifle, he certainly felt the part of being some wetworks operative for a shady organization as he returned to the bridge.

Miranda looked him over, nodding with satisfaction. "We will be making for the Zakera Ward to start with."

"Understood."

They began to approach one of the Citadel arms, and he could hear one of the pilots begin communications with Citadel Control. As they approached the keel dock, the cruiser began to slow down considerably again.

"Why did we switch ships? Couldn't the cruiser have picked us up at Armstrong? The Demeter would have probably made it to the Citadel on time, too." Emiya asked, glancing at Miranda.

She raised an eyebrow at his question, before looking away.

"It's a matter of paper trail. Right now, we'll be coming from Bekenstein and the ship's records will agree. We'll have to have at least this level of background, to pass off."

He considered that.

"Will it be alright for us to be walking around heavily armed, then?"

She turned to smile at him, though it bore on the barest of kindness. "Oh, don't you worry about that. Thinking about these things is my job."

He frowned, not sure if she was mocking him but accepting her words as the rebuke they were. ' _Shut up and do as you're told', is it?_

The cruiser docked, the magnetic clamps echoing inside the vessel as they attached themselves to the ship's hull.

"Alright. Dianne, you know where to meet up, once you're done?" Miranda asked, putting on her own mask. It was similar in design to her thin bodysuit, hardly enough to be called protection, but it hid most of her face regardless.

Dianne nodded, crossing her arms as she waited for them to move out. Checking that they had everything, they left the starship.

They walked out the airlock, entering the dock, and Emiya had to blink and forcefully keep himself from gawking around.

There was nothing overhead, revealing the insides of the five Citadel arms in all their glory. He could see thousands of skyscrapers dotting the insides of each arm, with hundreds of large starships flying around between the arms themselves. And through the arms themselves, the purple Serpent Nebula could be seen.

It felt rather surreal.

Emiya looked around, half-gaping at the truly massive structure he was on right now. Unlike with mass effect field generated artificial gravity, as on board the starships, here it was partially being generated through centrifugal force.

Different planets had a 'flavor' to them, as did starships using eezo. But this seemed somehow empty in comparison, and he felt a slight sideways motion as he took his first steps on the dock. He knew that planets spun as well, but he wasn't sure where the notable difference exactly lay between the two. _I wonder if people suffer from nausea here due to it?_

Ahead, several humans in uniform stood next to some of the cruiser's personnel, talking and comparing their omnitools. He figured they were docking personnel, come to check who was landing and to perform a perfunctory check on the cargo, or something.

The docking personnel glanced their way, but ignored them as they walked past into an elevator.

This was probably where he would have been caught, had be tried to sneak aboard a starliner or an inbound vessel. Cerberus apparently had paid off all the officials, or then they had enough staff on the inside to be able to walk by, without being stopped and searched like normal people.

Miranda punched in a floor on the elevator panel and the doors closed.

Still, even if he had passed, that might not be the case for his body. Hopefully his sealed icebox had sufficient thickness and shielding to prevent anyone in customs from realizing just what it was that he had shipped in, but he would probably have to be ready to extract it when it arrived.

It would make his timetable a bit annoying, but he would deal with it.

"Well, then. See you two around." Dianne said, stepping out and disappearing into the crowd just outside the doors. Miranda nodded in response and the elevator doors closed as they bound off again.

_These elevators aren't half-bad. I can't even feel it, but we're moving at pretty ridiculous speeds._ Emiya wholeheartedly admired the engineering and inertial dampeners as dozens of floors passed by.

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda glanced at Emil as he followed two steps behind her, at her left flank. Like a silent shadow, simply waiting at her beck and call.

That was good.

She had to make sure Rasa did not poach him before she could get him wrapped around her finger. Already he seemed to be entertaining thoughts about the other. He showed too much promise and...

She ignored that line of thinking, focusing on the present.

"How about we go eat, first?" She asked, turning around with a casual smile. "My contacts probably haven't even woken up yet."

He blinked, half-frowning before he nodded. "If you're sure. Lead the way."

She smirked, turning around and continuing to walk with a skip to her step.

Of the five Citadel arms, she preferred Tayseri Ward with its numerous cultural and arts-oriented facilities the most. But Zakera Ward was not that far behind, with its many curious and quirky streets and shops.

All of the Wards were rather dense in population, reminding her of Tokyo or Dubai, though only tangentially. With the lack of strong natural light, it was usually fairly dark out on the wards, with bright and colorful artificial lights all around to compensate. Signifying various shops, boutiques and restaurants being open for businesses of all kinds, there was always something to do or see out here.

And since the sun never set on the Citadel, everything was pretty much open all the time, running on a rotating staff usually.

The Citadel standard of time was based on the average day length taken from the turian, salarian and asari homeworlds, but since there was no enforced light cycle as on the Presidium, in the Wards no one really cared. Everyone lived on a fairly fluid schedule, requiring a bit of adjusting to for new arrivals.

She walked down the dark street, passing by neon signs and open doorways, with both beckoning servers and scowling bouncers to be seen.

"It hasn't changed much since I was here last." She admitted, just loudly enough that he should be able to hear.

Glancing at him, she noted at how he seemed to stare at every alien they walked past. The short and rotund volus in their sealed environment suits garnered but a glance from him, while the great and lumbering four-legged elcor seemed to elicit a much sharper interest.

It was amusing to watch, but she did not eye him merely for personal interest. He did not seem to hold any overt dislike towards any of them, she judged.

That was good. While Cerberus' aim was to ensure humanity's ascendance in the galaxy, it was no good to be bound by petty prejudices and small-minded sentimentalities. She would deal with anyone and those whom she would work with ought to have equal ability in that regard, at the very least.

They passed by a hanar, its great glowing tentacles billowing in the air as it smoothly sailed past them. She could feel his interest piquing as his head turned to follow the hanar even as they walked past it.

She smiled; for all of his stoic front, she could see hints of his true thoughts just below the surface in everything he did. He was obviously quite overwhelmed and excited about all of this, even as he did his best to appear wholly in control and unconcerned about everything around them.

"The hanar are quite something, aren't they?" She asked and he blinked, turning to look at her.

"' _Hanar_ ', huh. I almost mistook it for something else. But they seem harmless enough." Emil admitted.

"Certainly. As long as you don't ask them about their ' _enkindlers_ ', they're wholly harmless."

"Hmm?" He made a questioning sound, walking up to her.

It was difficult to hold a proper conversation if he was merely walking behind her, after all. He judged accurately that she desired to converse, right now.

She smiled. Yes, this was better.

"The hanar believe that the extinct Protheans are something akin to gods, calling them the ' _enkindlers_ ' and preaching to anyone who will listen about their light."

Miranda could see his roused interest as he blinked. "Huh, really now."

She raised an eyebrow, wondering just what he found so fascinating about that, but putting a note of it for later in the back of her mind.

They continued walking, arriving at a hanar-run establishment by the name of 'Enkindled Entrée' when run through her omnitool's translator. She stopped in front of it, considering it for a moment.

It wasn't her favorite place, but it was decent enough, and he had seemed quite interested in them, so she figured she might as well visit the establishment again.

Walking in, a hanar by the door greeted them.

"This one welcomes you, honored customers. May the light of the Enkindlers shine upon you, as you dine in this humble establishment."

She could feel him frowning at the hanar, almost hearing his mental cogs shifting as he regarded it.

"A private table, please." Miranda spoke without preamble and the hanar made a motion with its tentacle that translated to a polite nod.

"Please, follow this one to your private dining room." It spoke and then began to weightlessly glide away while shifting between shades of blue, red and purple.

To those who had never seen a hanar up close, she knew they could be somewhat _overwhelming_. It was a pity he was wearing his helmet; his stoic face would have surely been fun to see as he tried to get used to it.

Sitting down in a private room, she took off her own face-concealing helmet and settled down. He followed suit, frowning as he regarded the hanar and her.

"Do we have time enough for a place like this?" He finally asked and she merely smiled at him.

_Sit down,_ she thought.

He cleared his throat, saying nothing more. She would not make such an elementary mistake as to waste time when they were in a hurry. Right now, even with everything underway, they were in no hurry. There was a time for action, and there was a time for rest and recuperation. They would not have time to sit down and eat for a while after this, thus it was the optimal moment for supper and surcease.

_She_ was also not here, which only made it all the better.

Looking up at the hanar server, she smiled. "I'll take the Enkindled course 4, with a light appetizer and a glass of water."

Turning to look at Emil, she smiled at him expectantly. He blinked, obviously not knowing what to say as he had never been to a place like this.

Turning to look up at the hanar, he cleared his throat.

"Would you recommend anything? What do you serve here, I apologize, but I've never had a chance to try hanar cuisine before."

That only made the server begin to glow as it seemed to puff up in excitement.

"This one is overwhelmed with the opportunity to present to the honored customers the Enkindler's greatest fares. Since the dawn of our civilization, these recipes have been passed down from generation to generation, all the way from the time of the Enkindler's era itself!" The hanar spoke excitedly and Emil blinked, staring at the server.

"Uh... Well, I'll have whatever you would recommend, then." He spoke, glancing at her. She smiled at him, raising an eyebrow. "As long as it takes about as long to prepare as my companion's meal. Thank you."

"Very well, this one shall endeavor to pass on the Enkindler's light with the food that shall be presented to the honored customers." It spoke and then smoothly and soundlessly disappeared.

Emil's eyes followed the thing and she couldn't help it, giggling lightly at his behavior. His eyes shot to her, blinking as he tried to understand what was so funny.

"I apologize. It is not often I see anyone so fascinated with the hanar. Usually, most people view them with nothing but disdain and annoyance."

He blinked.

"I see. They seem... nice enough?"

She huffed at that and they fell into a silence. Some minutes later, their fare arrived. She thanked the hanar as he set the plate of various seafoods before her, quite reminiscent of Japanese cuisine in presentation. It was called the course 4, for it was the least akin to how the Enkindlers apparently preferred their food to be prepared of the four main dishes they prepared here.

Miranda smiled, looking at Emil who seemed to be looking down at the plate _he_ had been presented. From the looks of it, he had been given the course 1 meal.

She had described the hanar as being harmless, but they were rather well known for various strange quirks. For one, when they spoke of the Enkindler's cuisine, it usually meant sea creatures from the oceans of their homeworld, Kahje.

That by itself was not usual. Most if not all alien races who lived on planets with oceans had some form of seafood, and those who did not often enough ate the fare that other races could prepare, if possible at all. The asari for example were well known for their seafood, across the entire galaxy.

Emil blinked, as the sea creature on his plate moved. It's fins and tentacles desperately, if sluggishly, twitching about. What made the hanar so famous when it came to their cultural face, was that they quite often prepared the sea creatures for consumption while they were still alive.

Emil poked at the cut-open creature, still barely alive but not enough so that it could struggle any more.

It looked liked a fish with tentacles and it had been gutted open, its innards removed and filled with an edible jam-like paste made out of plants that grew in parts of their southern ocean world.

It was apparently a delicacy, and supposedly the desperate struggle for life from the creatures added a richness to the taste, that could not be found anywhere else. Some questioned as to what kind of beings the hanar's gods were, if they had apparently had a taste for such 'unique cuisine'.

The hanar had on many occasion boycotted anyone who had spoken ill of their traditions, stating that it was as much a religious practice as it was a cultural one. It was still a contentious and sensitive topic in political and cultural discussions.

"Well... Thanks for the meal." He spoke, nodding at the hanar still waiting by the side.

He tentatively poked the creature with his utensils, his hesitation obvious. Sighing, he speared it through and then peeled off a strip of its meat and soft skin with his utensils. It had been boiled, without killing the creature, thus the flesh was soft and easily torn free. Without waiting, he put the piece in his mouth and began to chew.

She shook her head lightly and began to eat as well.

"This one shall retire from the table. If the honored customers have any need of this one, the call button by the table will notify this one immediately of your distress. This one wishes the honored customers a pleasant meal." The hanar bowed and left.

She looked up, swallowing the _nigiri_ -like piece of seafood and smiled as she looked at him trying to figure out what he was supposed to be eating of the thing on his plate.

_I should do this more often_.

* * *

;

* * *

_I guess the hanar are more alike to horrors than I first imagined. I wonder, is there a connection?_ Emiya pondered as he followed after Miranda.

The hanar lacked teeth and claws from what he could see and the horrors he had faced had lacked any form of bioluminescence, yet he still felt there could be some kind of connection there. Shaking his head, he dismissed it as idle speculation.

The food had been _unusual_ , but it wasn't like he hadn't prepared _ikizukuri_ himself before, or seen other live foods before.

He had for example eaten quickly roasted Yin-Yang fish when he had been in China before, where an entire carp was roasted and kept alive as it was presented for consumption. Usually its heart would still be beating, and it would still be trying to breathe.

There was also _drunken shrimp_ and _dancing shrimp_ , which all things considered were rather brutal foods. It wasn't his usual fare and he had some hesitations about preparing it, but he could not deny that it had been good.

In more than just taste, really.

The live creature had given him sustenance that dead food simply could not, replenishing his reserves of magical energy just a teensy tiny bit. With his body on ice, it would not be able to keep him topped off, thus any little bit he could find was worth its weight in gold.

Then again, he probably would not wish to eat his weight in live fish every day, so he should not grow to rely on it. Well, perhaps he could find some oysters or mussels? Those were usually consumed live, too.

Though their level of intelligence left something to be desired, thus they would not be very replenishing in the grand scheme of things.

He continued following Miranda as they walked. He wondered perhaps if they should have taken some kind of automated vehicle to travel with, but since she kept looking at her omnitool and glancing at various camera-like objects on the street corners, perhaps it was necessary for them to be on foot to avoid detection or something.

The streets of Zakera Ward were rather strange, he thought.

With how tightly packed everything was, it reminded him of ocean cruises somehow, or perhaps to the insides of Las Vegas' casino complexes. Apartments and public spaces were dotted around, everywhere. Overhead and to either side, great glowing signs and advertisements hung, reminding him of cyberpunk landscapes he had only seen in fiction before.

There were people everywhere, both humans and various aliens of different shapes and sizes. It was actually somewhat claustrophobic, he realized as he took point to muscle his way through a crowd while Miranda quietly followed after him.

Fuyuki hadn't been a small city, but he had grown up on the Miyama side, where it had been rather calm and docile in comparison to the hustle and bustle of Shinto's then-modern city life.

London had been a large city, but he hadn't stayed there for long and the mage's circles were rather sparse in comparison to the city itself, oftentimes. He had visited many large cities after that, but it was always a surprise to him how tightly packed people could live.

Aliens of all kinds seemed to be walking around, though mostly he saw humans, the short creatures he was fairly certain were called 'volus' and the quadrupedal 'elcor' up and about. He also saw a pair of raptor-like aliens walking around in uniform, their entire being screaming 'law enforcement' to Emiya, which he figured made them the 'turians' he had been hearing so much about in the Navy.

Though the physiques of many were very different, a lot of the cultural norms seemed similar. People walked at the same pace on the same side; they looked at the same adverts and they behaved in a generally similar way.

He wasn't sure if that was the norm here on the Citadel, or if galactic civilization was all simply that alike.

They entered what looked like a nightclub, though given that it was actually brighter inside despite the dim setting and flashing colorful disco-lights, thus he wasn't sure what to call it exactly. Heavy electronic music pounded, so loud that the floor seemed to be vibrating in sync with it, even though just outside the doorway he had not heard a thing.

_Good isolation, excellent craftsmanship._ Emiya distantly wondered who handled the maintenance and building on a space station like this.

It probably was not a central authority, given how massive the place was. Assuming permits were necessary to build or alter the structure, unless every part of every Ward was constantly monitored, he did not see how it would be possible to keep any check on what was going on.

He continued following after Miranda as she made a beeline through the dance floor, making for a door by the far side of the club.

There a turian with dark shades was leaning against a wall. It raised a talon with three sharp and wickedly curved 'fingers', motioning them to stop in what Emiya presumed was a rather universal sign for 'stop'.

"No entry." It spoke, it's metallic voice flanging strangely and Emiya blinked at that.

Additionally, the lag between the actual speech and the omnitool's translation, which most people would not be able to hear, made the voice sound doubly strange.

Miranda flashed something to the turian, who seemed to blink before leaning back with the mandibles on his face moving. Somehow, it reminded him of someone clenching their jaw, but holding back from letting it show too much.

_These aliens are actually fairly easy to read, huh_. Emiya thought, finding it slightly weird, but not thinking too much about it after that.

They were let in and instantly the music disappeared as the door behind them was closed. Walking down the corridor they appeared at what looked like a neat and tidy office reception area, complete with a receptionist sitting by a desk.

Emiya blinked, raising an eyebrow at what for all intents and purposes seemed to be a blue-skinned human woman with strange hair. He took in the lack of ears and eyebrows, the strange tentacle-like 'hair' and the smooth scales of her skin. They were so small and fine, that it looked almost like human skin at a glance.

The receptionist looked up, smiling at them. He blinked at how naturally the human gesture seemed to come to the obviously not human. It was slightly unnerving, actually.

"Welcome. Do you have an appointment?" She spoke, her voice just as melodic and feminine as Emiya had expected it to be.

"No, but I have a standing invitation." Miranda answered, staring down at the alien woman imperiously.

"Very good, miss. I shall inform him." The blue woman answered, not breaking her smile one bit.

Miranda turned around, looking at Emiya and nodding at him to take a seat.

"Wait here. Don't talk to the asari too much, she'll fleece you for all you're worth." She said, smirking at the end.

Emiya shrugged and accepted her words at face value. She walked off, making for the door ahead with her high heels making clicking sounds against the white marble-like stone floor. His eyes followed her all the way, until the door closed behind her.

Turning his gaze back to the receptionist, he inhaled slowly. _So this is an asari, then. One of the three Council races, the first and oldest._

She smiled up at him, obviously preening at his attention and inviting him. He wasn't sure what to think of her; the rather obvious and human-like features at odds with the otherwise ethereal and regal bearing, somehow.

"Are you certain that you do not wish to sit down." She asked, a teasing smile on her face. "Who knows, I might just _gobble_ you _up_ , little human..."

He frowned. _This level of social interaction... I don't think it should be possible through something like a translator. It doesn't affect body language, after all._

Looking her over, he noted how she would not have been out of place anywhere on Earth, her outstanding alien features aside. Her body language was picture perfect; something that seemed strange to him no matter how he thought about it. _She's teasing me, not just with words but the small gestures, as well. Like she's deeply aware of human culture. Not just the surface level behavior, but the actual deep culture._

"You're very human-like." He bluntly stated, crossing his arms and tilting his head at her. Not projecting aggression or hostility, but closing off his body language nonetheless to see how she would react.

She smiled, leaning back and putting her hands on the table, interlacing the fingers primly. Her body language open and attentive, matching her casual confidence perfectly.

"Oh? Are you certain that it is not _you,_ who is very asari-like?"

He exhaled slowly, considering her teasing words.

It was almost flirty, as if she was testing him; trying to make him push her in what seemed like a strange facsimile of human courting behavior. _Some sort of innate seductive ability? A succubi-like race, capable of reflecting subconscious thoughts? Or am I missing something?_

Emiya sharply inhaled then, focusing on cycling his magical energy inside his body and attempting to detect if anything was amiss. Detecting nothing wrong with himself and seeing no change in the asari, he frowned. _Focus on human-like features that shouldn't be affected by anything, prod on that_.

"You have five fingers. That's pretty rare, isn't it?"

" _Indeed_. How very nice to no longer be alone in the galaxy in needing five-fingered gloves." She answered. "I must admit, humanity joining the galactic scene has been quite nice, overall."

Emiya blinked. "Oh?"

"For all the racket and fuss your kind kick up wherever you go, the fact that our physiologies match has brought a new life to fashion and clothing. I've not experienced one like it in a long time; it's quite refreshing. Every day, wonderful new designs appear."

"Ah, _right_."

"Tell me, have you heard about ' _lingerie_ ' before? I've just recently acquired a new set, and I could use an... _expert opinion..._ on them." She asked, a teasing glint in her eyes.

He huffed, shaking his head and walking away to sit down by the lounge area. He could feel her amusement at his apparent backing down.

Glancing at the receptionist, he ignored her superior half-smirk. He wasn't interested in what she thought he was. Rather, he was beginning to wonder if these aliens were as _alien_ as he had first come to assume.

_The Protheans conducted some sort of experiments on early humans. Could they have taken out, or introduced something new into the human genome?_

He wanted to deny the possibility, but given everything else he had already knew of them, he couldn't dismiss it out of hand.

Emiya sighed. _Another question for the pile._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya tugged at his waist, pulling down at the suit as he rolled his shoulders.

Light linen fabric, single-button closure, one besom chest pocket and five interior pockets, four button cuffs and side vents. He glanced at the tag that had come with the package the suit had come in, as there were no tags attached to the suit itself.

' _Giuli Vorn_ '; a completely unfamiliar name, but that was to be expected, really. He was more than a hundred years behind on his knowledge of fashion, after all.

It wasn't quite what he had expected. The fabric and cut quite good, so much so that he didn't feel like he was wearing anything at all. Even bringing his elbows together did not cause it to feel tight at the back, a problem he commonly had due to his physical conditioning. For all their place as status symbols and garments of excess, good suits were nothing if not comfortable.

This was the kind of clothing one could go to sleep in, could wear for thirty hours straight, could go running and fighting in and not feel as if one was being bothered by the suit at all.

Just as _good_ suits had been in his time, as well. It was still his first bespoke suit, so it counted as a new experience, he realized.

"It must have been expensive." He noted.

Miranda merely smirked, tapping away at her omnitool.

They had walked around for several hours, going through various locations and talking to several people before coming here. He was always left behind when she went to speak with someone, and hampered by the limitations of his disguise or due to watchful eyes, had not been able to sneak in to listen.

So far, he had no idea what 'gateway' was or how it worked, even as he tried to keep an eye on what she did at all times. At this rate, he would not be able to find out how to make a new identity, which would be a major problem once he had fixed his current issues.

At least he had began to figure out how to fix his brain problem, which was something.

Or at least, found a lead for as to how to accomplish a fix. Coincidentally, it was closely related to Synthetic Insights, thus he was more than happy to keep going with this facade despite the immediate need of getting to the Citadel having been fulfilled. His body had arrived with the freighter some half hour earlier, thus he was looking for a chance to slip out and repeat his 'reset'.

It wasn't a bad idea to simply check up on his body either, really.

But that would have to wait for a little while longer, as they were about to have their final planning stage in regards to the Synthetic Insights ball. Additionally, he did not know what kind of timetable his 'leads' would have caused, thus he had to keep a wary eye open for when he should make his exit.

He doubted it would be more than a few days, at most.

Finally, Miranda had lead them to an empty apartment up near the Presidium access on Zakera Wards upper half and a package had arrived there fifteen minutes earlier. It had contained their disguises, as it were.

Emiya had found it slightly amusing how bespoke suits now came by mail order, but said nothing lest he show his age.

It was a dark plum, bordering almost on black depending on how the light hit the fabric. The design was quite far removed from the tuxedos and blazers of his time, closer to a _gakuran_ -style boy's school uniform, really. There were white highlights and fine patterns sewed in by the collar, shoulders and sleeves.

Overall, while it was rather light and lacking in protective value, he definitely found it a fine piece of clothing. Pity he wouldn't get to keep it, since he would be disappearing after the party, more or less.

There was a knock by the door bringing him out of those thoughts, and he went to open it.

Dianne smiled at him, her eyes taking him in, evaluating him from toes to tip. "Looking good, there."

Entering without waiting to be welcomed in, she sashayed past him, her hips brushing past his thigh lightly.

"You're back. Good." Miranda noted. "You can make your report, after which I will share my own findings."

Closing the door, Emiya moved to sit down as Dianne jumped onto a table, her feet hanging freely off the ground.

"Well, most of what you already knew was still true. Synthetic Insights has however hired some additional security this year, perhaps taking the situation more seriously than they are willing to admit to the public." Dianne began.

"Oh? Will it be a problem?"

Dianne shook her head, smiling wryly. "As if. Both of your identities are now a matter of public record, with well established and respectable achievements to back your invitations. The records on all ends for those have been modified as well, so here you go."

Pulling out a pair of blue envelopes, she handed them to Miranda. Emiya blinked at realizing they were laminated and pressed eezo of some kind. Not enough to be worth anything industrially, but still of considerable monetary worth.

He also realized that he had been watching the wrong end; it had been Dianne who had handled the entirety of 'gateways' application here.

"Excellent. How about your own infiltration once the party is under way?"

Dianne smirked. "No problem. One of the catering staff has come down with an illness and it just so happens that my 'name' has come up as a replacement. In fact, I will have to be there in half an hour to prepare for everything."

Miranda nodded.

"Is that all?"

Dianne shrugged. "Pretty much."

"Very well, good job. Then, I'll lay out the results of my findings." Miranda spoke, pulling out a display from her omnitool. "In consulting various information brokers and sources here, I've narrowed down the list of possible interested parties attending the ball. I'll forward the files to your omnitool; once you are on the inside, keep an eye on them. If any of them act suspiciously, I want to know."

"Got it." Dianne nodded.

"Additionally, I believe I have managed to root out what the item for sale will be." Miranda said, smirking as she pulled out a picture. It showed a ruined base of some kind. "This, is a former research facility of the Alliance, known as Sidon Base."

Dianne blinked, before turning thoughtful. Miranda did not say any more, letting the other woman work her way through her thoughts in peace.

"It's something related to Artificial Intelligence, then?"

Miranda nodded.

"Most likely. My theory is that the Alliance has continued its research into AI again, possibly using the data that remains from the Sidon attempt."

Emiya looked between the two, not quite following as his eyes moved from one to the other.

"And assuming the Citadel Council does not know, this would blow up magnificently in the Alliance's face if it were to be revealed." Dianne sighed. "Well, that certainly makes this tougher to deal with."

"Were it a physical component or even a piece of software code, it would be much easier to handle." Miranda agreed.

He roughly understood, then.

"But information such as ' _the Alliance is performing illegal experiments using data from a previous failed attempt_ ' will be much more difficult to contain." Emiya nodded, understanding vaguely what they were talking about now. "Which means that the option of taking out the seller is no longer on the table; something like that is too easy to spread around with a dead man's switch."

"Indeed." Miranda said, before frowning and raising a hand to her chin. "But simply saying so would not be enough; the thief would have to have some kind of data to prove it, right?"

"Yes. But since the Alliance is here, it is reasonable to assume that something like that was leaked to them already. It's not like we can simply pack up and go home now, saying something as halfhearted as ' _well, we thought he didn't have any proof_ '." Dianne playfully mocked while shrugging.

"How serious would this information be, if it was made public?" Emiya asked.

"Well the last time, after the catastrophic end of Sidon and everything that followed..." Miranda began, looking at Emiya and noticing that he did not seem to know what she was talking about. She frowned, staring at him. "This should be a matter of public knowledge, Emil. Don't tell me you don't know?"

He shrugged and he could feel her opinion on him lowering considerably.

"Well, it's already pretty old news, right?" Dianne jumped to his defense, smiling at him like a teasing elder sister. "But, considering the sanctions the Council placed on humanity, I don't think it will end well this time."

"Right. Ambassador Udina is no slouch, but he is too new. He doesn't have the experience to take Council head on. Anita Goyle performed admirably, considering the situation after Sidon and Camala, but humanity's position is still too tenuous to risk this being exposed." Miranda said.

Dianne huffed in amusement, nodding. "I still get warm feelings from watching Ambassador Goyle take on the entire Council, threatening them and then coming out on top, even after all the Council tried to throw at her. If she hadn't managed to push back the Council, humanity would not be anywhere where it is today."

Miranda nodded, not commenting further.

Emiya blinked, utterly out of his depth here and carefully keeping it from showing. He hadn't read up on human political history on the galactic scene, exactly.

"How about the culprit? Found anything that could hint at his identity?" Emiya asked, steering them away from these dangerous waters before he outed himself.

Miranda shook her head.

"Jump Zero isn't as active as it once was, but it remains a rather busy station. Thousands of Alliance personnel operate there. I have a rough profile for what kind of person the thief _could_ be, but it remains useless until we have actual solid leads."

"So the plan goes on as before." Emiya nodded, noting more to himself than to either of them. _Only change is that I'll need to get my hands on Dianne's omnitool before I leave._

"Indeed. But for now, I believe you must be going, no?" Miranda spoke, looking to Dianne who shrugged.

"I guess I do." She laughed, hopping down and with a twirl and bow made to leave.

"Well, then. I guess we'll have to get ourselves ready." Miranda spoke, getting up and smiling at him as the outer door closed. She sashayed her hips, suddenly mimicking Dianne for some reason in her body language. "We'll have to shower and wash up, won't _we_?"

Emiya nodded.

"Do you want to shower first?" He asked, mindful that he would have to use that opening to reset his Independent Action, as the gap in surveillance would allow him to re-apply his disguise without raising too much attention.

She frowned, eyes narrowing at him.

Sighing, she turned to walk away. "You go ahead, I'll finish up on some work first."

Emiya blinked, not quite understanding the sudden sullen tone in her voice, shrugging it away as being inconsequential. He had more important things to worry about right now, like getting the finishing touches laid on the suit without her noticing.

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda scowled, carving her face into something resembling an imperious visage of disdain rather than one born of mere human annoyance.

She did not _get_ annoyed. Not about something like this.

The very picture of professionalism and pride; efficient and flawless. That's how she had been raised up to be and how she had always been. No matter what she had to do, she would not fail. Which was why she had left in the first place.

The knot in her stomach tightened further.

That man had always expected more. No matter what she did, no matter what she could accomplish, it was never enough. Always more.

When she had been younger, it had driven her onward. She had been a foolish girl, back then. ' _As long as I keep going and do my best, surely it will be enough someday_ ', she had thought. But then she had found out that she hadn't been the _first_ of her kind.

Made to be the best, ignoring the laws and rationalizations of those lesser than them, she was pushed beyond being a mere human. Her genetic base, her upbringing and neural enhancements, her diet and chemical balance, her education and habits...

They were all tailor made to be perfect. Just like all the others, _before_ her, had been. Just like the one to come _after_ her. She wasn't the first, nor was she to be the last, she realized. So she had taken her 'sister' and left.

It wasn't that she was angry or afraid, or that she had perhaps realized, that she had not been good enough if her father had thought to create yet another.

No, definitely not.

No, it was _him_ who was lacking. He did not know _what_ he wanted. It was _his_ imperfections that were at fault. If only he was half as good as she was... So she had left and found somewhere else, where she could shine to her true potential.

She hadn't known what to do at first about her sister, but she decided that perhaps she could give her the childhood she herself never had. A dark part of her whispered that she was only ensuring that Oriana would never be her equal, but she violently squashed such thoughts when they reared their ugly head.

She had looked up everything, planning out her life meticulously; what kind of family would she be in, their psychological profile, comparing to statistics, using her genetic base and her own growth records to profile out a chart for comparison. She did everything in her power to give Oriana a perfect life, telling herself that she was not jealous or afraid.

Her and Oriana's genetic base was the same. Surely, they would have turned out the same. _He_ was wrong, and a _fool_. Just like _this_ man.

They walked down the carpet, their vehicle already leaving to let another arrive to replace it.

Ahead, the Synthetic Insights' personnel were welcoming all the guests while surreptitiously checking their invites. The eezo laminated in the invites of the paper created a unique print, something which could not be forged.

One batch was always one of a kind, the tree that had grown it and the traditional asari method of pressing it always creating something different every time. Even today, she doubted it would be possible to create a passable copy. Two was outright impossible, thus the advantage of walking in with him.

They were both scanned, passing and subsequently becoming invisible to the security. She felt a thrill of success at that; at least something was working right.

He was tall and broad she noted, just as she'd thought he would. Yet not 'bulging' or lumbering, as many of the genetically enhanced soldiers she had seen were. He was taught muscle and sinuous grace, walking soundlessly even with the hard-heeled dress shoes she had purchased for him.

Her arm entwined in his felt nice, she thought, before squashing that line of thought. He was just like _that man_ ; unworthy of her. If they did not know what they wanted, then it was no matter of hers, she could always find something better, just as she had _before_.

"You look beautiful."

She blinked, looking up at him. Their eyes met and somehow she felt as if the brown of his eyes wasn't right, even as she felt her hot blood flushing her cheeks.

"What?"

"Wow, that's even better." He smirked, puzzling her further. "Like I thought, your smile really is the best, darling."

For an instant, the world vanished.

Then it all returned as she blinked. They were pretending to be a married couple, she realized. She cleared her throat, trying to call up that frown once more, but finding herself unable to. Beside her, she could feel him smirking. _Kh... Was he always like this?_

She glanced at him.

Something about him had changed, again. They had only been working for two days, but she thought she had had a handle on his personality. This wasn't what she would expect of him, it almost reminded her of... _The way he was when I first saw him?_

She shook her head. It wasn't the time; she had to focus on the mission.

The doorman greeted them; a salarian wearing fine garbs, greeting them and scanning them quickly before welcoming them in. Beside her, Emil strode through the door with confidence and grace. He looked good in the suit, but now that he was wearing it, it seemed to highlight all the differences between the two men.

The same confidence, charisma and poise. Yet somehow, there was a sharp intent behind Emil's eyes that broke the similarity the moment she looked at him.

They made quite a pair, her own slinky dark cocktail dress matching him just as well as her arm seemed to fit his. He had come in unarmed and while she had originally planned to bring him in, now she wasn't sure what to do with him beyond a sacrificial pawn to cast aside in case she needed to escape.

Well, as long as he kept his mouth shut and listened to her, it should be fine.

They entered the ball room, a wide hall easily over a hundred meters long and beautifully decorated. Ostentatious, but still within the realm of taste. Awe-inspiring, yet not quite overbearing. It spoke of money and influence, more than annual income reports and the lists of their holdings ever could.

Most of the guests had already arrived, the room filled with people of nearly all the races. There were tables with drinks and more to two of the sides, clearly marked by the turian and salarian servers as to what kind of fare was being offered.

She looked around, slowly taking in everything. This would not be an easy evening, she predicted. Though this was the large ballroom, there were dozens of other, smaller rooms as well. In this sea of guests, anyone could be the seller and everyone could be an interested party.

Looking up, she could see the salarian and turian security personnel staring down at the guests. They were wearing fine clothes as well, but it was obvious they were armed and wearing comms. Synthetic Insights was not taking this lying down, then.

They walked up to the table flanked by a pair of salarians in serving uniform. Looking down at the platters of food and drinks, she appeared to consider what to try.

Her hands brushed one of the platters and as expected she found the comm-piece there, just beneath the side. They had been scanned when they entered, necessitating some clever workarounds, but Dianne was capable enough.

Taking a drink each, they walked back into the crowd and she plugged the comm-piece in her ear with a motion that looked just like her brushing back her hair, inhaling slowly as it turned on.

" _Well then, let us get this party started, huh?_ " Dianne's quiet voice greeted her and Miranda smiled, raising her drink to her mouth to hide her lips moving.

"Let's."

" _The first person of interest is to your left; the Asian man wearing a white suit. He's talking with two salarians._ "

"I see him." She spoke and began to walk that way with Emil following her lead.

The man had short dark hair, quite plain and unremarkable by most standards. She assumed this was as much a cultivated image as something he had been born with, given his affiliation with the Alliance Intelligence Agency.

She waited for a lull in the conversation, before walking forward into the triangle the three formed.

"Mister Rumoi, just the man I was looking for. I hear that the Alliance is looking for some hardware to enhance their existing gene mod packages. But have you truly considered all of your alternatives, hmm?"

The man glanced at her, his eyes looking her over before quickly glancing at Emil as well.

"Oh my, I hadn't expected word to have gone out already. At this time, we are only testing the waters, so to speak." He answered, smiling politely.

The two salarians looked at her, curiosity apparent as the trio turned to face her in the newly formed ring.

"Oh my, where are my manners." She feigned embarrassment. "Miranda Durana. This is my husband, Emil. We represent Durana Electronics."

"Heh, hear that? Not even the biggest fish is safe from competitors, eh?" The Alliance agent said, smirking at the nearest salarian.

"Yes. Competition, good. Keeps those at the top sharp and ready. Would not deny a customer the opportunity to compare. Always willing to prove, why best in business." The salarian spoke quickly, inclining his head at Miranda.

She smirked. "Oh my, you might find that we will be more than able to make use of such an opportunity. I hope you do not come to regret your confidence later on."

The man she had hoped to approach grinned, extending a hand to her. "Well then, I'm curious to hear what you have to say, missus Durana. Oh, you can call me Abe."

"Please, _Miranda_ is fine." She nodded at the Asian man, pulling out the facts she had prepared for her sales pitch. It was important to lay the groundwork, before she began to fish for information, after all.

She glanced at Emil, noting that he was quietly standing by her side and watching. That was fine.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya blinked, noticing that he was being wholly ignored. _Is this what being a trophy husband feels like?_

He glanced at the two salarians who were raptly paying attention to Miranda as she spoke to the Alliance agent. One had reddish brown skin, while the other was a shade closer to green. They looked like thin upright frogs, strangely enough. But the intelligence behind those eyes was obvious.

They bore being careful around.

Glancing at Abe, he noted the obvious Japanese ancestry on the man's face. It contrasted his less than normal name, but he had come to expect as much already. Emiya's own cover names were a similar blend of clashing cultures as well, he had noticed.

"Durana Electronics, eh?" One of the two salarians spoke up, catching Emiya's attention while Miranda continued speaking to Abe.

"Yes. You're of Synthetic Insights, then?" He answered, smiling lightly at the salarian. He wasn't sure about body language so he kept from showing teeth with the gesture.

"Something like that, Guuran Heffai, _Director of Personnel_. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." The salarian introduced himself, bowing slightly to Emiya. "I hear you have been making quite well for yourselves, lately. In this morning's reports you were up sixteen points. Quite remarkable."

"We try." Emiya nodded. "Still, we are a long way off from being able to host something like _this_. For all my wife's ambition, I've no problems admitting my admiring of how well you've done for yourselves."

Guuran made something that could have been a pleased smile, his large black eyes disappearing for a moment from sight as he rolled them.

Emiya paused mentally at the conflicting body language, but forged on without outwardly hesitation. This was a good chance, after all.

"If I could be so bold, could I perhaps discuss the particulars of a certain line of products you have? We've no plans at this time to expand our market beyond a memory graybox—fear not," Emiya continued, throwing a slight jest in as he spoke. "but I find the architecture of your cybernetics quite interesting, overall."

Heffai nodded.

"Yes. It has been something of a contentious subject with the rest of the Citadel races, but among the salarians the benefits have always been obvious and desirable."

Emiya nodded. "Indeed. Among humanity, there is a long history both for and against it, but I feel someone must always be willing to push the boundaries lest stagnation settle in."

Guuran nodded, turning to his companion who had been paying silent attention to both discussions while remaining quiet. "How about it, Doctor Solus? Feel like talking about your favorite subject with our friend here?"

"Cybernetics hardly sole area of interest. Merely, one where most well known." The reddish brown salarian replied, facing Emiya head on. "But always willing—and _ready_ —to discuss with those interested."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Doctor Solus, I'm—"

The doctor interrupted him almost immediately. "Am aware, have gone through records recently—noted same trend as Director Heffai, Durana Electronics most unusual."

Emiya blinked, hesitating for a moment to speak as he wasn't sure whether the salarian would continue. It hadn't been a question, but the query still hung in the air between them.

Was Durana Electronics truly what it seemed? How deep did the cover extend and how thoroughly had they been investigated?

"Yes, we had something of an upswing recently." Emiya began, pausing as he could sense the salarian about to continue again, getting a word in edgewise.

"Indeed. Former director died, mysterious causes, reported only this morning, yet dead for over a month. Curious." Solus spoke in that same rapid fire pace that left little room for easy rebuttal.

Beside him, Emiya could feel Miranda subtly tensing. She hadn't read out to him the full backstory; any deep prodding might well reveal inconsistencies that could blow their cover.

"I would appreciate it, if we did not stray further into this matter." Emiya said keeping a polite, yet at the same time firm, tone of voice as he stared down the salarian. They were both tall, but for all that Emiya was twice as wide at the shoulders.

Doctor Solus rolled his eyes, before inclining his head.

"Apologies. Did not mean to offend. My condolences, for your father's passing."

Emiya blinked, noticing the trap and making sure to feign a repressed flare of anger as he spoke civilly. "Actually, it was my _mother_."

"Of course. Apologies again. Understanding of human culture must be lacking, for such an error to have occurred."

Emiya nodded, inhaling slowly. _Bloody corporate spies._

"Now, was there something you wished to ask me?" The salarian spoke, brushing right past the earlier discussion as if it had been of no consequence.

Eyeing the salarian doctor, Emiya considered him. Worn and wrinkled skin, large dark eyes set into a reddish brown face. Two long, horn-like extension on the top of his head, along with several fine scars on the back and sides of his skull.

"Yes, specifically in regards to cybernetics. While we have our own line of grayboxes on the market, made custom order, we have not had much success with more... _intrusive_ cybernetics." Emiya spoke and for the first time, he could feel Miranda's interest on him.

She had been paying attention to her discussion with Abe, but when she had noticed the two salarians interrogating him just now, she had begun to keep on eye on them.

Especially since this discussion was certainly not in the plan she had laid out for him.

"As already noted with Director Heffai, we have had a long and rich history with self-modification. Though, we must specify what is being modified." Solus spoke, the pace at which he spoke picking up as he became obviously excited by the subject. "Turian and asari, replace destroyed limbs and organs, hesitate with anything more. Salarian, replace and improve upon senses and nervous system, willing to go much further. Two very different fields, with very different considerations."

"How about the mind? The software, so to speak. We've had a lot of trouble, there."

The salarian nodded. "Yes. Very tricky. Salarian have some interest in subject, but less common than mere enhancements. Challenges not as straightforward, as with other cybernetics."

"I assume this is due to the issues of getting the machine and mind to work as one, rather than as two separate pieces working separately?" Emiya nodded.

"Exactly. Problems with implementation and interfacing. Neural pattern flash imagining longstanding technique in salarian-machine interfacing, but, little more than a hastily generated Virtual Intelligence. Act as extension, almost like drone, connected to brain, inside specific sections. Require vast computational power, limited use." He sniffed, considering his next words carefully. "More of a curiosity, rather than useful tool. Recent advances in synesthesia technology in last decades, made possible to bring about breakthrough in simulstim availability, without need for cybernetic ports. Still, not suitable for all purposes."

Emiya nodded at that again. _It sounds like the spirit hacking I knew; creating an input-output system with an advanced enough computer. But it doesn't sound like they have a full dive, like I do._

"Which I assume is too complex for something like a brain enhancer. The size, power, heat and operation lag considerations would be problematic."

"Yes. As noted, _rare._ Parallel enhancements, working alongside wetware more common. Even then, many risks."

"How about replacing the brain as a whole?" Emiya dove right into the subject he had been truly interested in.

The salarian paused, obviously taken aback and hesitating by the blunt question.

"That is... exceedingly rare."

"But not unheard of?" Emiya prodded.

"Trans-salarians have existed for a long time, full conversion always existed as idea—even ideal, of sorts—but, never have heard of one. Not outside realm of possibility, but... Unlikely."

"Wouldn't finding out about such cases be rather easy? It would require a very specific set of hardware, something that would be easy enough to keep track of, I'd imagine."

"Perhaps, but rarely rely on publicly available and understood hardware, when exceeding certain thresholds of conversion. Point of pride, custom-made, to reflect self, _by self_." Solus elaborated.

"Ah, seeking to make an _ideal_ real." Emiya nodded.

Solus smiled then, an understanding passing between them in that moment.

"So it's impossible?" Emiya asked.

"Possible, but more practical considerations, as well. Fear of being hacked, not entirely unreasonable. Loss of 'self', as well. Stooping to buying commercial hardware, sign of incompetence. Synthetic Insights manufacture singular function hardware, to replace or enhance existing wetware, commonly. As with mister Rumoi of the Alliance, sell enhancements to memory, reaction time, sensory suites and the like. But little more. Tools for the wetware mind, rather than true replacements.

"Among enthusiasts, strive for multipurpose use. Get all out of single processor, rather than, several processors for various functions. Not limited by evolution, stacking functions upon foundations, able to build whole. In theory."

"So, so far no luck has been had with freeing the 'mind' from the 'body', then?" Emiya asked, motioning for him to continue.

"Not as such, no. Full conversion, exceedingly rare, perhaps has never happened. No known case of full conversion on public record. Rumors, tall tales, always hear boasts, of course. But no proof."

"I see." Emiya nodded, taking mental notes. "I assume it would not be an easy process, either?"

"Correct. Additional considerations, do not wish to be ' _replaced by machine_ '. Seek to pass on... ah... 'self' properly. To make sure that the 'soul' is not lost." The doctor continued and at this point both Abe and Miranda had stopped their own discussion to listen in. "Put in piece by piece, to replace functions. Let body accustom to hardware and hardware to adapt to the brain. Monitor changes caused."

"So you don't actually develop any of the software, rather you place it in as a blank slate—a _tabula rasa_ , as it were—and let the brain train its new piece into working order? Like how Generative Adversial Network work, slowly letting it learn by itself and reinforcing the results? You train a neural network from the ground up, until it is indistinguishable from the original?" Emiya shot another hardball, watching the salarians pause, with some amusement. "The biological parts have the hardware slaved, until the differences in function have become negligible, continuously forcing the hardware to adapt and learn until it ' _fits in_ '?"

"...Not an entirely inaccurate assessment, admit."

Now the salarian seemed more than a little surprised. But Emiya picked up where he had left off without letting the salarian continue.

"So you use something like a _Ship of Theseus_ -method to slowly replace parts, making sure that nothing is suddenly changed with the introduction of replacing hardware. Would that not make it possible to adapt the hardware for other races? It should be much simpler to let the system learn how to function with a human brain, than say, designing a functional human arm from a salarian base."

"Have not thought of matter, few willing to attempt, outside salarians. But, brain structure and neurological make up of mind, very different. That much, obvious from graybox development." Solus said, looking intently at Emiya. "Run into issues with removal and insertion of hardware into brain. Memory loss, brain damage and permanent problems. Worked out such problems on salarian, not quite yet with humans."

Feeling the shift of attention and realizing his misstep, Emiya sought to immediately turn the tables.

"Tell me doctor, if it isn't prying to deep... How far along have you, _yourself_ , come?"

The salarian paused and blinked, eyes dilating slightly as a number of small muscle twitches fired across his face.

Emiya lacked the understanding of their physiology or culture to read their deeper meaning, but he guessed it was something of reflexive reaction related to hesitation, shock or worry.

"...Observant. Indeed. Personally have replaced several functions, but retain over 68 per cent of original brain functionality. Mere, _enhancements_." The doctor admitted quietly.

To Emiya it almost sounded like a boast, despite the whispered nature of the words.

"I assume there are ethical considerations which prevent full conversions, as well. Notably from how the legislation regarding grayboxes is for running in parallel with the wetware, though we have marketed it as a cure for Alzheimer's. Lobby attempts to change the laws regarding replacement of brain tissue is certain to fail, due to that."

"Oh?" The salarian made no move to agree or disagree, clearly interested in what he would say.

Emiya nodded. "After all, how do you tell the difference from the original person and the _AI_ you have replaced it with, afterwards? I wonder, does your AI development license have anything to do with your general successes in the field?"

Solus now looked distinctly uncomfortable, turning to glance at Heffai who did not seem any more at ease with the sudden turn in subject.

"I see that I've distressed you, I apologize." Emiya said, inclining his head.

He had gotten plenty of good information from this discussion, that was not available anywhere else. Perhaps he should attempt some corporate espionage next, to figure out more about this subject.

"I see, was hasty to consider humanity's forays into cybernetics to be yet immature." Doctor Solus said, turning to look at Heffai.

The green salarian rolled his eyes, considering them. "It would appear that Synthetic Insights will be facing both new markets and challengers in this field, in the shape of humanity. Very exciting times to come, I suspect."

Miranda took his arm, smiling up at him faux-sweetly. "Emil, should we continue on now? I believe we've bothered these gentlemen long enough."

Emiya didn't have to actually be married to this woman to know she was veiling more than a strict chastisement behind that smile at this moment.

"Certainly. Guuran, Doctor Solus, Abe. It was a pleasure to meet you all and I hope we have the chance to talk again." Emiya said, bowing.

The salarian doctor tilted his head, extending a single hand. "Indeed, most informative meeting. Please, call me Mirlan. Hope to meet again, discuss more."

Emiya grabbed it, giving it a fair shake. He wasn't sure if the gesture really existed in salarian culture, but he figured the doctor was someone who had knowledge of human mannerisms enough to bridge that gap as a show of respect.

"Come along, now." Miranda said, smiling as she gripped his arm and pulled him away.

They walked, continuing all the way until they made it to the edge of the room where there were less people gathered and they could have some privacy.

"What the hell was that?" She asked, not quite shouting.

"Hmm?"

She ground her teeth and he could feel her nails digging into his arm, even through the fabric of the suit.

"What the _hell_ was _that?"_ She ground out, glaring at him.

"Mingling, making small talk. It would be suspicious for me to be the owner of an electronics company and not have any interest in the subject, right? They were obviously suspicious of us."

"Yes, and now they're doubly suspicious, especially if they know about the AI—" Miranda whispered, glancing around. There weren't any obvious eyes on them, but with surveillance systems and the sheer crowd here, it was hard to tell.

"Abe knew, _obviously_. But did the salarians?" Emiya cut in.

She blinked. "What?"

"Did he tell them; is the Alliance and Synthetic Insights in this together? What do you think?"

Miranda hesitated, frowning. "Yes. They _knew_. That bastard must have told them. But doesn't he..."

He looked at her, waiting for her to finish her thoughts without saying a word. She looked up, still glaring at him. But his distraction had been superbly effective; she had already forgotten _why_ she was angry at him, too distracted by his implications.

"Let's go through the others, first. There might be more afoot here than I had thought."

Emiya nodded and they returned to mingling. But it was obvious that she was distrustful of him now. But that was fine, everything was going to be coming to a head soon enough, anyhow.

* * *

;

* * *

He was breathing quickly, throwing the ball a third time in the past minute as he dodged to the left and swayed through the opening in the opposition line.

Another goal, bringing him the match winning point.

Panting and wet with perspiration, he walked over to the side where he had his water. He drank greedily, looking at the time and concluding that he had exercised enough for now. He was no longer as dependent on his physical conditioning as he had been once been, but it was still vital to keep himself in shape. If only because it let him enjoy the other pleasures in life more freely.

Walking back to his bedroom, he tossed aside the wet clothes and slowly evened out his breathing. The darkness of his private bedroom greeted him, along with the soft hum of the air conditioning as he grabbed a towel and moved towards the shower room.

But he was interrupted by an alarm, coming from his terminal. It had been set to priority messages only, as while he was busy it was important to be able to maintain a steady level of performance. That required taking the time to sleep enough and to exercise sufficiently.

Reaching over, he grabbed the water next to his bed and drained the half liter necessary to keep himself hydrated as he with the other hand moved to turn off the alarm sound on the terminal.

"What is it now..." Grumbling, he moved to get a better look.

Seeing the message, he froze. Shaking his head, he began to rapidly type away, damage control already as his primary mission. All traces of his fatigue had been blown away, though his energy levels were not optimal.

He grabbed a pair of pills, popping them in and chugging some more water. It would get him up to par in five minutes.

"How did..."

His eyes took in entire reports, breezing through messages in seconds as he built a picture of what had happened.

"Tch, just when I take my eyes off of things, _this_ happens." He groused.

Opening a video file, he frowned at what he saw. A heavily armed group of individuals, consisting of Alliance Intelligence forces and Lunar Police special forces were shown kicking down the various entrances of the Armstrong base, rushing in with weapons drawn and arresting everyone in sight. An outside feed showed three cruisers and a frigate flotilla right outside, keeping an eye on the docks.

A man strode in, looking around and noticing the camera that had taken the recording. A facial recognition VI noted the man as one Lieutenant Ashford of Alliance Intelligence.

"Damn it."

How had they found the base? The front company should have been able to provide a cover for all the operations there. A blinking alarm indicated a report.

One of his operatives had already done the analysis and sent in the data regarding the leak.

He found that the Alliance had tracked some unusual credit records, following the trail all the way to the Armstrong office. Starting from a recording of a skycar in his possession being fueled at Armstrong, to a number of unusual purchases and sales done in the last two days. Financial records hadn't matched, and cybercrime divisions had somehow back-traced it to the Cerberus front company.

Continuing to leaf through all the reports to get an overview of the situation, he blinked, shaking his head in disbelief. How could this have happened? Cerberus operatives were specifically trained to not make these kinds of mistakes. This had to be the work of an outsider—

Freezing, he looked at the profile sent in along with Operative Lawson's report. Broad of shoulder, strong of build. The silhouette, it seemed familiar.

"No... No, no..." He pulled out the security feed from Ares Station, showing the helmeted mysterious man in black. He overlaid the images, feeling his gut clench as they matched.

It wasn't proof of anything, but the implications were there.

He looked at that profile picture; the dark hair and brown eyes, the tan skin and sharp features. _That gaze_. Pulling out the pictures of Serviceman Emiya that Burnsfeldt had taken, he put them side by side.

There was a slight similarity, not enough to definitely link the two. But suddenly he had a very worrying realization. Pulling out the partial print from Ares Station, he compared it to the palm prints on record from the subject that had been kidnapped by Burnsfeldt.

They were very different, of course.

Even without the massive damage wrought by whatever it was, to one of the prints, by Citadel standards they would have been two different individuals.

But the genetic base could have been very close. Close enough, that...

"Clones? They must be clones..."

Close enough, that a sudden and terrible sense of horror was beginning to envelop his mind.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya stood by the snack table, taking bites here and there as he tried everything.

He had guessed that there would be a wide variety to the cuisine, given the numerous races and civilizations coming to contact with one another, here on the Citadel. Just as with the hanar, the salarian and asari had their own unique fares and he was more than happy to try it all out.

_I could probably learn how to do them all, too._ It was another one of the amusing realizations he was having once again.

After a century of ceaseless ennui, this freedom to learn and do new things never seemed to wane. He felt perpetually drunk with the possibilities before him.

Looking over, he stared at the turian table. Technically, humans should not eat there, but he wondered. _My unique existence can probably handle it. Alien food, in the truest sense of the word? Interesting._

Miranda had gone off to the ladies' room, leaving him alone for the moment.

They had gone through countless conversations, Miranda prodding and casing out various potential sellers and buyers, but so far none of them seemed conclusive. He had also discussed his own agenda, questioning various experts where he could, about his problem, while she was talking to other people.

In a purely theoretical manner, of course. Miranda had no idea what he was talking about most of the time, which seemed to be annoying her considerably.

She had told him to focus on the mission, chastising him several times and he had apologized, deflecting as he did it again every time he saw someone he found relevant to his needs.

Not that he hadn't been paying attention to the mission they had set out to do. He guessed that the seller, whoever it was, would soon make their move and begin the auction. Though, through what methods, no one could guess so far.

Here and there, he could hear snippets of whispers and hushed conversations.

It seemed that whoever the thief was, they had managed to get everyone here excited, even if no one was quite willing to admit to such. Many thought it a hoax by Synthetic Insights, perhaps a prelude to a new cyber-security product they had developed, or a service of whitehat hacking, perhaps.

Some joked that even if it was all true, what could the human Systems Alliance possibly have to offer that would be of any true value?

Humans were a minority here among the guests, thus he and Miranda had been receiving more than a few inquisitive glances during the evening, but so far no one had actually approached them.

He heard a gasp, turning around to look at the sound of the commotion as he tasted another of the evening's offerings.

Behind him, many were suddenly whispering loudly among themselves and pointing up at a wall. He followed their gazes, blinking as he saw the text displayed in by lights, up where everyone could see it.

' _Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to tonight's auction. Since as noted before, this is a silent auction, I must thus ask that all participants refrain from raising their voices overmuch. Below is the site-link for all of those who wish to participate. Thank you for your time and attention, I hope you all enjoy yourselves and have a fine evening._ '

Below that was a symbol resembling a quick response code, simple image that could be scanned for the extranet link contained within.

Emiya raised an eyebrow, not quite certain what to make of that. Then again, the needlessly extravagant means of sharing the information seemed to fit the profile of the seller so far. All of this, from stealing the 'item', to the venue of the auction, seemed to be a measure to get as much attention to the act as possible.

_There must be something more to this, than just the auction._ He thought, setting aside his plate.

To the sides, turian security hastened to turn off the hacked lights that had been used to send the message. Before they could turn it all off, Emiya made certain to take a snapshot with his omnitool.

Around him, dozens were doing the same.

Miranda returned, obviously having noticed something going on. She looked at him with furrowed brows, silently telling him to explain as the message had already been removed.

He raised the hologram display of the omnitool, showing her the snapshot of the already removed message. She frowned, reaching out to zoom in on the symbol, copying it and sending it to her own omnitool.

Looking up, she scanned those around them. Many were obviously discussing this new turn of events, but few among them were using their omnitools.

Clicking her tongue, she looked to him.

"Close your omnitool."

He did. She was obviously worried about being spotted in the crowd, but he didn't find the worry all too credible since it was obvious that many were leaving to do use their own with some more privacy. They were just two more suspicious people in the crowd of suspicious people.

"Anything on your end?" Miranda asked, not looking at him.

If Emiya strained, he could just hear the sound coming out from the earpiece.

" _Security is up in a tizzy. No one knows how it was done, so far. They're trying to keep it contained, but, wait..._ "

Miranda frowned, turning to look at him.

"Did you see anything?"

He shrugged. "Wasn't anywhere near it."

She glared at him before sighing and looking away. She was obviously growing impatient. "Well, anything on record?"

" _They're running the tapes now, not seeing anything. The lights could have been tampered with since who knows when, anyhow. They're suggesting that the message was probably implanted before the announcement of the auction, before security ramped up._ "

"Or it could have even been before the theft, depending on how well it was all planned out." Miranda nodded. "What about the site, any luck on tracing it down?"

" _Nothing so far, it goes to a server in Illium through several nodes. That's why there's such a lag. It's outside Council space, so they're having trouble with getting a hold of anything._ "

"What happened to helping the Alliance out? Why bother with trying to track down the seller?" Emiya asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She turned to look at him, saying nothing. He blinked, as she was shutting him out. Was she merely angry, or had she come to suspect him of something? _Why would she suddenly want to find the thief? Does she want the 'item', now?_

He inhaled slowly, realization dawning. _She thinks the proof is something like research notes, or even a copy of something valuable. She wants AI technology for Cerberus?_

"Do you remember the turian, Legarro?" She asked, looking at him again.

"Sure. The heir whose third cousin was a biotics trainer. I thought we dismissed the BAaT angle already."

She frowned at him, glaring again. "You're not here to ask questions, just _find him_. Keep an eye on him and see if he's trying to buy out at all."

"Sure, sure." Emiya shrugged and turned to walk away.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sipped his drink; a turian take on champagne, of sorts.

Turians as a whole had not had much of a culture around alcohol, but despite the whole war between them and humanity, they had not held back one bit when it came to adopting parts of human culture around the liquid, where it suited them.

He suspected something about swording open bottles of champagne or christening ships with them appealed to their sensibilities, leading to one or another turian developing their own take on bubbly alcoholic beverages.

Obliquely eyeing the turian he had been told to keep a watchful eye over, he took another sip. He had wanted to try some of the cuisine, but the turian servers had refused him rather adamantly, repeatedly explaining the differences between levo and dextro foods to him even when he assured them that he only wanted a taste. But apparently alcohols weren't a problem, so he hadn't held back.

Legarro Vyrnnus wasn't their man, Emiya suspected.

The angle had been too tenuous, in his opinion, and seeing the turian mingle without a care only reinforced that belief. Well, not that he particularly cared. At this point, he felt confident that he could simply leave, since he had gotten most of what he wanted from this endeavor. He had been able to round out his discussions and questions while keeping an eye on the turian, which had been rather convenient.

Emiya knew who he needed to talk to, what he had to offer and what he had to ask, now. All that was left, was to simply do it. But that could wait a little while longer.

He still wanted to see this play out. In a clinical but curious manner, he felt quite interested in seeing just who it was that was behind all of this. They were obviously very talented and had gone to great lengths over all of this. It struck him, that such a person ought to have dozens of easier ways of making money, if that was all it was about.

Someone sidled up to him and Emiya glanced at Dianne. She was wearing a server's uniform, blending in quite easily among the numerous other waiting personnel walking about, even if she was a human.

"Anything?" She asked, offering him something to eat on a platter.

"No. He's been ignoring the auction as far as I can tell." Emiya said, shrugging as he took the offered snack and ate it. It was something asari, he guessed. There was a strange aftertaste, which he thought he recognized. _Ah_ , _I see how it is._

"Well, Miranda has asked you to join her by the eastern gallery. Right that way." She said, smiling at him and then walking away while holding out the platter to other guests.

He finished his drink, putting away the glass and moved towards where Miranda was waiting for him. She looked up, smiling at him as he approached.

But the playful spark in her eyes was gone, replaced by the glinting shards of ice now.

"Come on in, we have some privacy here." She motioned him to follow, walking away from the eyes of the crowd.

There were paintings and sculptures decorating the hallway, along with a wide open terrace, through which the open Presidium could be seen. Strangely enough, there was no one else here. It must have been closed off for one reason or another.

Though this part of the space-station was technically nothing but a large rotating torus, on the inside it was quite difficult to tell. The inside of the 'donut' was the sky, which at the moment looked like a dark blue night sky that wouldn't have been out of place on Earth.

Outside, right below, he could see a large lake and green trees growing here and there.

Unlike the Wards where no artificial day cycle was enforced, on the Presidium it seemed that no expenses had been spared in trying to recreate the feel of life on an actual planet. He could even see twinkling stars above and he wondered whether they were based on the actual stars, and if so, as seen from where?

"It's quite something, isn't it?" She said and he turned around to look at her. Nodding, he turned to look back out.

They stood there for a short while in a strange silence. Neither spoke a word, causing a tension to build up between them. He knew she knew something, which she knew. But neither knew what the other truly knew, only that they knew _something_.

"Do you have any idea who the seller is?"

Emiya glanced at her, finding her direct question rather unusual. There was a strange look in her eyes, like she was trying to divine the truth of something from him.

"No, but I've some guesses."

"Oh?"

He shrugged. "But no proof and means with which you could confirm them, so it's not worth thinking about. How about on your end, who has the highest bid at the moment?"

She stared at him, sighing as she looked away.

"So that's what you are interested in, after all."

Shaking her head, she walked up to him. He noticed a sashay to her hips that hadn't been there before. He furrowed his brows, eyes raking her body. _When did she... Ah, the trip to the ladies' room._

She was wearing a slinky evening dress, darker than the night sky above. Thin straps to her shoulders, showing her cleavage and bare arms, hugging her curved frame. _She really has a preference for tight clothes, huh._

There were no pockets or extra baubles on her body, just an omnitool on her wrist. As far as he could tell by looking at her, she couldn't have been carrying anything, with how tight and revealing the cocktail dress was. Her lush hips and long legs drew the eye, her entire body on display and hiding nothing.

Stopping right next to him, she stared up. Their eyes met.

"Is that all you really care about?"

Her blue eyes matched the deep blue of Presidium lake, this close up. Sparkling, drawing in all the light as she leaned closer and placed a hand on his chest.

Emiya almost frowned, watching her set it up. _Ah, it's come to this. Well, fine._

She leaned in, her other hand by her own chest, fingers running alongside the shoulder-strap of her dress, brushing past her freely hanging dark hair and drawing in his attention to her lips. She reached out with a hand, slowly making for his face.

He grabbed her hand by the wrist, stopping it.

"' _Fool me once_ '..." Emiya muttered, tightening his grip around her wrist. Painfully hard.

She grimaced, releasing the item she had slipped out from her dress' shoulder-strap. A thin metal object fell to the floor with a tiny sound. Glancing down, he saw the needle on the ground.

Looking up, their eyes met again.

Her entire act was gone, in its place the ice he had seen in her the first time they had met. She did not seem at all perturbed about having been discovered, which meant...

"Let her go."

Emiya did not look around, even as he heard the sound of a pistol being activated behind him. Glancing up, he noted that there were security cameras in every corner of the room, even if they were all alone here.

Dianne laughed, slowly walked into his peripheral vision from behind him. "Tough luck, _loverboy_. Security doesn't have eyes here."

He let go of Miranda and she backed away slowly, her cold eyes still boring right into his. Her hips sashayed with every step, accentuating her body, until she came to a halt.

Putting her weight on one leg, she spread her legs just enough for the pistol she had been hiding between her thighs, just above the edge of her skirt, to fall down. Like a professional football player, she caught it with her foot and kicked it up, snatching it out of the air and bringing it to bear on him in one smooth motion.

_Never underestimate a dress._ He remembered, the old faded scar on his neck itching for a moment. Last time it had been a knife, at least.

"Wow, workplace relationships really are _killer_ in this business." Emiya quipped, placing a hand on his hip as he stared at the two.

"And what _business_ would that be?" Miranda asked, her voice like a shard of glass.

"You tell me. I've no idea what's going on right now, to be honest." He admitted freely. Then again, he had achieved most of his goals already, so he had been getting rather lazy.

"Where is the _item_?" Dianne cut in, raising her gun square at his head.

She was several meters away, obviously having learned her lesson when it came to getting too close to him.

He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

"I checked you, _Emil Nguyen_. There indeed was a record of such a name listed as an operative under Cardotin." She said, eyes narrowing as a strand of her dark brown hair came loose and fell across her face. "But that was as a dormant asset profile. Nothing more. I checked _you,_ can you guess what I found?"

"Nothing bad, I hope."

She scowled at him. " _Nothing at all_. No records, anywhere. Not until you suddenly showed up at Armstrong. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm _no one_ , really. I keep telling people, but they don't seem to ever believe me." Emiya answered, with an amused smirk.

"Well, we'll find out soon enough, won't we Miranda?" She said, smirking. "Pity you dropped the truth serum and broke the needle. But it's fine, I have more."

He made a considering sound at that, it did seem like Cerberus was rather fond of their drugs. "You mean like the food you gave me?"

She merely gave him a knowing smile, eyes twinkling with amusement behind the sights of her pistol.

"Tell me, was everything you said a lie?" Miranda suddenly asked.

"No, I don't recall telling you a single lie. Who knows, though, maybe I've forgotten." Emiya blinked, tilting his head. "If I may, could I ask what's brought this on?"

Miranda scowled at him, inhaling through her nose slowly.

"It would take a top notch infiltrator to have gotten in here and gotten everything set up. People like that are a one in a billion."

"Oh? And how does that relate to me?"

Miranda scowled at him. "You were the one who broke into Ares Station. She had the records and we _checked_. Don't even try to deny it."

Emiya blinked, tilting his head. To the side, Dianne made a chiding sound with her tongue at him, making him glance at her.

"Your palm prints in the terminal. Did you think that by erasing them chemically, we wouldn't be able to connect the dots? There was still just enough to make the connection." Dianne cut in, smugly preening at him.

"Ah." Emiya nodded, not quite getting it but understanding that he had missed something entirely. _I'll have to look into that later, it was obviously a considerable blunder on my part._ "Well, no matter."

"True, it's not important right now." Dianne agreed easily enough. "What is important is the _item_. Tell us what you know. Where is it?"

He chuckled, crossing his arms.

"And if I tell you nothing?"

Her expression turned grim, before she chuckled. "That's fine, too. We can do this the _fun_ way, then."

Emiya looked outside, out across the Presidium lake. He could see motion on the other side. Turians in armor, running to get into position. "Huh, they're quicker than I expected."

"Hmm?" Dianne asked, glancing to the side. But seeing nothing, she shrugged and returned her attention to Emiya.

But when Miranda looked, she froze as her superhuman eyesight was able to catch what he had noticed.

"C-Sec?" She whispered, eyes widening in horror.

Dianne blinked, looking to the side. And for that moment, both of their attentions were off of him.

Emiya sprung forward, exploding into motion.

The distance between him and Dianne was turned to zero in an instant, his arm snaking out and disarming her in the same smooth motion he pulled her up as a human shield, between himself and Miranda.

The other Cerberus operative had reacted instantly, but hesitated in pulling the trigger as Emiya calmly pulled the omnitool off of Dianne's struggling wrist.

He disengaged the power source with one hand and slipped it into one of his suit pockets—the one he had modified into acting as a Faraday pouch, to cut it off from the rest of the world, that could also be freely removed from the suit.

Glancing up, he could see her clenching her jaw as she debated whether to take the shot. "It's suppressed, but they're already keeping an eye on us. In fact, they're probably right behind the doors already. They'll come rushing in the moment the gun goes off."

He nodded towards the entryway to the hall they were in, through where they had come and where the rest of the ball was underway.

Miranda grimaced, glancing between the outside Presidium, the doorway and Emiya.

She inhaled, raising the gun. "Release her."

Emiya said nothing, keeping himself behind the cover Dianne provided, as he backed away. While he could escape, the presence of the cameras and the C-Sec who were keeping eyes on him made things a bit troublesome. Reaching the terrace, where nothing but the view down to the lake remained behind him, he looked up.

"Sure."

Pushing away Dianne so she stumbled, he took three steps back until his back was to the safety rail now. Dianne gathered herself, turning around to glare at him and the pistol he had liberated from her.

"What are you trying to pull? None of this makes any sense." Miranda asked as Dianne moved out from between them. The crossfire was the last place she wanted to be in, right now.

Emiya shrugged. "Would you believe me, if I said I was just here for the company?"

She blinked at him, licking her lips as she hesitated.

The door opened then, letting two armored men and two turians in. They rushed out with their rifles readied and taking aim at them all. After them, strode in a turian and a man without any helmets. Miranda turned to look that way, eyes narrowing.

There was a moment of silence as everyone stood with guns raised.

"Detective Pallin, Citadel Security, no one move. Lower your weapons immediately." The flanging voice of the turian echoed. He had dark skin, with strong white facepaint covering most of his face.

"Lieutenant Kolkkonen, Alliance Intelligence. Do not resist, your Armstrong base is already being raided right now; there's nowhere for you to run." The blond man next to the turian spoke, staring at them.

Emiya almost smirked at two women's expressions of shock.

Well, it wasn't how he had intended for this night to go down, but he supposed it was a decent enough ending. It was actually surprising, how far reaching the effects of connecting some simple credit tampering to Cerberus' front company could have.

Then again, since that was all connected to the stuff _he_ had been doing, perhaps the seemingly disproportionate reaction wasn't so out of place after all. Apparently, his little space-trip had been leaving many people scratching their heads back on Earth.

"Officers, I'd love to stay, but I still haven't had the chance to try out the turian cuisine... So, if you'll excuse me."

Emiya leaned back, feeling the terrace railing behind him, against his hips. He fell backwards, going over the railing and feeling his feet kick up as he fell over.

"Hey!" He heard a shout, as someone tried to tell him to stop but it was too late. Performing a half-flip to correct his position, he landed on his feet on the ground-level from the second-floor terrace.

Above, he could hear feet running towards where he had dropped down. Turning around, he exhaled as he took in everything he could see before him. The Presidium lake, the luxury houses that ran along the sides of the torus' insides, the artificial night sky above, the numerous C-Sec officers around him.

There was a second of absolute stillness as he simply looked around.

Just as he had noticed before, there were six turians armed with long rifles in advantageous positions. Unless moved at his full mobility, he would not be able to outrun them. But that would be revealing too much, he felt. Better to make back inside the party and avoid their line of sight.

Alternatively, he could simply find somewhere out of sight and spiritualize, leaving behind nothing but a pile of clothes. But that would mean abandoning the omnitool he had taken. But there was no need for that.

Emiya could still disappear and keep his spoils without revealing his true abilities, even in this situation. _First, get back to the party._

The open space was a hindrance; he wanted a crowd he could disappear into. The ball inside still hadn't been interrupted, that much was obvious from the sound of music that he could hear. Too much money at play, along with the silent auction, to let anyone stop the show now.

He could use that.

Turning on his feet, he exploded into a dash. Covering the open ground in an instant, he turned a corner and jumped in through the ground-level door. It was a service access, leading him back inside the Synthetic Insights compound. Above and behind, he could hear the shouts of the C-Sec officers, along with the sound of gunfire and combat.

"Huh, I guess she wasn't the type to let herself get caught, after all. Well, this pretty much confirms they're not a part of the Alliance."

Emiya disengaged the pistol by taking out the power supply; he had no need of it and it would be possible to track him through its signature.

He arrived in the kitchen, kicking open the door. Three turian chefs turned to stare at him, strange knife-talon attachments wrapped onto their individual fingers as they were preparing some form of meat.

"Hey, this place is staff and personnel only, get—" One of them shouted at him, waving the blades at him.

_Huh, weird_. Emiya noted, dashing past the turian. He would have to look into that later. Dancing through the kitchen, he grabbed some of the turian appetizers he hadn't been allowed to taste earlier, popping them into his mouth as he exited the kitchen.

"Hmm, _minty_."

He side-stepped a server who almost fell over and dropped the tray he had been carrying, if not for Emiya handily reaching out to balance him at the right instant as he moved around.

Pushing through a set of double doors he appeared back inside the main ballroom, where the guests still had not noticed a thing. The gentle music was still playing, and the Synthetic Insights security personnel were still on the look out for anything out of the ordinary. One of them noticed him and immediately began to reach for his comm, making eye contact with Emiya.

He smiled and waved at the turian above, before taking a deep breath and entering the crowd of people. The room was large enough, that it wasn't quite packed, but it was still difficult to spot individuals in the throng. Even from above, in this sea of people he would mostly be able to disappear.

Of course, his plan was not to attempt an escape through the crowd, but to drop something valuable off so that it could be smuggled out. The only thing of value on his person right now, was the omnitool, which was a tiny thing. Everything else was secondary.

Looking around, he tried to find anyone he could possibly use and soon enough he spotted a familiar face. Someone who would be able to leave freely.

He ducked and wove through the crowd, slowing down his pace as he approached the Alliance envoy from before. If he was right, then this was the key to this whole event.

Emiya patted him on the back, catching his attention.

"Abe! I just came to say that my wife and I will be leaving shortly, but that I wish you the best of luck. Make sure to give us a call, we'll compare prices, I'm sure that there's something we can leverage that Synthetic Insights can't offer you." Emiya spoke, winking at the man who blinked.

"Ah, certainly. Till we meet again, may it be soon." Abe nodded and offered a hand to Emiya after a moment of blinking hesitation.

"I'll hold you to that." Emiya grinned. They shook hands, nodding to one another and then Emiya turned to leave again.

The only thing left to him was to hide his clothes, omnitool and pistol somewhere out of sight, and to then spiritualize and vanish without a trace.

_No problem._

* * *

;

* * *

Abraham Rumoi sighed as he walked through the automatic door to his apartment.

"What a night..." He shook his head.

It was just a rented locale, but given the nature of his job as an Alliance Intelligence analyst, it couldn't be helped. He was always on the move, after all.

He had been delayed quite a bit, both by the Synthetic Insights' ball and by the combined inquisition by the Alliance Intelligence's very own 'Lieutenant' Kolkkonen and C-Sec's Detective Pallin.

Something about following a trail from Luna, which Rumoi knew nothing about. They had both been rather annoyed with all three of their perps being able to escape and vanish into the ether. Doubly so, when he had been forced to on behalf of the Alliance to pay up the highest bid of the silent auction to acquire the mysterious item on sale.

"12 million Credits, huh."

It was a vast sum of money, enough for a man to live out his life in relative luxury nearly anywhere in the galaxy. As per his instructions, he had re-acquired any and all information pertaining to the AI development project.

The OSD in his hand was all the proof that existed in the galaxy outside Gagarin Station, now.

The Alliance brass could sleep easy again, knowing that their dark dealings would not see the light of day. Not until the cooperative deal with Synthetic Insights was finalized and they had some level of plausible deniability for the Council, at least.

He took off his coat, stretching as he kicked off his shoes. For a moment, his mask slipped and he grinned widely; it had all gone off _perfectly_.

But then he got his control back and cast the jacket onto the nearby chair. There was a metallic impact against the chair's back, and he blinked at the strange sound. Looking at the jacket, he noticed that one of the pockets was bulging a slight bit and was being weighed down.

Not much, but still.

Frowning, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out some kind of fabric pouch. He blinked at it, not quite comprehending how it had gotten there. Then he froze at the sound of a mass accelerator weapon being opened and activated, just behind him.

"That would be mine. Just place it on the table."

Abe felt the cold sweat on the back of his neck trail down. The security system for this apartment was top notch; no one should have been able to just break in. He, if anyone, knew how to ward of such infiltrators!

Placing the pouch with one hand on the table, he reached with the other to his concealed pistol. The oldest trick in the book; look at this hand, while the other goes for the weapon.

Only as he was turning around and saw his mysterious guest, he realized there was nothing where his gun should have been. He realized only then, that he was being held at gunpoint with his own damn pistol.

Looking at the man, his eyes widened. "Emil Durana?"

But unlike the man he had met in the Synthetic Insights' ball, this man had hair the color of freshly fallen snow. The dissonance was somehow unsettling, and he wondered if he was seeing correctly for a moment, blinking at the man.

"Something to that effect, sure." The man answered smirking.

Abraham's mind raced at that. This man was one of the three, that both C-Sec and the Alliance were looking for at this moment. How had he managed to get here? He considered pushing the alarm button; he just needed to get over to the counter in the kitchen to—

"So, 12 million Credits, huh? That's a lot of money, isn't it?" Something about that smirk made Rumoi's stomach drop.

"...What do you want?" He ground out.

"How about half of the money, for starters? I think that is pretty fair, considering you've essentially robbed your own employers, mister Rumoi. Or do you prefer Okuda? I'm fine with either."

Abe let out a shuddering breath. _How did he...?_

"How...?"

"Oh, it was just something I thought of, during the party. That the easiest way to have gotten access to the AI would be to simply have normal access to it in the first place.

"Hell, you probably didn't even need to steal anything, just trip the right alarm and let the paranoia of the brass do the rest while you had copies of the files from before. It's such a dirty secret that they'd be willing to hand over any amount of cash to keep it from getting out, wouldn't they?"

Abe ground his teeth as he listened to his scheme being laid out in the open.

"The same must have happened at the ball. You were sent in early to discuss the whole matter with Synthetic Insights, giving you plenty of time to set up the extravagant auction. Knowing the security would let you plan around all of it, eluding every measure and leading everyone on a merry goose chase. I'm sure my own appearance even works out for you quite well; a handy fallman to make a patsy out of. I'm sure you'd agree that it's a service worth half of your cut, considering the present circumstances." 'Emil' grinned boyishly, as if reveling in sharing his findings.

"...And if I don't?" Abe asked, but received only a cryptic smile in return. He sighed, knowing he had no cards to play. "Fine. But how do I know that you won't still sell me out?"

"The same way the Alliance trusts you to keep your word after you took their money. A certain level of faith is necessary in these things, no?"

Abe could not refute those words, he had essentially forced similar conditions on others recently.

"Fine. _Fine_." He ground out. In this business, it wasn't about how much made overall, but how much you made without getting burned. Paying off a blackmailer once was acceptable, if it would buy him time to clean up his tracks and vanish before a second demand could be made.

"Oh, another thing. A question, if you will."

"Go ahead, you're the man with the gun, and all." Abe quipped, relaxing slightly as he was beginning to plan his escape.

Nodding at that, the man continued. "Why the hassle with the ball? Why not simply make a straight up demand?"

Abe considered the question, inhaling slowly. "You really want to know? Fine. Mind if I pour us drinks?"

"No, go right ahead."

Nodding, he turned around to go to the liquor cabinet for some of his fine Armagnac; something to take the edge off this situation. And also something that might let him turn the tables here. A man was never as unwary as he was in the moment of his triumph; as he had learned just now.

"The reason was three-fold. Firstly, it let me dictate the location." He spoke, pouring out into two glasses of the amber liquid. No ice, room temperature, in a simple glass, as was. Anything else was simply poor manners.

Handing over one glass, he kept an eye on the pistol. He half-expected the man to demand the other glass, or for him to taste it first as a test. But 'Durana' simply accepted the glass without hesitation and began to nurse the glass in his hand to warm it up.

Abe blinked, despite himself growing to slightly respect the man for that.

"In a one-to-one negotiation, both parties have some leverage when it comes to negotiations. If one refuses to play, the other has to concede or go through with the threat. That is too black and white, with too little room for play. But when I dictated it to be a silent auction, it became a matter of hundreds of potential buyers. Even if only a handful are interested, it still changes the situation. None of them had any more leverage than the others. If they had as a whole rejected, it would be one thing. But like this, I had in practice supreme power over the location."

"I see. It sounds like sound advice. I'll make sure to remember that." 'Emil' said, raising the glass to sniff at the vapors and inhaling deeply. "Hmm, not bad at all. And the second reason?"

"That one was simple enough. More money." Abe shrugged, drinking of his own Armagnac and savoring the taste even in this situation.

"Hah, straightforward enough. Seeing others bid allows you to justify the high price to your bosses, won't it? ' _It can't be helped sir, those damn bastards kept raising the price_ ', and you probably threw in half of the bids as a third party, too?"

Abe nodded.

"And the third reason is... complicated."

"Personal?"

He shrugged. "Not as such, but it was a moral quandary I had..."

Emil waited, saying nothing, but obviously not letting the matter go. Abe sighed, continuing with some reluctance.

"The Alliance just finalized its first Artificial Intelligence, _Eliza_. But they have no idea what they're doing and the more they test it, the more they'll _want_ to test it."

"Ah, you were worried about it, since they're so new at it. Thus, you arranged it to be _here_ , where you could subtly force the Alliance to contact Synthetic Insights for help."

"Yes." Abe nodded, sighing quietly.

"Well, aren't you a conscientious little blackmailer." 'Emil' smiled, obviously amused as he nodded at that. "Well, send the money and we can get this over with."

Abe hesitated, glancing at the pistol but then hastening to obey. He had to jump through a few proxies and dummy accounts to get access to the money safely, but after that he could forward it without any risks.

Looking up, he made eye contact. "It's done."

'Emil' smirked, nodding.

He tossed back the glass of Armagnac and drank the glass whole. Abe felt a sense of elation erupt at that; just as he had suspected, in receiving the money he felt too safe and had forgotten about the drink! With this, Abe could still reverse-hack the money trail and get it all back, he could...

But then 'Emil' tossed aside the pistol as if he didn't need it anymore, breaking Abe's train of thought.

"Wha—"

And then the man was right in front of him, with his hand reaching for Abe's neck and—

_Darkness._

"—What?" Abe jumped up, waking from his dreamless sleep with a fright. He looked left and right, finding himself on his couch. He blinked in confusion. "...What? _How_?"

His mind felt clear. Almost like he hadn't been drugged at all. But then, how did...?

He looked up at the clock, finding that two hours had passed. The strange pouch on the table was gone, another glass' worth of Armagnac had been drunk and the pistol was still on the floor where it had been thrown. Glancing over, he found the OSD with all the evidence still where he had left it, untouched.

Swallowing, he got up. His throat felt dry, all of a sudden. Had he mixed up the Armagnac glasses, somehow? 'Emil' had most certainly emptied his glass, yet he hadn't been knocked unconscious, while Abe himself had been?

Abe shook his head, he hadn't even seen the switch happen; he had been a hundred percent certain that he had handed the right glass to the man who had blackmailed him at gunpoint.

"How the hell...?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a bunch to PseudoSteak, he's the best proofreader a writer could have. Even if he does sound like _Clippy_ at times with his snark :V


	16. Serial Shenanigans

Miranda exhaled, gritting her teeth as she looked down while stabilizing her breathing.

She looked up, finding Rasa in little better shape. Both had torn their clothes in the mad rush out of the Presidium. Miranda, the biotic between the two had been forced to handle all of the combat, since neither had any kinetic barriers. Luckily Rasa had prepared an exit for them, even in that situation, and managed to actively sabotage their pursuers at every chance.

They had been on the run for hours already, only managing to shake off C-Sec properly after making it to the foundations below the Zakera Ward. With the lack of electronic surveillance coverage, and the labyrinthine maze down here between the outer hull of the Ward and city-scape above, they had been able to finally lose their pursuers.

"Damn it..." She muttered, catching her breath.

Beside her, Rasa was panting far more heavily still, even as she had been the one to set the pace while Miranda had been holding the rear. She had to use her biotics to shield them and to seal off their trail, wherever she could.

Already, she could feel the hunger and soreness setting in.

But if that was all she had to worry about, she wouldn't have been feeling half as frayed as she did right now. Cerberus had been revealed to the world. She had been used and betrayed. Her mission had been a complete and utter failure.

Rasa finally got her own breathing under control, sitting up and rubbing her brow. "How the hell did this happen? Who leaked, and _how?_ "

Miranda did not have any answers, clenching her teeth as the very same question plagued her.

"It doesn't matter. We just need to get back and we'll work from there."

Rasa looked up, scowling at her. "Go back _where_? There's no telling what and who has been compromised. Even assuming that the one base is all that has been blown open, just having to confirm and check every other base's integrity will be paralyze us for weeks."

"Which is exactly why we need to return. _He_ was the one responsible for this, wasn't he? He knew too much, he must have been waiting for it to happen all along. He must have been, I don't know, Alliance Intelligence? No, wait he was on Mars, too..."

Rasa grimaced, looking away before glaring at Miranda. "What was he even doing here, huh?"

"Why are you looking at me?"

Rasa sneered. "You're the one who was taking every moment possible to spend around him."

Now it was Miranda's turn to glare.

"Oh? And you weren't hanging off of him every chance you got? And how did you miss this, when you had so obviously already bugged his omnitool? He must have been in communications with someone to time it all so well."

Rasa looked away, grumbling something beneath her breath then, an excuse probably.

Miranda sighed, losing the last dregs of any care she held.

"It doesn't matter. We need to get back to the Wards and disappear in a crowd. Down here, we're too isolated and bound off."

Rasa nodded.

"I have a route up, but we'll have to wait another hour before we can move out. They're still combing the sections. Until there's only drones left, we can't move out."

Miranda nodded, sitting down.

She would rest until then, even if the cold of the floor felt uncomfortable against her bare legs. Grimacing at the state of her cocktail dress, she added that to the running tally of grievances she held against a certain man now.

_This isn't the last of this,_ she swore.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya felt fairly good about his evening so far. His gains had been aplenty, so far. The omnitool, through which 'gateway' was elucidated to him; the gear he had had moved out before the party; all of the information on Cerberus he had been able to collect; six million credits in untraceable markings; the information Abraham Rumoi had been selling to himself on the OSD...

The contents of which had been interesting, but nothing that really changed anything for Emiya.

Mostly it related to the progress of the development of the project on Gagarin Station. Nothing solid that could be used to actually create an AI or such, mostly metadata proving the existence of the project and the discrete Alliance funding of the matter, really.

But what he could find out was still something worth the time to read.

Apparently 'Eliza', the Artificial Intelligence created using the Sidon research notes, was more than just a piece of code slapped together into a facsimile of a brain. It was a true Artificial General Intelligence, able to perform more than one task, and able to learn how to do new things by itself. It could perform a variety of tasks with inhuman speed and precision, with tireless energy and efficiency. Still, it was limited by being unable to improve its own code, and it wasn't really a person as far as he could call it such.

He wasn't sure what to think of it, actually. The AI in the Moon Cell, were apparently based on people who had lived once, being facsimiles of humanity in a sense. Copies of people, very human in behavior and thought.

Eliza _wasn't_.

Humans had numerous strange quirks and routines, all running in their conscious and subconscious mind. They had both desires and needs, remnants of what they had evolved from over the course of millions of years in layers. This created something that was often times as conflicting and contradictory, as it was rational and logical. But an Artificial Intelligence was merely the higher order thinking capacity of a human being, bound to a computer.

It had no _desires_ , it had no _needs_. It simply performed the task set before it, satisfied with just that. It did not particularly 'care' whether it existed or whether it was shut down, beyond its the fulfillment of its current task. It held no hesitations about performing any task presented to it, but neither did it particularly care if it was shutdown or that the parameters for its tasks were suddenly changed.

More than anything, Emiya could only really characterize it as something like a lazy genius. It did what it was told. Precisely and exactly what it was told, in the most direct and efficient method it could find, and nothing more.

Really, the most trouble the researchers seemed to have with the damn thing, was that even if it understood what they wanted it to do, it would most often cheat to simply accomplish the stated goal and then go back to idling.

The inhumanity of the thing really threw them off, apparently. As it did Emiya, as well.

But, it hadn't showed signs of being actively malicious or of being mistreated by the Alliance, so he didn't feel any pressing need to sally forth to its aid, or to see to its imminent destruction as a risk to all life either.

Besides, Abraham Rumoi— _Keiji Okuda or whoever he was_ —seemed fairly keen on containing the situation, already. He'd trust them for the moment with that, along with Synthetic Insights' expertise on the matter. The most dangerous thing it seemed to be doing at the moment, was off-key renditions of pop idol songs. It was getting better, but it had no ear for a melody or appropriate volume, so it was somewhat awkward, despite recognizing and 'understanding' what made a song technically excellent and catchy.

He landed in his spiritualized state, right next to the sealed steel box where his body was.

It had been moved off the freighter as soon as it had docked, and he had immediately set about in having it moved elsewhere, using several companies to muddle the trail before he had picked it up himself. Now he would just ship it to the small apartment he had found, where he had left the rest of his equipment.

He had the money for it now, after all.

With the success of tonight, he now had all the pieces he needed to fix his situation and to move forward; resources aplenty; the means and methods to craft a new identity; the know-how necessary to fixing his brain problem and the names he needed in order to enact that plan.

All that was left, was to make it all happen.

To that end, after he'd set about in getting the steel box delivered to his new apartment. After which he retrieved all of his equipment and hidden tools, moving it all there as well. Satisfied with that and his security so far, he projected a sword into the door system again to seal the whole apartment up properly. He spiritualized again and set out to search for one of people he had gotten acquainted with. Traveling through to Citadel in the spiritualized state was slightly odd, he noted as he moved. For one, if he jumped up too high he was bound to end up floating in space for a moment. For another, the architecture was nothing like he had seen before.

He had mentally compared it to Hong Kong, Tokyo or Dubai before. But that wasn't entirely true.

At times it felt like the open and airy bazaars of Barcelona, and at others it felt like he had been thrust into a futuristic rendition of the Kowloon walled city. There were people everywhere and no matter where he looked, something was always going on. Left and right, back and forward, up and down. Every inch of space was used.

Emiya landed and boarded the Presidium elevator. It was simply easier to travel that way, rather than trying to jump from the spinning arms onto the central ring, he figured.

It had only been a scant few hours since the ball had ended, thus most of the guests were still asleep, sleeping off the night of celebration. _Most_ , but not _all_. He had read up on one species in particular, which had let him stumble upon a familiar set of letters again.

The Special Tasks Group. _STG_.

A group Burnsfeldt had thought capable of something on the level of his physical transformation, that had been fueled by forces beyond the mundane. A group like that ought to have all the resources and connections necessary for getting him fixed, he had reasoned. Now, he knew. And they were rather adversarial to Cerberus, which was another point in their favor.

Of course, the old adage ' _the enemy of my enemy is only the enemy of my enemy, nothing more_ ', held as true as ever. He could not afford to place any excess trust in someone merely because of the ramblings of a man he had already killed.

The elevator doors opened and he stepped out along with the three officials. He ignored them, leaping out again into the Presidium proper.

Essentially, if one looked at it with the right eye, the entire Citadel was a giant spinning hamster wheel. The arms where the Wards were, could be adjusted, thus the artificial gravity out on the Wards was highly scalable even without the use of element zero technology. In contrast, the Presidium was the donut-shaped ring that connected the five arms, with a much more static gravity.

It almost felt like walking on the inside of an inflatable swimming ring, he thought as he leaped over the lake.

He returned to the Synthetic Insights compound, glancing at the cleaning staff and other personnel. There wasn't much in the way of litter or garbage in the wake of the celebration, but they were thoroughly cleaning it all up nonetheless.

Moving towards the distant corner of the compound where he had left his stuff, he ignored them. It was something he had realized only as he had arrived at the Citadel and begun to try moving around in his astral body, but now it was obvious.

Without an omnitool to translate all of their speech, he could not understand a single word they said. That realization had been rather jarring. It was a rather considerable problem, if he wanted to be able to do anything at all in his spiritualized state. Inside of a computer, if he used the existing surveillance systems to observe the world around him, he could pull any nearby translator pack to help him comprehend the alien speech, but out in meatspace he was practically deaf and mute.

Which was why he had set aside all of his things before he had made his exit. He found the neatly folded pile of clothes, along with an omnitool and a small pistol, right where he had left them. These would let him interact with the salarians.

Still, he would have to wipe clean the omnitool, since he was fairly certain it had been bugged by one of the two Cerberus operatives he had been traveling with. And then there was the matter of his fingerprints being read, which he hadn't thought of at all, before.

That was the problem of blindly replicating something without knowing what it did; you got the bad with the good. A mistake he did not intend to repeat.

A quick insertion and he had wiped away everything on the thing, setting it to re-download the necessities from the extranet as it booted up from a factory reset. It would be done by the time he needed it again.

Grabbing the pile and making sure no one was nearby, he carted it off elsewhere. Keeping his eyes peeled for anyone who might find a floating pile of clothes suspicious, he found his way to a nearby restroom. Had anyone seen him then, they might have thought it a poltergeist.

Materializing, he exhaled. The bathroom was a rather fancy thing, overall. All extravagance and little restraint, gilded surfaces and polished precious metals dotted every side. He wasn't sure what to think of the galactic standard toilets, but he was certain the bide that used mass effect fields was entirely unnecessary. Then again, he suspected most of the people who lived on the Presidium had more money than sense.

Emiya dismissed his current clothes, going through his suit's pockets until he found the packet of hair dye he had prepared, just for an eventuality such as this. He was still playing a role, even if the role had technically been outed already. Rather, exactly due to that reason he would use it again. That way when people asked questions, such as where the hell he had been and how had he avoided all of their search parties, they would reach answers that would seem much more plausible than reality.

It took him ten minutes to get it all in order again, after which he washed his face and combed his hair again in the faucet. It was something of a skill you learned while on the constant move; to wash up properly in public restrooms. Moist towelettes and a faucet weren't as good as a shower or bath, but it was better than nothing.

Finishing with drying his again dyed black hair, he finished off with his contact lenses and then put yesterday's suit back on. Dusting off the worst, he sniffed and found it acceptable.

Snapping the omnitool to his wrist and checking that the initial boot and upgrades were finished, he nodded. He replaced the Cerberus' pistol's power supply, and looked up at the reflection in the mirror. He smirked at the man who looked back at him, playfully pulling the pistol and pointing at his own reflection.

"Durana. _Emil_ , Durana."

He chuckled, shaking his head at his own antics and placed the pistol into one of the interior pockets again. Adjusting his collar a slight bit, he turned around and walked out of the restroom while humming a half-remembered tune under his breath.

_I really need to make one of these for myself, too._

Though he didn't like the color at all, it just wasn't _him_. Perhaps he had grown a little too accustomed to the off-black matte of his diamene weave, after all this time, but at least it was better than this dark purple.

"Well, no one ever accused me of having a sense for fashion."

* * *

;

* * *

Guuran Heffai went through his messages, on the hour, just as he always did.

His various positions made him a rather busy salarian and yesterday's ball did him no favors in that regard. Even normally the ball was something of a bother, what with the dozens of asari dignitaries and reporters wishing to act out long and polite conversations afterwards through mail.

But this year's ball had been especially bothersome. The matter of the Alliance reaching out while refusing to share all the relevant information, the silent auction that had gone down, the appearance of three unknowns who had somehow managed to be invited to the ball in the first place...

It was a mess.

But this was his job, and it paid handsomely enough that he did not even bother to think whether the troubles were worth dealing with. The Alliance was apparently moving forward with something, having performed some kind of clean up operation using the silent auction as bait, and as a result was also making inquiries for cooperative work with Synthetic Insights.

Which posed _interesting_ implications.

There was a knock on the door, causing him to look up. That was peculiar; the door was automatically set to open to all who had clearance. Those who didn't have clearance, shouldn't have even been able to get far enough to knock on the door.

He reached for his pistol in the topmost drawer of his work desk. Pressing a button, he called in security. But unexpectedly, the door opened. Guuran sat upright, primed and ready for whatever would come through.

But when a familiar face walked through, he felt himself go still for just an instant. _How did he...?_

"I'm terribly sorry. I seem to be a bit lost. I went to the restrooms and when I came back out, the party had ended." 'Emil Durana', the man who did not exist on _any_ records aside from the invitation he had had upon entering, said as he walked inside.

Guuran went for his gun, but froze the human had a pistol drawn and pointed squarely at his head, before he could even raise his own. _A human that is faster than a salarian? That's..._

"Ah, well. Let's not start a gunfight quite yet. I've something I'd like to discuss, and I'm sure you'll want to hear it."

The salarian rolled his eyes, a nervous tick to moisturize his eyes. He considered it, before adopting his 'human behavior' protocol and 'smiling'.

"Very well. Please, sit down." Guuran offered, using an open-handed gesture to show the chair.

"Thank you, I'll do just that." Emil said with a nod and twirl of his pistol.

Guuran felt another moment of sheer astonishment pass him by as the man put away his pistol, sitting down with a smile. This was a chance, to do something. Should he try to reach for his gun, or...

"Would you like some refreshments?" Heffai settled on playing along for now. Security would be here soon, regardless.

"No, but thank you." Emil declined. "But I do have a quick question for you, before we get into business."

"Ah, very well." Guuran allowed, wondering whether he should still consider himself being held at gunpoint, even if the gun had been put away.

"Your title of ' _Director of Personnel_ '..." The human began, tilting his head in a gesture of genuine curiousity. "Does it relate to your position within Synthetic Insights, or within the Special Tasks Group?"

Guuran felt himself pause for a third time.

"Yes." It was for both. Or rather, his full title was _Director of Personnel and Liaison of Offices,_ in charge of coordinating the public front with the STG operations.

Emil smiled then, nodding. "Excellent. Then you're just the man I was looking for. Or salarian, I suppose."

Guuran inhaled, trying to fit this situation into a mental box as he rolled his eyes again.

"' _Man_ ' is fine. The translator is context sensitive in that regard."

Emil nodded again, signaling his understanding as he looked at his omnitool, then. "I see, I see. It really is a rather marvelous thing, after all."

_Relative unfamiliarity to technology and salarians. Faked display, or actual self? Note for later._ Guuran said nothing, waiting patiently for Emil to continue.

Just then, a hardsuited salarian came rappelling down the side of the building and came to rest with his sub-machine gun holding a bead on the human before him. Four more appeared through the doorway and a sixth came in through another window.

All had appeared within half a second of each other, surrounding him from all sides. They all advanced on the sitting Emil, guns at the ready.

Guuran felt equal relief and uncertainty now. The human before him hadn't even twitched at the appearance of his personal security. The were active-duty STG field operatives, one and all. There should have been _some_ kind of reaction. But it was as if this man did not even bother to notice them.

"So then, mister Durana." Guuran began, deciding to continue playing along the conversation if that was what the human wanted. "What have you come for here?"

Then the man smirked again, raising a leg and crossing it over his own knee as he leaned back in the chair.

"Ah well, you have services and products I would like to acquire. Services and products not readily available anywhere else in the galaxy. I would like to bargain for them."

Guuran nodded, getting into his negotiation mindset.

"Then you must understand that it is a very expensive thing indeed, if we are the sole providers. A natural result of _supply and_ _demand_. In exchange, we would demand an equal payment, yes?" Heffai said, pausing for a second for the human's benefit before continuing. "Or rather, something worth the service and your freedom, it would seem. After all, what is to prevent us from simply taking whatever it is you wish to present to us?"

"Well, in terms of value..." The human smirked, raising his hand. "How goes the hunt for those other two who ran off? The Alliance is probably more than a little worked up about them at this moment, no?"

"Ah, you would sell out your own organization, then?" Guuran asked, not judging or condemning, but simply asking to be clear on the matter.

"Heh, what can I say? I'll take the option with the greatest chances of success." Emil grinned, shrugging.

"I see. Of what kind, is this information." _'and how are you withholding it from us_ '?

The human brought his hands to his lap, interlacing his fingers.

"Three omnitools, one from a field operative and two from Officers of that organization. I'll even throw in the bonus service of unlocking the encryption for you. I'll even give you the field operative's omnitool for free. A sample, if you will."

Guuran slowly inhaled, considering that.

This organization had managed to infiltrate the Citadel, subverting the STG's own security measures at the party. The kind of information that could be stored on their omnitools would be worth its weight in gold.

But he wasn't about to let this man know it.

"Rejected. Take him away." Heffai motioned for the salarians to grab him. Better to pressure him first and see what happened.

"Are you sure? The Alliance is already on the trail for that mysterious skycar. Are you willing to waste time on negotiation tactics?"

Heffai froze, raising a hand instantly to stop his operatives.

"...The rumors about the new stealth technology are true, then?"

The man shrugged. "I was just a field operative; they never told me anything about that incident. But I know that one of the omnitools I have belonged to _Joseppi Cardotin_."

The Special Tasks Group had received reports of a strange incident in Systems Alliance space. Specifically, in their home system. Rumors were abound of a new stealth system, that had confused all surveillance systems and methods. It wasn't functional stealth, but it was the closest anyone had managed until now. Analysis suggested that it was a failure, but the implications remained.

A clandestine human organization might have stealth technology for space travel. It was the kind of thing over which entire wars could have been started. By conventional doctrine, there was no such thing as stealth in space, _especially_ not in faster than light travel.

But apparently a skycar owned by one doctor by the name of Joseppi Cardotin, had been able to do something approaching that.

It wasn't something they could afford to pass up on, even if it were falsehoods or fabrications.

"What do you wish to trade it for?" He said finally after three seconds of thought.

And the human smirked then, knowing he had won this battle.

Guuran did not bother to let it bother him; they would have plenty of chances to attempt to gain the upper hand during these negotiations to come.

After all, the Special Tasks Group always won in the end.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya walked out through the front entrance, just as he had walked in several hours prior. This time, the press and the personnel were all gone.

Well, not all of them. If you counted STG agents shadowing him personnel, he supposed. Not minding it one bit, he continued walking out.

For now, they had come to an agreement.

Of course, even as he pressed them to hurry it up, they wanted more time. They delayed and prorogated, assuring him all the while that they were offering their full cooperation. He saw right through them. Heffai's word was worth nothing on its own. If they could simply find the omnitools, they would be more than happy to renege on any and all agreements they might have made.

Then again, perhaps they did need to call in various specialists from across the galaxy. His situation was more than a tad bit unusual.

"Shall we?" The salarian who had been chosen to accompany him asked.

Emiya nodded, not letting his thoughts show on his face as the skycar arrived and stopped before them. The rear doors opened, revealing a large rear cabin that could have been fit for a king.

"Where to, then?"

"Tayseri Ward." Emiya answered without hesitation.

He hadn't actually been there once, but he figured he might as well make them work a little if they wanted to try and find his omnitools.

The skycar took off as they sat in, and he marveled at how soft the seats were. It reminded him of limousines, but while the general design was the same the details were all wrong. Or perhaps that wasn't the right word, as they were simply based on another culture's take on the idea of a luxury vehicle.

Arriving at a service entrance to the Presidium ring, they went through a set of airlocks, arriving at the outside. He noted that unlike the other one he had seen, this one had been properly sealed. Looking out through the tinted windows, he could see the purple nebula and the five Citadel arms slowly spinning.

As they arrived and the salarian asked for further guidance, he nodded.

"Know any place where we can get good food?"

The salarian paused, utterly still for just a fraction of a second.

"Certainly, do you have any preference?"

"Asari could be nice. I haven't had a chance to try that yet." Emiya shrugged, grinning.

The salarian nodded and advised the driving VI to continue somewhere.

Emiya continued like that for another half hour, making strange demands and simply watching the salarian suppress his annoyance. He got a lot of good food to go, since many of the places the salarian had chosen were ready to go by the time they arrived. Whether that was the standard for the Citadel, or the salarian was merely impatient either due to his racial characteristics or his job, he wasn't entirely sure.

"Alright, let's go to Zakera Ward, then." Emiya smiled, taking a bit out of the take away box in his lap. Asari cutlery was apparently quite similar to Earth's Western designs, which further confirmed a suspicion he had been having.

But then, what made those guns special? _Another time..._

"We have arrived." The salarian announced, already straining to maintain his facade of calm and candid politeness. "Would you like to try the elcor cuisine next?"

"Oh, great idea." Emiya shot back immediately, thoroughly enjoying the look of pure confusion on the salarian's face. _Hmm, maybe it had a bad reputation among the other races?_ "But maybe another time."

"Ah, certainly." The salarian exhaled in relief.

"The operation was ready to go in an hour, right?" Emiya asked and the salarian nodded. "Well, then. Let me just grab the promised first omnitool."

He got out of the skycar, the salarian following him like a hawk.

Outside the skycar, it was loud and busy. Shuttles were coming and going at a constant pace, there were hundreds of people everywhere, moving like a river as everyone was busily commuting. It was like Tokyo train station at rush hour, only it _never ended_.

Walking up to the public bench near the shuttle dock where he had expected they would arrive, he reached beneath the bench and pulled out the omnitool hidden in a Faraday pouch, taped to the bottom where it was out of sight and reach.

Opening the pouch, he pulled out Rasa's omnitool and gently tossed it at the salarian who caught it on pure reflex. The look of pure and utter apprehension was enough to make Emiya grin; this was one of the most active spots on all of Zakera Ward. And while the security cameras were on constant rotation, if they wanted to find out when he had brought it in here, they would be in for a rough time. The constant throng of people would make it nearly impossible to find out when, who and from where someone had come to hide the omnitool.

He guessed it would take _days_ of combing through the footage just to list up all possible suspects, much less narrowing it down to possible accomplices. Of course, he placed it there in his spiritualized state earlier, meaning there wouldn't be any footage to trace him down with in the first place. As long as he kept the Faraday pouch from touching anyone beneath the eyes of the crowd, no one had noticed a thing when he had come by.

He hoped whoever had to go through all of the footage was well paid.

He had also gone through the omnitool in excruciating detail; deleting data he thought would hurt others than just Cerberus. Just because he was willing to sell _them_ out, did not mean that he was willing to sell out the Alliance quite yet. Additionally, he deleted all references to 'gateway' after he had found what he needed.

No need to give the STG means to track him down later.

"Well, then. The man will come knocking once it's time at the agreed upon place, and once I have confirmed the operation has been finished, I'll send the last one." Emiya said, grinning as he walked away.

The salarian numbly nodded and he closed the door, turning around to walk away.

Even as he continued walking, the skycar did not leave. He figured the salarian inside was either reporting in or coordinating a follow up, for other agents to continue tailing him. That was fine, he was going to be spiritualizing to return to his body once it was time, anyhow.

He walked around, casually taking in the sights.

Unlike before, he had now been dropped off at one of the skyscrapers dotting the Zakera Ward. Unlike the street level, it wasn't quite as packed. He guessed that the rent and prices up here were sky high, to reflect that as well.

He looked into shops and boutiques, noting the positions of obvious cameras, the occasional patrolling C-Sec officer and the shady salarians he seemed to be seeing near every corner. They appeared to be whiling away the time, just as he was, but their eyes told a different story.

They were keeping tabs on him, obviously.

Something drew his attention and he stared at a large screen on the wall next to him. A logo and some music played, reminiscent of a newscast about to begin.

An asari appeared, wearing an immaculate dress and sitting down with her fingers primly crossed.

" _Breaking news,_ "

Emiya blinked. It really was a newscast.

" _A commercial starliner inbound for the Citadel has unexpectedly been taken hostage near keel docking bay C-4 of the Zakera Ward. Channel 2 News contacted C-Sec for comments and they had this to say;_ "

The footage cut from the broadcast room to a turian official in uniform being interviewed.

" _'At this time, the situation is under control. The hostage taker is a passenger who managed to smuggle in a weapon and is now in negotiations with C-Sec. No one has been injured so far and the situation is unlikely to escalate, given that the starship has already been magnetically locked. C-Sec urges civilians to retain a standard one kilometer distance from the starliner, enforced by C-Sec starships and Control, along with restraining from attempting to contact either C-Sec or the starliner's passengers at this time. This situation should be over soon enough, that is all.'_ "

Emiya raised his eyebrows, stopping to listen to the newscast.

As the footage cut back, the asari continued.

" _When asked about the rumors of this being the work of a human supremacist demanding to be allowed passage back to Earth, along with monetary concessions to the Systems Alliance for 'previous injustices', C-Sec declined to comment. We reached out to the Systems Alliance representative, Ambassador Udina for a word on the situation._ "

The newscast cut again, this time showing a straight backed and serious-looking man with dark hair and tan skin. A subtitle identified him as the ambassador for humanity on the Citadel.

" _'The Systems Alliance and all of humanity disavows this situation with the strongest possible terms. Any and all demands that could be taken to be advantageous to humanity will be rejected and we are extending all possible aid to C-Sec at this time to—_ "

Emiya ignored the rest, continuing to walk. He had seen that type before.

He walked down the streets, frowning as he did. Spotting a public skycar, he sighed and boarded it. He needed to see this for himself. _Is this the work of Miranda and Dianne? Are they trying to return to Earth like this?_

If so, then he was responsible for this situation.

Arriving near the keel docks, he stepped out and walked until he found a vantage point where he could see the starliner. It didn't look like much, but it was obvious which one it was. No other vessels were anywhere near it, while several blue-painted starships were maintaining a cordoned off area around it. He could see the C-Sec logos embedded on their sides, while on the starliner he could see a commercial logo.

Emiya frowned, pulling out his omnitool and began to look around for information. He quickly enough found several social media accounts, reciting information that the media had been spreading. But they had also been doing it before, additionally inciting C-Sec to take action against the hostage taker.

He also found footage taken from inside of the starliner; from the looks of it from a security camera. It was spreading like wildfire on the extranet, even though videos were being taken down by C-Sec almost as quickly as they appeared.

Something about it all rubbed him the wrong way, his gut instinct telling him there was something more at play here.

Emiya considered taking action, before shaking his head. He was on too tight a schedule right now. He needed to attend to his operation first. Besides, the situation was stable enough as it was. He considered the starliner.

Getting there would be easy enough; he just needed to spiritualize and jump there. This place was secluded enough and he should be able to lose the salarian stalkers easily once he set his mind to it. But that would mean postponing his surgery...

He inhaled, only to realize something unusual.

"Hello, Miranda."

The sound of the gun activating behind him rang out. He turned around, moving to look away from the large windows and to face her head on. She had changed clothes and washed up, but her perfume and unique odor remained.

She was glaring at him, eyes like sharped ice behind the bead of the pistol.

"Where is Ras—"

"Are you related to the starliner hostage situation?" She cut him off.

He blinked, tilting his head. He had thought it had been Rasa on the starliner, perhaps working as bait for Miranda to pull something. But the tone of her voice, her body language and her eyes...

They denied his presumptions.

Emiya stared at her silently, furrowing his brows as he tried to understand.

"Answer me, damn it!" She shouted taking a half-step forward, eyes wide as she ground her teeth.

"...No." He admitted directly.

She let out a shuddering breath, her eyes swimming for a moment. Hesitation, indecision, pressure and stress were all obvious on her face. She was fraying at the edges.

The pistol wavered for a second.

"You... You said you never lied to me." She asked, eyes turning sharp again as she raised to muzzle at him again.

"Well, the paperw—"

"Fuck the paperwork! Did you ever lie to me? To my face? Directly! Can I take you for your word!?"

He hesitated, completely out of his depth with her at this moment. Thus, he could only offer the truth to her.

"I told you half-truths and mislead you, sure. But I didn't lie to you." He shrugged.

She let out a sigh, nodding to herself.

"Do you know who is in that starliner?" She asked and he shook his head. "Do you know who planned it? What's going on there? Anything?"

As he shook his head, she blinked and took a step back.

"I... I..." She turned around, leaving with brisk steps. "I don't have time to waste on you."

Emiya blinked, not sure what to make of that. Glancing back at the docked starliner outside the window, in the distance, he frowned. Glancing at Miranda's figure, he shrugged.

"Miranda."

She stopped, not bothering to turn around.

"This whole thing smells of a _false flag_ -attack of some kind, to me. The media was way too quick on the ball, there's too many conflicting reports, and it's going too smoothly for anything but a pro to be behind it, but at the same time it seems like a suicide op."

She did not give any indication of hearing him, standing there silently.

"I think there has to be someone outside the starliner, coordinating everything. But that's just my gut feeling."

"...I'm not going to thank you." She whispered.

He huffed in amusement at that.

"Oh, and avoid taking the left, there. The STG is keeping an eye on that route. You'll want to lose them by going up the stairs."

Then she did turn around, giving him an incredulous look. But he had already turned around to resume looking out through the window.

He could feel her gaze for another few seconds, before she turned to leave with hastened steps.

"I wonder what that was about..."

_If she was asking me, I can probably take that to mean they weren't involved. Not unless this was some strange and convoluted plot to keep specifically me out of this. It's not like I have time right now, anyhow._

Emiya shook his head, inhaling slowly. He didn't have time for this right now, but it seemed like she had her own vested interest in this matter. Well, he would entrust it to C-Sec and Miranda for now.

It was about time for him to disappear. Now that Miranda was drawing in the salarians' attention, he would be able to disappear smoothly as well.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya's heart beat once. Twice.

It began to pick up pace, approaching normal heartrate as he took his first breath in days. The temperature rose quickly and as he felt sensations returning to his frozen body, he consciously dispelled the steel box. It had served its purpose well enough.

The ice and his body fell on the floor and he felt like his whole consciousness had been blown away for several eternities, as he struggled and writhed on the floor. Pushing the ice away, he shivered as he cycled magical energy through his body to recover more quickly.

Emiya coughed, raising a shaking hand up before his face.

His skin was sloughing off, like... _Like an over-boiled tomato. Boil it just for a few seconds and you can peel away the skin with ease, but let it stew for too long and it sogs up, underneath._

Frowning, he reached up and peeled away the skin, tossing it aside. There was no pain; the ice must have destroyed his nerves there, then.

Running a simple mental check followed by Structural Analysis, he found that the damage was simply superficial. Nothing on the inside had been injured, the vitrificant working as intended to protect his internal organs and muscles. It was merely the parts where his bare skin had come in contact with the ice, that things had gone awry.

Parts of his forearms, a little of his shoulder and back. Nothing more. It was fine.

Emiya slowly got himself back into order, toppling on his feet as he got dressed. He had bought some commercial-grade medigel, using it copiously to fix up the worst of his cosmetic injuries and using breathing exercises to get himself in control over his own body.

This was just the price he had to pay for hastily constructing a plan. Then again, it had _worked_.

He grinned, getting up and grabbing Burnsfeldt's omnitool. He had cleared it of anything he didn't want to reveal, so that he could hand it over to the salarians without a worry. Now, he simply had to get to the hospital.

Which was easier said than done, as every step was a fight in and of itself. The spirit was willing, but the body was weak. Leaving behind everything he might mind missing if it was taken or anything that would raise undue suspicion, such as the projected tracker, he set out.

He managed to flag a skycar and soon enough he arrived at the designated location. It was a relatively large building, with bare walls and no signs indicating what exactly went on inside. Walking in, he greeted the receptionist of the private clinic with a slight wave of his hand.

"I'm here for an appointment with Doctor Solus, he's expecting me."

The salarian looked at him, eyeing his bedraggled state with clear apprehension. Sniffing once, he nodded.

"Very well. I shall call it in."

Emiya nodded, moving to sit down at a lobby couch.

The muzak playing was slightly odd, but not entirely unpleasant. It had an almost hypnotic quality to it, but that could have also been a side-effect of his current physical state.

"The doctor will see you now, right this way, please." The receptionist spoke up, after a span of time that could have been minutes or hours.

He nodded, getting up on swaying legs as he moved to follow. He was lead to a private room and as he entered, he suddenly felt strangely reminded of his old schools' nurse's office. He shook his head, focusing on the familiar salarian sitting ahead and waiting for him.

"Doctor Solus, I presume." Emiya spoke. The salarian looked much the same as he had back during the Synthetic Insights' ball.

Of course, while Emiya recognized him, he would not recognize Emiya in this body as the same person as from the party. The salarian looked up, quickly glancing at his physical state with what could have been a frown, before he got up to greet Emiya.

"Indeed. Shirou Emiya, I take it."

Emiya blinked once, allowing his surprise to show.

Then he realized that it was referring to the name he had been using in the Alliance Navy, rather than his true name in any sense. He hadn't been seen through, as such, even if his disappearance on Mars had been noticed.

He nodded once to show that the STG had in fact been able to root out his identity in such a short order. A tense silent moment passed, as neither said anything.

"Here's the second promised omnitool." Emiya said finally, handing over the one he had taken from Burnsfeldt as he remembered he had it with him. It had similarly been cleaned up as Rasa's, thus it was nothing more than a carrot to keep everything moving fluidly at this point.

The aged salarian accepted them with a deep sigh, nodding once to indicate his understanding. "Assume, is not one previously belonging to Joseppi Cardotin?"

Emiya nodded. "That one will be delivered after the operation."

The door behind him opened and another salarian walked in. Emiya glanced at the newcomer, noting the similarities with Doctor Solus before him. A relative, perhaps?

"Doctor, the operating staff has arrived. They will be ready to operate, soon."

Mirlan Solus nodded. "Have you brought the materials?"

"Not yet, other doctors, signing still."

"Very well." The doctor nodded, turning to Emiya. "Well then, you are aware, of operation's purpose?"

There was a strange overtone to his voice, as if he was both tired and resigned, yet still wary of what kind of answer Emiya would give him.

"It's to remove and replace parts of my brain."

The doctor nodded. "Indeed. But not simple as that."

"Hmm?"

Mirlan pulled out an image from his omnitool, projecting it onto a display by the side of the room. It showed various records and Emiya nigh-instantly recognized them as being his Alliance records. _The Special Tasks Group is not feared for nothing, it seems._

"Have pored over medical records, but failed to find anything to support conclusions presented by Emil Durana."

Emiya blinked. "I see."

"Supposedly, have brain damage from long term use of opioid narcotics, as noted in report. Yet, fail to find markers for any such conclusions to be drawn. Peculiar." Mirlan said, blinking once at Emiya.

"Does it matter? If you don't operate on me, you won't be able to get the other omnitools." Emiya lightly threatened, causing the salarian's frown to only deepen.

"...Are aware of results of an operation, such as this? Doctor by trade. Wish to minimize necessary harm to patient, simply operating on basis of information given... Likely to cause permanent brain damage, result in vegetative state. Tantamount to murder." Mirlan inhaled slowly, showing his obvious displeasure at the state of affairs. "Urge, to reconsider."

"That's fine. As long as I don't die, then—"

"Exactly point. No indication of dying, especially not, given circumstances presented. Can not, in good conscience, operate." The doctor interrupted him.

Emiya frowned; he had taken the salarians to be ruthless and clinical, yet it seemed that they had more than a conscience, when it came to his proposed deal.

He had put it simply to Heffai, earlier. He would hand them the omnitools and they would perform cyberization on his brain, replacing as much as they could to ensure that whatever it was that Archimedes had done to him would not be a problem.

Emiya had concluded that it must have been a drug overdose; probably some form of intravenous opioid overdose, given the presence of used needles near his body when he had first woken up.

But whatever it was that Archimedes had done, had also hidden it well enough that the Alliance had not been able to find it at all. He didn't know if it would show up, even now? _Well, here goes nothing._

"Then check again."

The salarian looked up, blinking once. The eyelids that came from the bottom of the eye, in reverse from human eyelids, still threw him off at times.

"Seem uncertain, yet determined to have operation. Are aware, of how such things work? Can not simply put in parts in brain. Is not, ' _plug'n play_ '. Requires time; time to adjust, time to learn, time to check for errors—for _proper_ cyberization. Simply... putting in hardware as Durana outlined, will not work. Result, predictable. Brain death."

Emiya said nothing, waiting until the doctor finally seemed to give in with a sigh.

"Morgoi, prepare diagnostic's suit 5. Will be there shortly." Mirlan told the younger salarian who nodded, walking back out. Turning back to Emiya, he rolled his eyes. "If able to prove, lack of mortal danger..."

"We'll see." Emiya said and watched as the salarian seemed to slump a slight bit.

Apparently, while the equipment could be broken down into relatively small sizes such as into specialized omnitools, for precise analysis it was still optimal to make use of specialized equipment.

Thus he felt like he had been stuffed into a barrel, lying down on his back. It was almost like an MRI, really. Though apparently it was fine for him to move, so it seemed that technology wasn't quite as sensitive anymore.

Looking around, he focused on his breathing. He thought about using Structural Analysis, but then thought better of it. Who knew what the scan might pick up unexpectedly.

"That will be all. May come out now."

Emiya nodded, getting out and walking to stand before the two salarians who were poring over the screens. The younger of them turned to look at Emiya with clearly new eyes, as if some great new mystery had revealed itself in him before them.

"Must apologize, had not expected... this." Doctor Solus spoke, clearly hesitating with where to begin.

"...So you found something."

"Something... Yes. Not certain, nothing before alike it." The old salarian nodded, rolling his eyes. "Found damage in several parts of brain. Hidden, beneath layer of strange material. Unable to properly identify, strange properties. _Unquantifiable_."

Emiya nodded, which made the younger salarian blink at him.

"As you said, doctor. He knew."

"Were aware of this, yes. Clearly hesitant, that would be able to find, yet certain of something wrong." The old salarian speculated.

"Something like that." Emiya admitted.

"Also, speculated cause, not certain. Lacked medical knowledge, did not know what would cause such damage." Mirlan continued immediately and Emiya could feel these two salarians' eyes boring into him.

He was certain that they were both leagues smarter than him, so he was hesitant to say too much. Who knew what could be construed of an errant word.

"Something like that. I had a black out a while back, and when I woke up, there were all kinds of needles around. I figured they were drugs of some kind." He shrugged.

"Yes, somewhat fits. But, not long-term. Single use, overdose of opioid-based drug, cause heart rate, breathing to slow down. Noted, known effects on humans. Well documented; recreational use and addiction... c _ommon_. Lack of oxygen, very dangerous. Could explain damage." Mirlan nodded, analyzing as he thought through. Then, he looked up and stared at Emiya straight in the eyes. "Possibly, clinically dead for period of time, even?"

"...It's likely."

"Still does not explain, how survived. Strange 'nano-sheaths', continuing to help brain function. Unknown technology, never seen—or _heard_ , of anything like it." The younger salarian cut in again.

"Indeed. Do you know how this happened?"

Emiya inhaled slowly, before settling on deflecting as hard as possible without being obvious. "Roughly. But I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to ask Emil, he'll know what to tell you."

_Because if we meet again later, I'll have had way more time to think about this stuff and come up with good excuses._

The salarians nodded, though it was obvious that they wanted to ask more. Which meant he ought to distract them. "But that wasn't the only unusual thing, was it?"

"Indeed. I knew human brains were unusual in structure and make up, but it is fascinating to witness myself." The younger salarian immediately agreed. "Do you practice some form of meditation, perhaps?"

Emiya blinked at that reaction; it had been a lot more enthusiastic than he had expected. "Uh, yeah. Something like that."

"Indeed, indeed. I found your insular cortex to be of unusual thickness, even for a human. Already of considerable size, even given proportions, for most humans compared to many other races. Almost a third larger than asari on average even—who have the second largest proportional after humans. Implications still unknown, very interesting field. I had not read up on human neurobiology until today, a most interesting field."

"Uh...?"

"Ah, yes. Relation to meditation. Human neuroplasticity fascinating. Considerable evidence of ability to change itself to spectacular degrees. Even without chemical stimulus, sometimes from social interaction. Humans notably affected by social cohesion and own position in hierarchies. Very interesting."

Emiya blinked, nodding hesitantly at that. It was obvious the younger salarian was quite interested in this field. Though two things he had said stuck at Emiya. _Wait, he started only reading today and he's already qualified to be taking part in of all this? And secondly..._

"The asari?"

The salarian nodded at that, as if picking up on some cue Emiya had given. "Yes. Had studied before as they're well known as exceptional cases—often studied for basis in improvements in biotical synchronization apparatus improvements. Surprisingly many parallels to human brains."

"I wondered about that, they seem to have a very good grasp on human body language. Shouldn't that be very strange for an alien species? I mean, I can tell you are emulating some gestures while others are natural and thus... _alien_ , to me." Emiya raised a hand, indicating them.

Both of them seemed to tilt their heads a slight bit at that, indicating genuine surprise and curiosity.

The younger salarian seemed willing to continue, after a glance at the older doctor who still seemed to be busy thinking about the results of the scan.

"Asari are able to observe and quickly learn body language from each other. Similar to how human parents are able to naturally speak at a level just above a child's understanding; pushing them to improve. Asari commonly use their natural melding reproductive ability to acquire knowledge and behavioral understanding from alien species, which lets them rapidly adapt and learn even when alone. Thus, other asari observe, and habits spread. Natural, almost unnoticed by most of species, allowing quick and harmonious coexistence to occur very rapidly."

Emiya blinked at that, suddenly reminded of that asari he had met not too long ago. He frowned, then. _There really is something about them, isn't there?_

Well, he had been planning to study there, anyhow...

"What was that about the insular cortex—" Emiya blinked, before changing his question. "What was that about 'natural melding reproductive ability'?"

He was suddenly beset by a mental image of the asari he had met melting and sticking to his skin, melding with him somehow. He shook his head, dismissing the strange image. _That's_ probably _not it..._

"Let us return to the subject at hand." Doctor Solus spoke up and cutting short the conversation, though it was obvious that he had not chosen to do so with a light heart. "While can not deny possibility of impending brain failure, can neither concur with analysis. Not enough data, feel it is imperative to continue observing, before hasty decisions are made."

He looked at Emiya then, urging him to re-consider.

"Sorry, doc. But I need to get it done, and soon." But he would not be dissuaded.

"...Even if the result will cause permanent memory loss, forcing you to re-learn everything? Human brain, still too unknown to make clear guesses regarding outcome of surgery. Lead developer, for human line of grayboxes, know better than anyone, how difficult and complex subject is." Mirlan spoke, almost pleading Emiya now. "Graybox only possible, as works in parallel. Found early on, all of brain necessary for memory. Both procedural and episodical, use practically all of human brain. Cannot simply remove part here, hope to replace with another part of similar function. Too interconnected, too entwined. Even minor changes, cause wide, sweeping changes to mind."

He rolled his eyes, clearly uncomfortable.

"Cyberization, long process. Even for salarians whose minds and brains, better understood. This kind of thing, highly dangerous. Could very well, cause _ego death_."

Emiya smiled, hoping to reassure him, then.

"It's fine. I need this; it's the only way I'll live, I know it."

And something in the salarian doctor finally seemed to give in, being replaced by a hopeless resignation. "...Very well, then. Morgoi, believe paperwork should be ready. Sign and get on with it."

* * *

;

* * *

"Count d _ow_ n from t _e_ n."

Emiya did as told not bothering to comment at the salarian's accent, feeling his eyelids growing heavier with each count. By one, he was unconscious. There was that distant sensation of presence, but it was clear that he was once again not in control.

Stepping out in his spiritual form, he observed the various salarians gathered around him. None of the instruments seemed to be alarming anyone and they continued to chatter on in calm voices as they began to operate.

Lacking an omnitool, he could not understand a word they were saying. But after fifteen minutes, he reasoned nothing unusual was occurring and that the operation was continuing as normal.

Shrugging, he left.

Looking around, he dove into the private clinic's system but found nothing of interest there. The night before the ball, he had taken the liberty of checking out Synthetic Insight's system and reading up on some of the guests.

It was what had allowed him to discuss many of the things he had that night, at the level he had, even as he avoided technical details and stuck to concepts. That, and his own experiences from dealing with Attack Program and Artificial Intelligences on the Moon, to an extent.

But all of his reading would not mean a thing, if his body still died. Or perhaps the new cybernetic parts would reject his spiritual possession, leaving him stranded.

There was no way to tell what the future would bring with it.

He sighed, finally admitting to something that had been bothering him for a while now. Niggling, at the back of his mind. Reminding of itself whenever he had a moment of silence.

_Why was Miranda so desperate?_

Additionally, the situation with the starliner called out to him. The old heroic instincts demanded his attention, shouting at him to intervene again. Just as he always had.

What had held him back had been his caution, his rationality and his experiences. He did not want to make undue waves, nor did he want the Special Tasks Group to suddenly grow interested in any of his alter egos, when he was at such a critical juncture.

But now that he was faced with his possible demise, having done all that he could and coming up unable to do any more... _Why did I choose to leave the Moon Cell? Wasn't it to live out that life again? To be a hero of justice?_

Thus the conclusion was inevitable. He jumped and found himself outside, again.

Staring out into the distance, he spotted the starliner docked by the keel of the Ward. Nothing seemed to have changed outwardly so far. Inhaling, he bound forward.

Jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, he made it to the Presidium elevator. He was still rather leery about about trying to jump from one Ward to another, since he had no definite means of locomotion in a void. _Though, I could probably use..._ He shook his head, riding the elevator. It was better to simply use the Presidium access to get where he wanted to.

Arriving at the keel dock, he leaped up and kicked off of a platform, performing a flip through the air as he landed inside of the starliner.

Coming up from the crouch, he looked around. _Huh, it even looks like a commercial airliner, too_.

There were people—humans, asari, strange four-eyed aliens and salarian—seated in neat rows. Everyone was sitting quietly, keeping their hands visible and their heads down. Down the length of the starliner, between the rows of seats, a man in a full hardsuit walked. He was quite tall, wide at the shoulders and obviously of muscular build.

In his hands was a rifle and on his hip, a pistol. The helmet covered his face, but suggested a human face with two eyes. _That's not something just anyone should be able to smuggle onboard a starship. Right...?_

Emiya looked around, noting that the man was apparently working alone. Though quickly enough he noticed an unusual alien, seated and keeping an eye on the hostage taker. And something immediately stood out to Emiya; a bulge in his armpit.

_He's armed? But why isn't he doing anything? It's not a heavy armor, a few good shots should be enough._ He stared curiously at the seated alien with a pistol hidden in his clothes.

His body language seemed relaxed, if a touch expectant. To Emiya, the alien seemed to be eyeing the other passengers more than the hostage taker, too. Well, it was hard to tell with the four eyes, but that was the impression he got.

Emiya frowned, listening to the hostage taker ranting and raving to the seated people. They cowered around him, occasionally getting hit by him to punctuate something he was shouting.

"This is what you a _l_ l deserve! For gett _in_ g in the way of the great and powerful Hu _ma_ nity! How d _are_ you! Hu _ma_ nity is strongest! Hu _ma_ nity will rule the _gal_ axy!" Seemed to be the gist of it, though Emiya frowned as he listened.

Something about the renunciation of individual syllables felt _off_. Additionally, this whole situation had been going on for hours already? Hadn't the man tired of hearing his own voice, repeating the same lines over and over again?

Jumping down, Emiya walked to the hostage taker and simply leaned forward, until his head was through the helmet. It was a bit of challenge, but he got a glimpse of the face beneath the hardsuit's helmet.

_Wait, he's one of those four-eyed aliens?_ Emiya blinked, leaning back.

He looked at the other who was still sitting with thoughtful eyes. _It really was a false flag, huh_. _But what would these aliens have to gain by pretending to be human?_

Emiya sighed, noting that the alien had an omnitool. _Nothing to it, then._

_'—Trace, on'—being insertion,_

He opened his eyes, landing at the bottom of the digital ocean once more. Looking around, he spotted various caches and began to go through whatever he could find.

But after a thorough search, he had to conclude that there was nothing. Just like he had, this 'batarian' had wiped clean and used a factory reset omnitool, to ensure operational security. _Competence. How annoying._

Using the connection, he dove right into the omnitool of the other who was still sitting and simply observing the situation, but he couldn't find anything there either.

Emiya dove back out, crossing his arms as he tried to figure out his next move. He did not simply want to act out, without knowing what was going on. It never hurt to have more information and for all of the hostage taker's boisterous bluster, no one had actually been hurt yet.

He looked up, spotting a security camera on the ceiling. He blinked; it was little more than a small dome, attached to the corner of the cabin. Diving through it next, he found various and disparate sources all watching the insides of the starliner through the feed.

Tracing one to C-Sec headquarters, another to the Presidium ring and third to the human embassy, he frowned. _So... He's putting up a show?_

He had guessed that there would be an outsider, working with the hostage taker, based on the various social media accounts inciting action and spreading false information like no one's business. Suspecting that one of those feeds would be monitored by this person, he began to sift through the various forks until he found one that was being diverted to a far off section in the Kithoi Ward. It was well hidden and it appeared that neither C-Sec nor the STG seemed aware of it.

Diving through, he blinked as he jumped out.

Miranda was sitting by a terminal, staring at the various camera feeds from the starliner while also working on several other things.

Emiya looked around, quickly enough finding a bound up and bleeding batarian on the floor. _She certainly works fast_.

He considered appearing, but decided not to. He guessed she would not take well to it and he didn't have his disguise on, either. But it seemed like she had compiled a fair amount of information already and was working on something.

Diving back in, he leafed through her notes. A lot of it was complete nonsense to him, but referring to some general history he got a gist of what she thought was going on.

The Systems Alliance had been expanding into a region of space that the Batarian Hegemony had laid claim to, the Citadel refused to intervene and the Batarians seceded from the Citadel. Since no one seemed to care, they were now trying to make humanity look bad by making a false attack. A human had been drugged up and would be made a patsy, once the batarian team had gained enough attention.

Miranda at the moment seemed to be trying to cobble together a ruse to make the team pull out, but she was struggling with opening an encrypted data file of some kind.

C-Sec had several strike teams ready to go, but since the starship had not opened up it was still completely sealed. The pilots had been taken out and the cockpit wasn't responding to external commands. So far, at the behest of the Citadel Council, they were attempting to negotiate with the kidnappers.

She hadn't found any connections to the Hegemony or other batarian actors, but it was obvious she suspected it, from what and how she was going through the bound up batarian's accessible files. It seemed like she was cooking up some sort of plan, as she worked with a mad zeal. It was as he looked through her working files that he spotted something; a camera feed that stood out somehow.

It showed a young girl, with dark hair and blue eyes on the starliner. She was huddled between two human adults, cowering from the ranting and raving batarian whenever he passed by.

He blinked, frowning as he looked closer. The other feeds she was monitoring were all wide shots, but this one was zoomed in and centered on the girl.

_Are they related?_ They certainly had similar enough faces, despite the age difference. Somehow, that thought made Miranda appear in a completely different light to him. That confrontation before suddenly changed entirely in his mind.

He shook his head, diving back inside and returning to the starliner. The batarian was still tirelessly ranting at everyone, smacking humans and asari occasionally as he did.

Emiya looked around, a basic plan forming in his head already. _The bathroom stall lacks a camera; I can materialize there without being seen. Flush the toilet when he's walking by. Spiritualize and wait until he checks it out, close the door behind him and stun him quickly. Take his armor and gun, come back out, shoot the other batarian, run back into the bathroom and lock the door. Then make it look like a suicide and leave._

It would be a relatively clean and quick operation, too. But he hesitated.

He had decided to live as a hero of justice again, to see where that path would lead him. Acting here to end this situation was certainly what he should be doing, but was his choice of action the correct one?

It wasn't like he had ever known how to be a hero of justice, rather he had always struggled with that ideal. The only guiding light he had had, was the understanding of what _wasn't_ in line with that ideal. The ability to judge that something _wasn't_ what a hero of justice would do.

But, that had been a long time ago.

Since then, he had piled the bodies high, and waded through blood and tears, confronting and challenging conflicts and suffering wherever and whenever he could. And as a result, he had been worn down and grown numb. Once, a very long time ago, the thought of killing someone had been revolting to him. He still remembered his first time, in the heat of the moment the blade had sunk in so easily. He hadn't regretted or hesitated that act, but he had thought it an extreme case. An outlier.

How naive he had been. _Now_ , it came easily once he set his mind to it. There was no emotion in the act, once he decided it was necessary.

But ' _A hero of justice was someone who saved everyone._ ', right?

That ideal was immature and childish, the kind of nonsense a child too scarred by a catastrophe to survive normally would dream up to justify his own survival. He had been ashamed of himself, of running away, of leaving so many to die, even if he was powerless and could have done nothing.

Such was his shellshock; a shattered self-image coming to conflict with the harshness of reality had nothing to do with logic or reason, only with the self-recriminations and shame of the self. He had come to terms with that, and he had thought he had overcome it long since.

But that was in the Moon Cell, where he thought he had come to the end of his path. And this wasn't inside SERAPH anymore. He could do as he wished.

He had immense power, right now. Power beyond even his wildest dreams back when he had been alive. A hostage situation that left the seat of a galactic civilization locked out, and he had simply strolled in once he had time enough from other things and figured out what was going on.

Casually. Easily, even. Like an _afterthought_. So who was he saving here, by killing two batarians?

Emiya exhaled. He could kill these three and reveal the truth of their identities with ease, while keeping himself hidden. But would that be what a hero of justice did? It was easy, expedient, effective and elusive. It would be the smart thing to do, but was it what he had set out to do?

Had he... forgotten how to be a hero? Or had he never known in the first place? He couldn't remember. What was a hero of justice, even? At this rate, wouldn't he go back to that time in his life, where he did nothing but bring despair to a few in the dark?

_Ah, damn it. Not the time._ He shook his head. What did he want, right now? _Keep it simple, stupid._

To kill those two, even if they had taken a starliner's worth of civilians hostage? _No._

To save these people from this crisis? _Yes_.

To help Miranda, to assuage some of the guilt he had begun to feel over using her as he had? He hesitated at that thought, which popped up suddenly as he glanced at the dark-haired young girl again.

_...Am I really that soft?_ He tried to deny it, only to sigh again, realizing that he _really_ was.

Palming his face, he tried to reason out the situation. _No, well... This had always been a selfish thing for me, hasn't it? Even if I'm helping them, it's just a form of self-serving narcissism. I'm just getting drunk off of my own volunteering, again, aren't I? The very idea of a 'hero of justice' is just a self-satisfying hypocritical complacency that ignores all but the result. Evil is born of humans'—err, people's?—hearts, after all. A hero of justice is just a name given to that weakness and inability to confront the iniquities of the self as they compromise with reality—_

He was making this way too complicated, he realized with a disgusted sigh.

But at the same time, wasn't he simplifying this incident too much as well? These batarians must have a reason for taking such a grand risk as to take over an entire starliner's worth of people hostage just outside the Citadel itself.

_Enough_ , he thought raising his hands in disgust. _As ridiculous as it is, I can save everyone here. So just do it, you fool._

He would just take these people out and let C-Sec sort them out, that was reasonable enough.

Turning around, he walked to the bathroom with the closed door. It wasn't quite tight, but it was definitely something only added as a necessity to the starship. Raising a hand to his face, he projected again that black helmet he had worn on Mars. It appeared and sealed shut his appearance instantly.

Materializing, he looked himself in the mirror. The featureless matte black helmet, his black diamene weave cloth-armor covering him completely and keeping every inch of his skin hidden and finally the red mantle he had taken to wearing again.

"Well then, time to play _hero_." He noted with a huff, turning around and opening the door to enter the passenger area.

A sea of bewildered eyes turned on him, chief among them the armed and armored hostage taker. The batarian's confusion was so utter and complete, even through the face-concealing helmet that Emiya almost laughed.

"I'll give you three seconds to put down your guns and give up." Emiya said calmly, but loudly. He could see heads turning as they looked to see how the hostage taker would react.

_Three._

The batarian looked around, making eye contact with the other on the starliner, obviously entirely out of his depth with this new variable. The one who had been told to put on the armor was probably the youngest and most expendable among the batarians.

_Two_.

Looking back at Emiya, he raised his rifle and shouted for Emiya to raise his hands and to get on his knees. Emiya wondered if it was this batarian that had been conducting the negotiations or if it had been the one Miranda had found. It had been hours since this situation started, yet he hadn't seen any action taken by C-Sec or anyone else beyond the cordoning off of the ship.

_Well, it doesn't matter now. One._

Emiya inhaled and burst into motion. There was no need to hold back, not at this range. In the space of the blink of an eye, he had reached the batarian and was inside his range.

The rifle was snatched out of his hands and Emiya proceeded to in the space of a second to field strip it entirely, tossing the ammunition block back and the dropping the stock like so much garbage.

Parts of the rifle dropped on the carpeted floor at his feet.

"Wha—"

The batarian shouted, stepping back as he realized what had happened. Before he could draw his pistol Emiya ripped it free form the Van der Waals-strip and did the same to it.

Realizing he had been disarmed, the batarian went for a wild haymaker swing, but Emiya leaned out of the way and grabbed him by the helmet in a cross counter. Lifting the batarian up with one hand, he ignored the kicking and flailing struggles of the other as he exhaled.

'— _Trace_ , _on'—begin synchronization,_

Using Reinforcement, he altered the physical make up of the helmet. It creaked under the pressure of his fingers now, as he continued to change it. Then suddenly, it shattered like glass beneath his fingers, revealing the batarian's face to everyone around them.

Emiya dropped him down, letting him scramble backwards as everyone around them stared in shock. The batarian's eyes were wide and darting all around, looking at everyone.

"No, th _i_ s, th _i_ s _i_ sn't...!" The batarian's voice, now no longer modulated by the helmet, sounded rough and strange to Emiya. The strange pronunciation was still there, but the darker tone of voice characteristic of batarians changed it all.

A second later the batarian reverted to shouting in another language, one that Emiya didn't understand without an omnitool, as he tried to cover his face from the cameras above.

Satisfied with that, he kicked out and managed to knock out the batarian with a single swift kick. He guessed that would be at the level of a concussion, on a human. It probably wasn't enough to kill the batarian.

Turning around, he looked at the second batarian as he walked over to him. He came to a stop at the row of people, closest of whom was an elderly human who was staring at him with wide eyes.

"I'll give you three seconds to give up your gun and to give up." Emiya repeated and stared at the batarian quietly.

All eyes turned to the batarian, who suddenly was looking around nervously. Four eyes shifted every which way, nervously taking in everything. A twitch of the eyes and Emiya's hand lashed out, his four fingers all extended out in front of the batarian's face.

Half a centimeter more, and Emiya would be poking out all four of his eyes. The batarian swallowed, his shoulders rising up in obvious shock.

Then, with deliberately slow movements, he took out the pistol and handed it to Emiya, holding onto the barrel with two fingers to show that he was not intending to resist as he spoke in a rumbling voice in a language Emiya did not understand.

Emiya accepted it, drawing back his hand and patting the batarian on the shoulder. "Good choice."

The batarian relaxed, shoulders slumping. Which was when Emiya put his hand on the batarian's neck and extended a tendril of magical energy and knocked out the four-eyed alien. Slumping back, all of his eyes rolled back.

Turning to look at the other passengers, Emiya activated the pistol. Glancing at the older man who was now glaring at the batarian with more than a little indignation, Emiya handed him the pistol. "Heh, he must be tired from the flight, keep an eye on him until soeone comes to pick him up, yeah?"

"Eh...?"

"Just till C-Sec arrives. Don't shoot him, though. Who knows, he might not even be related."

"Err, you got it? Where are you going?" The old man blinked, accepting the pistol with some hesitation.

"Ah, well, I've gotta go. I don't actually have a ticket, you know." Emiya shrugged pointing at the cameras, turning around to leave. Around him, passengers were whispering and murmuring.

Walking down the length of the starliner, he spotted the young girl who he had noticed before. She was hanging over the seats, looking at him with huge sparkling eyes. She couldn't have been older than six, her wide blue eyes staring up at him as he approached.

He almost huffed at that, patting her head and mussing up her hair in passing as he walked back to where he had come from.

Arriving at the bathroom door again, he turned around to look at the sea of curious passengers still staring at him. They were all whispering and looking around, obviously equally relieved and mystified by his appearance. Giving a jaunty wave and bow, he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. With that, he spiritualized and disappeared.

_Should I have struck a pose? Riders always strike a pose. Eh, whatever._

* * *

;

* * *

It had been hours since the operation started.

Emiya hadn't taken a step out of the surgery room after he had returned. He looked and memorized everything they did, mentally cataloging every part and every step as he watched it all. There was an almost amusing detachment he felt at that moment, watching as they operated on his body. He wondered if people had as often such out of the body experiences as they claimed.

They had shaved his hair, putting it in a vise-like grip to make sure that his head would not move once they started. Then, covering his body with a white cloth, they had taken a small spinning sawblade and cut open his head. He hadn't been there, but the small splatters of blood on the white cloth told him all that he needed to know.

The amount and shape of implements was quite curious as well; knives, picks, spoon-like implements, small hammers and saws...

It was all there, as the seven salarians worked as one over his head. Taking shifts, they had rapidly removed parts of his brain and severed the connections to his body, as if they had done it thousands of times before. There was no hesitation, no second guesses, no inexperience to be seen in those nimble hands.

As the removal was complete, another set of experts came in along with a push cart. On top of it were vacuum sealed pieces. He vaguely recognized them, as the operating staff began to plug it all in. It wasn't like plugging in a jack, rather the ends were coated in something that would help the brain matter regrow into the connection port.

He understood vaguely what everything was for, yet there was a distance between understanding and comprehension.

It went on for hours. As one part was added in, they would run a diagnostic, pricking his limbs with needles or giving it a static shock to make the muscle twitch, mapping out the nervous system and comparing it all to their own known databases. If they found anything unusual with him, they did not show it as they continued without pause.

Implant. Diagnostics. Implant. Diagnostics.

Through it all, he stood there. Arms crossed and leaning against the back wall. Watching. Waiting. Like a shadow that could not be seen, transposed against the world of the living as one from the world of the deceased. In this place, that body that was not quite alive, nor quite dead, was being prepared to house his existence.

It was strange to watch.

Finally, as they began to put back the piece of his skull that had been removed and sealing it shut anew, did he stand up and drop his arms.

As the salarians finished off everything and began to have him carted out, Emiya moved to follow after them. They moved his body into an empty room that lacked windows or other entrances beyond the lone reinforced door.

Hooking him up to a drip and a biomonitor, the junior staff left him alone. There was one camera in the corner of the room, showing both the lone entrance and the bed at the same time.

Looking around and finding himself alone, he smirked. _Time to get to work._

As he stepped into his body, the immediate sensation of it not working struck him. Too much of the brain was gone; it was the seat of the soul, what connected the mind, the body and the soul together. It did not reject him, either, which was a relief.

But it was the difference between wearing a shirt and wearing a straightjacket, to put it in simple terms.

There were no sensations. He could not see. He could not hear. He could not smell. He could not feel. He could not move. There was only _nothing._ Even the darkness was absent, as if demonstrating the difference between a zero and a null.

A man could go insane like this.

He ignored all of that and focused on mapping out everything. Even before dying, he had some unique experience in matters such as this. He gave a wistful smile, then. There had been a playful, if slightly naughty, winter fairy in his life at one time. She had liked nothing more than playing pranks and bothering him. At the time, he had thought himself her surrogate elder brother and thought it his duty to scold her. ' _She still had a long life ahead of her_ ', ' _I need to be strict, it's for her own good_ ' and such-like he had thought for that wonderful year they had had together.

And then she was gone.

Leaving only behind the memories they had made together. At the time, everything had been too painful; a reminder of his loss and failure. It had spurred him on to travel the world. It was a catalyst in his transformation into what he had become, though he could never hold it against her. It was simply his own personal weakness that had lead to that result.

Now, he could still vaguely remember her without feeling that aching hole in his chest. And he remembered some of her pranks, now. How she had transferred his consciousness into a tree in her forest. How she had put him in a teddy bear once and played around with him as if he were a tiny doll.

He almost smiled then; she had been incorrigible.

But those memories now guided him. The vessel did not need to be perfect, it simply needed to be good enough. Even a tree or a doll could house a human mind. And he was _so much more_ right now.

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

The cybernetic parts weren't nearly as empty as the technical literature had made it sound. Or perhaps it was all STG spyware and rootkits, it was difficult to tell.

Theory said that the mind had to slave the machine until it became as much as indistinguishable from itself. It was a method of mirroring the mind at the machine until it learned to match. Without it, the brain would not know how to process memories. Would not know how to control and maintain the body. Would not know how to even continue existing. So delicate and mysterious remained that organ, even in the 22nd century.

But he had no need for any of that.

The soul is the record of the mind; the line drawn forth as the Origin spirals out into the World. Everything that he was, had been, could do and needed to be had already been inscribed in that. Thus it was merely a matter of _injecting_ himself into that machine and dying it into his own pattern.

No, not _injecting_. _Imprinting._

It was difficult to paint over something that already existed, just as with Reinforcement and Projection. Any basis that existed there could not be 'him', thus it had to all go. He violently rooted out all of the software and firmware, down to the basest level. As long as it functioned physically, then he could simply force it to work by himself.

He had to pay special attention to how the various hormone and regulatory functions performed, how the cybernetic parts would leech bio-electricity to function and how they continued to maintain themselves. It was all there, in the most basest of levels in the machine.

Taking it all, he began to _spread_ himself out.

Immediately he ran into problems in trying to connect outwards from the cybernetics into his brain. The connections had not healed; would not heal for days. _I don't have time for this._

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

The simple sword appeared inside of that digital ocean, yet he began to push it outward. It had a simple function of accelerating natural healing; it was nothing more than a charm, that would help scrapes heal more quickly. It would not, _could not_ , save a single life. Sometimes he wondered at what he could have done if he possessed a healing phantasm. He shook his head, miracles like that did not come cheap. Just this was already expending hundreds of times the magical energy he possessed while alive.

— _synchronizing with noble phantasm, infusing noble phantasm with magical energy, activating noble phantasm,_

But it held no downsides or restrictions, either.

Thus, he could project three hundred of them all at once, pushing _outward_ into his brain from that cybernetic implant. It all flowed outwards and suddenly, he began to feel his senses coming back into play.

Touch, sound, smell. It all returned slowly to him and he began to circulate magical energy in his body as he performed Structural Analysis on himself.

Everything was running fine. He consciously began to twiddle with his hormone balance, rousing himself. _Huh, need to label these things..._

He considered his options now, as he felt his Independent Action reset once more. That meant that he could very well remain here for a time, pretending to be in a coma and letting the salarians handle his body while he investigated the Citadel freely. _The archives at Kithoi Ward could be useful..._

Though he was fairly certain he would not find much information on the Protheans there. No doubt there would be much classified and useful data to be had, but there hadn't been much of an indication that the Council actively hoarded and acquired information or items pertaining to them.

There were a few schools on the Wards, where he could apply and attempt to learn more, as well...

But much like Armstrong, the Citadel was much too small for him to remain hidden for a long time. He had garnered too much attention and been too fast and too loose, already. Staying here would eventually out him. Moreover, he had no guarantees that the salarians would even bother keeping his body alive if he pretended to remain in a coma. Or they might just start experimenting on him, who knew.

No, he had already looked over many of the options he had in regards to investigating the Protheans and one option had stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Which meant he needed to leave. And soon; his stunt on the starliner had probably distracted them for now, but he had no idea for how long. _Well, then..._

As his consciousness began to return, he heard a strange sound. It was like a mixture of croaking, hissing and various other sounds. Recognizing it as the salarian tongue, he opened his eyes blearily.

Looking up, his eyes met with those of Doctor Solus, who seemed to be in the middle of an emotional speech. _Heh, he really was a good doctor. I should send him a million credits as thanks, or something._

The salarian's eyes shot wide open as he realized Emiya was awake, taking a step back in pure and utter shock. Another sound, that Emiya did not understand but would have bet millions on being something along the lines of ' _impossible!_ '.

Emiya exhaled, focusing on his limbs. They felt numb and tired. There was an intravenous drip in his arm, but it didn't seem like a sedative. _I need to get up,_ he thought and instantly it felt like a button inside his head had been pressed, flooding his body with power. Liquid fire burst through his veins as he exhaled.

He tried to sit up, only to realize his wrists were bound to the sides of the bed. Looking up, his eyes met with the doctor again and in that moment an understanding passed between the two. Emiya was intent on breaking out of here, while everyone thought he was nothing but a vegetable.

Immediately Mirlan reached for his syringe gun, probably to tranquilize Emiya. The gun shot forward, aiming for his torso, but Emiya in noticing that his feet were still unbound kicked up and forced the salarian to stand back. Rolling over his head, he got his feet underneath him and then began to squat upwards. The wrist shackles strained, the metal giving way as his magical energy infused body was absolutely superhuman in this moment.

The straps shattered and he stood up on his bed. He looked up just in time to notice the doctor having thrown a syringe at him from six paces away. _He's really good with that._ Emiya noted as he grabbed the syringe mid-air and threw it back with a backhand toss.

Solus clearly hadn't expected that, his eyes widening as he jumped back.

Only, the syringe stopped cold as a blue barrier burst into existence, dividing the room in two. The syringe did not simply stop, as the force behind it was such that the entire thing exploded into pieces of metal and glass at the impact. _Who puts kinetic barriers in a hospital room? Then again, this place belongs to the STG..._

He vaguely realized that the cybernetic parts that he had accidentally activated were controlling his hormones and chemical balance, meaning at this moment he was probably flooding his entire body with epinephrine. His heart beating so strongly that he could feel it in his throat; his shaking hands the narrowing of his vision at least felt like he was currently going into cardiac arrest. _Okay, dial that stuff down a little..._

"Who! A _re_ you?!" The salarian shouted, eyes wide.

Emiya looked up, their eyes meeting again as they both realized they had achieved communication. Solus must have realized the lack of an omnitool meant none of his words until then had been understandable.

He jumped down from the hospital bed, smirking as his bare feet landed on the cold floor. He felt rather good, overall. He could feel his magical energy stores resupplying rapidly and his self adjusting to himself. Actually, he felt _really_ good. Like he could take on the world with one hand tied behind his back and— _Okay, maybe dial down on the endorphins a little, too._

Looking down at himself, he frowned at the hospital robe. He ripped it off of himself, only to realize he wasn't wearing anything underneath either. Shrugging, he fashioned it into a simple loin-cloth. Just something that would cover him up until he got out.

"Who are you?!" The salarian repeated, more forcefully and with a better accent.

Emiya looked up, grinning as he finished tying the knot at his hip to keep the robe from falling off. "Who, me? I'm _no one_."

"M-mu _mei_...?" The salarian repeated, blinking in confusion.

Emiya ignored him, looking up at the camera and the kinetic barrier. It was _bothersome_ , but not a problem. Before, he had been trying to figure out how to perform the two basic forms of spirit hacking, to connect his eyesight and his sense of touch into a computer, but he hadn't had any success there.

That had meant, that he could only hack by diving. Now, he could sense the connection through his cybernetic parts. Connecting one eye and his hand, he slowed down his perception of time until he found the relevant systems.

Emiya raised his hand, looking at Doctor Solus square in the eyes. With a smirk, he snapped his fingers. The kinetic barrier immediately went off-line. And if possible, the salarian's eyes would have bugged out of his skull as he realized what had just happened.

He darted forward, intent on immobilizing the salarian standing in front of the door.

Fearlessly, jutting his chin forward and assuming a combatative stance, Solus faced him head on.

Emiya struck out with a jab, the salarian swaying to the side and returning a jab of his own that Emiya barely dodged. _Wow! He's fast!_

They exchanged four more testing blows where neither struck true, before Emiya had backed Solus against the wall and he could retreat no further. A hand immediately snaked up and grabbed the salarian's neck and— _Eh? It doesn't work?_

Emiya's stunning maneuver failed, causing him to mentally stumble for just a moment. He realized an instant later that it was based on human physiology; on the brain's tendency to go into 'safe mode' on impact. Boxers knew of this as having a glass jaw. Apparently, or rather obviously in hindsight, it did not work on salarians at all.

Solus did not hesitate for a second, his hand grabbing another syringe and jabbing it straight into Emiya's arm. He had no time to pull back, but that was fine.

The grip he had around the salarian's neck was enough to pull him just close enough for the needle to miss his skin. Emiya pushed his elbow outwards, feeling the alien's arm pushed away from him as he could feel the needle breaking from the pressure.

Solus's eyes widened again as he realized what had just happened. But it was too late; Emiya had already regained his initiative. The loin-cloth was ripped loose and in a second two of the salarian's arms were bound and Emiya had him in a joint-lock against the floor. _At least the shoulders are similar enough. Sheesh._

The salarian looked at him, sniffing once before his black eyes roamed down to Emiya's bared lower body. At the raging erection staring up at them.

There was an awkward silence as Emiya realized that perhaps he shouldn't be tampering with his hormone balance at all. They looked up and their eyes met.

"Flattered. Very, much so. However, must decline."

And for just a moment, Emiya stared at the salarian in complete and utter slackjawed horror.

Which was when the good doctor headbutted him. Emiya saw stars exploding in his vision and knew his nose would have been broken and pushed into his brain, killing him instantly if he hadn't leaned back just in time. _Jesus Christ, whatever happened to 'do no harm'?!_

Emiya stood up, grabbing the doctor with him and putting him over the bed as the other hand grabbed the metal railing and _bent_ it through sheer force to lock the salarian into place.

The doctor stared up at him, the bent railing around his neck, holding him in place.

Emiya shook his head, backing away while checking that his nose wasn't broken as he exhaled. "Look, I'm thankful for everything, but I'm gonna have to go now."

"Curious. Used lethal force, yet sparing me. Subtle habits, unchanged. Same person, should be impossible. Who are you?" The Doctor spoke and Emiya merely raised an eyebrow at him. _He never shuts up, does he?_

Raising his hands to show that he was wiping hands free of this, Emiya turned around and opened the door. He had gotten up a scant minute earlier, yet so far no one seemed to be running in. He couldn't hear any alarms either. _That's good._

He turned around to look at the doctor one more time, only to see that the salarian had already undone the hospital robe and was working on freeing himself from the bed.

Emiya sighed, turning around and walking out. He wasn't going to kill the doctor; he owed the salarian his life. But he needed to avoid being caught. Closing his eyes, he extended his senses and connected again.

The door closed and he put it in lockdown, telling it that there had been an airlock breach. Then he called a cab.

He heard a shout, looking up to spot the salarian in scrubs staring at him with confusion. Another shout and a raised hand, followed by alarms beginning to blare.

"And that's my cue to get the hell out of dodge." He turned and ran, extending a hand outwards against the building. "—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

His magical energy spread outwards and he built a wireframe model of the entire building inside of his head. He needed a window, then. Turning a corner, he almost ran into a salarian in a hardsuit, but managed to dance out of the way.

Spinning around, he snapped out a low kick to shatter the salarian's knee and then with a continuation of the motion grabbed him by the shoulders and hip, and tossed him around the corner where he'd just come running from. He also pilfered the pistol in the same motion, noting he would need it.

Wasting no further time on that, he continued running. He found the stairs and immediately began to run up towards the higher floors. The further he got his pursuers from the exits, the better.

Running up several floors, he checked on the arrival of the skycar cab. As it began to protest about an invalid address, he hopped out of his body for an instant as he dived into it and forced it to obey. It would be there.

Arriving at the floor he wanted, he burst out through the door into a wide open office space. Hundreds of salarians turned to look at him, busy in their work and all equally confused by the sudden appearance of a naked human.

Not bothering to look at any of them, he strode straight for a lone office by the corner of the building. Walking straight in, he leveled the pistol at the salarian in a suit inside, sitting by a desk.

"Cleaning service, I am going to have to ask you to step out of this office for a moment." He said with a smile and the salarian eyed him with an expression bordering on panic.

The salarian couldn't hasten to obey him quickly enough and Emiya closed the door behind him. The airlock seal went shut with a fizzing sound and Emiya smiled. He turned around to look at the large windows, where the purple nebula shone as usual. He could see the five Wards and the Presidium from here.

It was a _really_ nice view.

And it also reminded him of the fact that he was several hundred meters up from the street-level, near the top floors of a skyscraper.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he could see the salarian strike team, covered from head to toe in armor, coming out from the elevator and rushing towards him in the office with their guns drawn.

That was good.

The Special Tasks Group was a black ops special forces outfit through and through. That meant that unlike a regular army, they did not have reserves. On a tactical level, a specialist tiger team was much more effective than a platoon of regular marines. But on the strategic level, it was not always the case. Thus, while the operational costs for fielding both could be in the same range, often times it was better to field a less specialized and trained force.

If you made a mistake, you had more in reserve.

But he hadn't seen more than a handful of armed salarians in this building, and this seemed to be accounting for most of them. Which meant that they had thought this a chance to corner him, justifying going all in.

Which was just what he wanted.

Emiya turned around, leveling the pistol at the large windows. He pulled the trigger once, twice, thrice. He leveled it at another corner and repeated it. But the glass held spectacularly, just as it was supposed to. These windows were meant to keep in the air, acting as the sole boundary between the void outside and this office. The fact that the door to the office was airlocked as well was what had caught his attention and drawn him here.

A crack. He shot another corner, going for a specific pattern.

The spiderweb of lines spread, rapidly. Already Emiya could hear a queer whistling sound, a sign of air being sucked out into the void.

He turned around, keeping the pistol leveled at the center of the window as behind him the cracks continued to expand, the surface tension contending against the immense push and pull between the pressurized inside and the emptiness outside.

The lead salarian had reached the door, a hand hovering over the button to open it as their eyes met. An understanding passed; the moment he tried to open the door, Emiya would blow out the window. The automatic life-support system would lock down the door, sectioning off the office Emiya was in to protect the rest of the floor. _This was probably once a minor docking port of some kind, that has been refitted into an office space_ , he thought.

He could see the wide-eyed salarians staring in horror at him, the one he had kicked out ranting and raving at the hardsuited salarians to go in and shoot Emiya.

— _Crreeeaaaak_

Emiya was suddenly reminded of a time he had been trying to cross a frozen lake during spring, just when the ice covering the lake had begun to weaken. The temperatures had been rising rapidly, causing the ice to melt. It had been able to support his weight, he had reasoned, until he realized that it had been melting the whole time beneath his feet.

He focused on his breathing, especially on the exhale. That time, he had been inhaling, trying to oxygenate himself in case he fell into the water.

Here, that would be catastrophic. He remembered how the ice beneath his feet had cracked and moved, hinting at collapsing beneath him. It had been a terrifying moment, no less so than right now. This time, it was creaking at his back and the sound was more akin to nails on chalkboard, but the similarity was undeniable. Without a hardsuit, the void of space was absolutely deadly.

The STG strike team hesitated as they stared at each other across the window in the door to the office. A stalemate, they thought. He couldn't escape through the lobby due to security and he couldn't fight his way through, so he was taking himself hostage, they thought. No one would be mad enough to airlock themselves while butt naked, they thought.

That was fine, let them think that. His ride was almost here, anyway.

He could feel himself dizzy, the hypoxia beginning to affect him. That was fine, a little lightheadedness was better than having his lungs burst from the inside. He was fairly certain his blood wouldn't boil, but that remained to be seen. Besides, his cybernetic parts could handle the slack, anyhow.

The cab appeared in the corner of his eye and Emiya smirked, pulling the trigger as his other hand held onto the heavy desk.

— _pffffttzzzz_

— _crack!_

He heard the crack of the bullet and the glass as one, followed by an unholy racket of thousands of shards of glass exploding outwards at the same time as the air all rushed out, whipping against his skin. Then, there was _silence_.

Feeling the void against his skin, he grit his teeth against the pain. The lack of external pressure pulled at his skin, making him feel like a balloon. Or rather, his inside were pushing out, but that wasn't all. An oft-forgotten fact about the boiling temperature of matter, was that pressure affected it greatly. In the vacuum of space, the boiling temperature of water could fall below the internal body temperature of a human being.

Which meant that he was beginning to boil from the inside. Had he had more oxygen in his blood and lungs, it would have been even worse. His lungs ripping themselves apart wasn't out of the question, in the worst case scenario. As it was, it was pure agony.

A single second had passed and the glass had disappeared. The life-support system had locked down this office; the door was bolted dead shut with a safety mechanism. The air circulation was shut down, but gravity still held on which let him keep himself from being sucked out as he held onto the table.

_I have fifteen seconds to live._ He thought. That was enough.

Outside, the hacked cab pulled up and the side-door opened up. Taking a running start, he leaped into it and closed the door behind him. Immediately he set the skycar into a rapid dive downwards. The skycar was sealed and had a rudimentary life-support system, but it was slow, especially when every moment was pure agony.

Five seconds had passed; even with the skycar's systems, that only left him eleven more seconds before he passed out.

Ahead he saw the Ward floor ahead and he grabbed the controls, pulling into an angle as he broke into the seven meters above street level where breathable atmosphere was maintained. He kicked the door open, reveling in the air that rushed in.

Then as the skycar had been pressurized in two second, he closed the door and pulled up. Even through the headache and pain, he could see the panicking people all around him. Pedestrians who had suddenly been swooped down on by a skycar out of nowhere. He hadn't hit anyone, but he sure had given them the fright of their lives.

Emiya shook his head, working his jaw as he focused on breathing. _My entire mouth feels like it's been scalded... Ugh._

Looking out, he flew along the Ward. He needed to disappear, which meant getting out of the car and into a crowd. Leaning back to hide from any passing by cameras, he closed his eyes.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

The magical energy he flooded his body with felt like a balm for all of his aches as he ignored the burning of his magic circuits. He fabricated clothes, something that wouldn't stand out and topping it off with a blond wig.

Rolling into a traffic intersection where all skycars paused, Emiya opened the door without sitting up. Looking out, he found no cameras in the general area on him. Smirking, he rolled out and _dropped down_.

It was a low intersection, just within the seven meter atmosphere as one of the turns went into an under-Citadel parking garage. Landing on all fours, he let out a whuff of air before he stood up and dusted himself off.

Several asari and salarians were looking at him strangely, having stopped and whispering to each other and pointing up at the cab he had dropped out of.

Emiya shrugged at them, before looking up with faux-dismay. "Tch, public transportation, am I right?"

One or two around him huffed in agreement before turning to leave. The aliens had seen everything already, or so they thought. What was a human dropping out of a moving skycar, but just another day on the Citadel?

Emiya turned around and left. He would return to his apartment now, changing his disguise at least twice along the way, before he would feel safe and secure again.

Then it was time to think about moving out again.

* * *

;

* * *

The Illusive Man sighed, accepting the incoming call.

Miranda stood there, straight of back and bearing fearless eyes. She had failed in the mission she had been sent out for, even if none of the expected fallout had occurred. She had also been in contact with their mysterious enemy, who had so handily ruined nearly all of their Sol-system operations.

Rasa's report had been rather damning in that regard, painting the whole disaster as Miranda's fault. Accusing the other of being blinded by her attempts to grow closer to the man. Of course, Rasa had implied much more than just that, between the lines of her factual reports text. But he did not see it; Miranda was far too stuck in her ways, far too socially awkward for him to worry about Rasa's accusations.

It was Rasa's way of doing things that also made him dismiss it; she was a political animal to the core, with allegiances more shifting than the galaxy itself. He knew that she had rushed back to the local cluster, to help with handling the cover up of the rest of the organization's assets solely to pile up achievements. Enough so, that her part in what had happened at the Citadel would be forgotten. Certainly, Earth and Ganymede remained operational, but the Alliance raid had been devastating. Her help in sabotaging Alliance communications had been vital in salvaging what remained.

" _Sir._ " Miranda spoke. There was little to say; her report had been thorough and concise, as always.

He inhaled slowly, considering how to handle this. She had met that man, even managing to scent him out, but had failed to capture him. That man who had struck such a blow to his efforts, disappearing into the Citadel, as if smoke in the wind.

That man, who could be one among who knew how many. _I have to assume Shirou Emiya was a test case; to see how well the clones performed._ He reminded himself.

To assume anything more would leave him paralyzed.

"What can you tell me of our mystery man." He finally asked.

She blinked, obviously surprised that he was not chiding her for abandoning the chase for him or for not returning to the Sol-system as soon as the mission had been a failure.

He knew why, of course. Oriana Lawson; the genetic twin of the woman before him in holographic form. She obviously felt some guilt over placing her own emotions before the mission and were it any other circumstance he might share those feelings.

But it had been a batarian ploy, which she had managed to blow wide open as that man made another appearance. Infiltrating a sealed starship, something thought impossible by everyone in the galaxy, he had without shedding a single drop of blood defused the hostage situation. _Was it another clone? Or was it the same one?_

Understanding sparked in her eyes as she realized he did not hold her choices against her, instead deciding to look forward.

" _Sir, he is..._ " She hesitated, dropping her eyes and chin as she turned thoughtful. " _He is capable and smart, quick on his feet and quicker with his wit. A man who could do anything, if he set his mind to it._ "

He hummed his agreement, turning away as he reached for his glass of scotch. In that moment, he missed her opening her mouth to say something more, before she shook her head and decided to hold her silence.

"' _I am no one_ ', was it?" He repeated, inhaling the scent of the scotch.

She nodded, saying nothing.

"That is twice I have heard that uttered." He thought back to the interrogation of Shirou Emiya. That man had disappeared completely, but he had uttered that same line just before _that man_ had attacked. "We'll need a codename, for this case. A handle for him."

He mused and she immediately replied. " _Odysseus, sir._ "

"Hmm?"

" _A clever man, capable of anything. Someone who made a long voyage, over the unknown seas, braving many terrible ordeals._ " Miranda elaborated, revealing she had read up on the 'ghostship' incident.

The skycar had nearly been lost in the raids, but he had managed to cover the tracks well enough in time that it remained hidden. His scientists were busily analyzing everything about that craft, even now.

"Ah, yes. The story of the cyclops Polyphemus. A fine choice, but I believe we shall go with ' _Outis_ ', for now. No need to label him after too great a hero, after all." The Illusive man spoke, nodding to himself. _The clones shall collectively be called Ithacans,_ he mentally added _._

He thought for a second, pondering whether he should rename the project for unraveling Cardotin's skycar after Odysseus' ship, only to realize after a few seconds that the vessels had never been named in the old poems.

Shaking his head, he dismissed that line of thought. For now, it was obvious that large-scale arming and shipment operations within the Sol-system were impossible. But the new direction of Cerberus was obvious, as seen by the effectiveness and attention of _Outis_ himself.

_Artifical Intelligence and Stealthcraft in space, that is where humanity's future lies._ Nodding to himself, he crossed his fingers in his lap.

" _If that is all, sir...?_ "

He looked up, nodding and dismissing Miranda with a wave of his hand. He had too much to do and think about, right now.

And again, he missed the strange look in her eye as she stared at him. It wasn't something in her eyes at the sight of him, rather it was the absence of something which had been there before when she had been looking at him.

She nodded and the connection cut, leaving him in the darkness with but his scotch and his thoughts.

* * *

;

* * *

Mordin Solus sighed, looking around at the table.

He was seated among the greatest minds the salarians had to offer, yet they were squabbling like asari children. He had made his reports, submitted the paperwork he had written under his _Mirlan_ civilian persona and explained everything that had happened in excruciating details. Multiple times.

But no one knew what to make of it.

Guuran Heffai continued leading the meeting, as he usually did. He was not as such a leader of the Special Tasks Group, but in practice nothing happened without his knowledge.

"Motion to acquire human test subjects for continued experimentation and testing?" Several voted against, but most had too many questions to let the matter lie. "Passed. The third detachment shall be contacted."

Shirou Emiya's rapid recovery was all but _impossible,_ everyone who had participated in the surgery agreed on that much. Certainly, humans had not been around very long yet, and the physiological profile on the race was still somewhat lacking. But none of the data they had had even hinted at something like this. And no one knew how or where this deviation had come about.

He should have been brain dead. He should have been physically unable to break free from his restraints. He should have been physically unable to bend industrial steel as if it were foam. So many impossibilities had piled up, that none of them could make sense of anything at all.

Some had even hinted at the possibility of an AI possessing the body, using it to walk out. But at this point it was worthless speculation.

"Testing on subjects will include physical fitness, rise in ability under various forms of duress and finally with additional experimentation to test whether this case was an exception or the rule."

There were whispers of the possibility of unusual genetic modifications, perhaps some krogan modifications introduced to the human genome, or of even using other non-sentient life-forms as a basis. Humanity had a history of relatively reckless genetic experimentation, prior to contact with the Council. But the sample they had taken, both directly and the leftovers from the operation, showed nothing of the sort. In fact, it matched standard Alliance Navy enhancements that were still in the gestation period.

"Acquiring subjects will be left up for the detachment head's discretion, however I caution against needlessly antagonizing the Alliance at this time." Heffai noted and a salarian made a motion of understanding.

It wasn't a difficult matter to find criminals and undesirables to use that could be made to vanish without issue. Especially given how widely humanity had spread itself.

The fact that a human had been able to bend a steel bed frame and survive the void of space _without_ any gene modification seemed to be more alarming to some of the salarians than anything else. It was well known that humans were absolute machines when sufficient amounts of epinephrine was in their bloodstream, but this was beyond even their wildest predictions.

"Specialist Solus. You are currently the foremost expert in this combined field, given your work on modifying the graybox for use on humans." Heffai noted, looking up. The question had not been voiced, but was obvious. Would he be joining them?

It represented a large step in cybernetics; if the person who had gone down under had woken up the same, it could mean a quantum leap forward in their understanding of cybernetization.

_True trans-salarianism._ A method to surpass the limits of their bodies.

The salarians had long been at the forefront of all forms of self-enhancement. Driven by as much their endless drive for efficiency as their desire to surpass their own mortality, as a species they had dabbled in just about everything imaginable. Genetic modification, cybernetic enhancements, cloning for various ends, experimenting with implanting useful alien organisms into their own bodies as symbiotic organs...

He himself was a prime example of that; he had copious amounts of cybernetic enhancements himself, ranging from brain transplants to his entire nerve cell network into a classified material that gave him a 20% boost to reaction time and thinking. He was also on a TET2 supplement; injecting on a constant basis an enzyme harvested from blood donated by young salarians, which would allow him to continue performing at peak level for decades to come.

It was simple pragmatism; a small amount of blood donated would not hurt the everysalarian nearly as much as they benefited as a whole from the healing and enhancing effects it had on their best.

But there were limits to what they could do.

The Dalatrasses jealously guarded their privileges, making sure of that. In that regard, what he had spoken of before was wholly true. There were no _publicly known_ cases of full conversion. But it was always rumored when one or another talented salarian seemed to drop out of the public eye, never to be seen again. Even he had known some, who had mysteriously disappeared like that, and he had been forced to question whether or not those rumors were true.

Of course, such rumors were nothing more. Rumors, that is. Similarly to how some still believed the League of One was alive and active, still.

Mordin shook his head, focusing on the conversation at hand. He had been invited to the meeting, being a Specialist on the subject that was being discussed.

"Believe, I am compromised, as per regulation 14C, regarding handling of unlisted guests. Should not have been visiting the patient prior to his release. Must decline." He finally said, though it was little more than an excuse.

True it may have been technically, but he had no interest in capturing and torturing humans in some vain hope of finding new data. His gut told him that it would not lead to anything; 'Emil Durana' and 'Shirou Emiya' were the key.

"...Very well." Heffai did not argue the point, though he had the authority to overrule such a regulation, had he seen it necessary.

At least the last omnitool had arrived, just as promised. Mordin had handed the item, as it had arrived to his Mirlan persona. Sadly, it hadn't contained any information on what they had been hoping. But they couldn't find any signs of tampering either. Thus, they had extended contacts to the Alliance Intelligence Agency to attempt to organize an exchange of information.

Only, their usual contact had completely vanished.

Contacting the human embassy had only lead to a confused few hours as the Alliance Intelligence tried to find out where the hell Abraham Rumoi had vanished. For all intents and purposes, the man seemed to have vanished into thin air.

After the Synthetic Insights ball, no one had seen hide or hair of the man, yet neither had anyone managed to notice him disappearing. There were no signs of foul play, but at the same time, it was as if the man had never been at the Citadel either.

Who the hell was 'Emil Durana'? Was he in this together with Abraham Rumoi? What had he wanted with the cyberization operation on 'Shirou Emiya'? Was that what had allowed him to hack the room's systems despite the signal jamming that should have been in effect? How had he managed to remove all of the safety measures and tracking software in the cybernetics? Who the hell even was 'Shirou Emiya' and where had he come from? How had he even arrived here and where was he now? Who were the other two female human operatives at the ball? Why had Rumoi seen fit to vanish? What was that strange sheathing material that had been keeping 'Shirou Emiya' from suffering from his neurological damage?

There were too many questions and too little information. It was a rare sight to see the Special Tasks Group this stymied, leaving Mordin Solus rather amused, all things considered.

They had but two leads of any note.

Firstly, the words that Mordin had heard. 'I am no one', spoken in the Earth tongue Japanese. Looking into it, they had found that ' _Mumei_ ' could mean many things, especially if one considered how it could be written; _anonymous, nameless, lacking signature_ , the possibilities were many.

One reading Mordin had discovered also meant ' _I am not innocent_ ', which for some reason seemed to fit with the deprecating smile the man had shown.

Their only other major lead, was a small snippet the communications array had been able to intercept before the entire cybernetics array was wiped clean by _something_.

'— _Synchronizing with_ **—** '

The specific final word was was still under analysis, with no definite answer to be had yet.

Which only seemed to lead further credence to the AI theory, though others were arguing that it was some form of functional self-uploading. That Emil Durana had been mockingly asking the questions at the ball, to prod their level of cybernetic sophistication to compare to his own.

Mordin questioned that line of thought. What would he have to gain from that? 'Shirou Emiya' had been obviously in need of that operation, but had also been unsure of whether it would work.

But he was ignored.

Ultimately Heffai had asked that the Citadel Council heighten security in an attempt to find any of the five strange humans they were looking for. As long as they were on the Citadel, whoever these people were, they would eventually be found. But Mordin wasn't so sure of that.

From what little he had interacted with four of them, the more convinced he was becoming that they were all missing some vital piece of this puzzle. Something, that would change everything. It was a meta-understanding he had acquired from reviewing many official documents from third parties trying to reason out what had happened, after the STG had performed an operation. An understanding of what out-of-context problem solving could look like.

He felt like he was stuck inside of a box, with the answer just outside, just beyond his reach and grasp. Of course, his thoughts had been dismissed as nothing more than baseless gut-feelings.

But for all of his annoyance and consternation this event had caused him, there was also a strange sense of elation. 'Mumei' was clearly not a hostile entity, for all of his mysteriousness.

"If there is nothing more..." Heffai prodded, looking around. "Then this meeting is concluded."

They all rose to leave, but Mordin stayed behind as he considered everything. The operation he had thought would be a violation of all of his beliefs, had turned out to save a life.

Even if nothing else was true, Mordin could believe in that.

He just wished that when they met the next time, they would be fully clothed.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya took a step forward, looking around with half-closed eyes. He had taken a day to rest and recuperate after his operation and escape, but he still felt rather tired and beat.

A combination of the cryo-freezing, his operation, the self-inflicted spacing and subsequent escape. No, that was wrong. It wasn't just the last one that was self-inflicted, rather all of it was.

He really needed to take better care of his body, he thought with a grumble. Well, his current appearance was useful, since security seemed to be completely ignoring him.

It was as expected, starship security had been raised several notches since the incident with the batarians. Apparently the Council itself was getting involved now, as interrogation had revealed many unusual details and the Batarian Hegemony was refusing to answer any questions.

There were C-Sec officers everywhere, eyeing and scanning passengers constantly.

But that was fine.

His new identity was foolproof, and he wasn't carrying anything suspicious on his person anyhow, just his clothes really. His trip through space had actually done him some favors in that his face was still slowly healing and slightly bloated from what he had gone through. It changed his appearance completely.

As agreed, he had put the last omnitool into a dropbox that would lead it to the STG's hands eventually. The rest of his gear and equipment he had all sold on the black market that existed beneath the Wards. It hadn't been anything extraordinary when compared to his existing nest egg, but it wasn't worth transporting now either.

Emiya's next step was clear. He needed to find out more about the Protheans. It was the main reason why he had left Alliance territory, even. But it wasn't like he could simply find some old ruins and begin digging around. The Mars' ruins had showed him that there was simply too much he did not know about that ancient race that had long since vanished.

Thus, he had to study up and _learn_.

His first idea had been to enroll somewhere on the Citadel, but upon going through the options and weighing the risks, he decided to forego that. The salarians had extensive museums and exo-archeological associations, but they were rather exclusive and he would stand out among them. Additionally, their focus differed from his, as the majority of the subjects taught seemed to focus on paleotechnology.

He had a definite interest in those fields as well, but primarily he wanted to _understand_ and _comprehend_ the Prothean culture. He reasoned that it would make it easier for him to comprehend any ruins he investigated later.

_And it might help me understand those guns better. If their owners were clearly not human, then their mindsets; their_ logos _must be equally warped from my perspective. How can I hope to read them properly when I don't even understand them in the first place?_

Thus, he had chosen his destination among other options. Once he stacked up all the options, it seemed like the obvious choice.

"Next, please." A voice rang out, like chimes and bells in the gentle wind.

Emiya stepped up to the counter, smiling at the asari attendant, who smiled in return. He handed over his ticket, printed on a solid material.

She accepted it, looking down for a second before smiling at him again. "Do you have any luggage to announce?"

"No, just what I have on me." He shook his head.

"Very well, sir. Due to a recent change in starliner safety policy, we will have to ask you to turn in your omnitool for the duration of the flight. Worry not, the onboard seat-terminals will be available for free of charge as a replacement." She spoke, smiling as she repeated the words for the hundredth time today.

The slight strain was evident; the hesitation that he would begin arguing with her over that, how she had had to convince and deal with dozens of customers regarding this matter already.

He smiled, raising his bared wrists. "I'm afraid I've none to give."

She blinked at him, her blue lips forming an O as she stared.

"Oh my... But then, how are you..."

"Is that a hint of an _Usaru_ -accent I hear?" He asked, smiling as he tilted his head.

She blinked, a purplish blush appearing on her face. "Ah, uhm... That is right. You... You speak asari?"

He said nothing, merely smiling at her. It was certainly one of the larger advantages of his new half-cybernetic brain. Who needed an omnitool translator when he had the entire damn translation pack in his head.

Pronunciation was a bit difficult, but his understanding was quite good already when he turned off the auto-translator. It was fascinating how much was lost with the translation, as rapidity was prioritized over perfect accuracy.

Small things, _mostly_ , but it was still noticeable when he paid attention to it.

"Ah, uhm. Apologies, sir. I did not mean to pry." She coughed, returning to reading his ticket. Next, he handed her his identitag.

It was a physical piece of identification, something which operation 'gateway' required specialized facilities to fabricate. Usually the Cerberus agents relied on their digital copies, which were much easier to forge.

He had simply found a real one and projected his own using that as a template, foregoing digital versions as he had no omnitool at the moment. Additionally, with his face still being what it was, the facial recognition VI could not get a decent read on him.

"Your palm print and final payment confirmation, please." She smiled, motioning with her hand at a scanner by the desk.

Nodding, he pressed his palm onto the surface at the same time as he extended his spirit through into the machine. He couldn't effectively change his palm prints or even genome, but on a local scanner like this which only performed a quick check against the medicard and verified against the database...

Spoofing it was as easy as flicking a switch. There was no need to input a whole palm print and genome scan; simply bypassing those sections and telling the system that it all matched and came out alright was enough.

It beeped once, giving the clerk the final details.

The asari nodded, handing the paperwork back with a smile. "Everything seems to be in order, sir. We hope you enjoy your flight to Thessia, mister Saiga Fujimura."

Emiya smirked, accepting them.

"Thank you, I will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter doesn't feel 100% to me, since I've been busy being all excited about a bunch of news games and FGO has been nonestop events for several weeks now. But I hope it was at least an acceptable conclusion to the "Citadel Arc". I've read through it a couple of times, and edited a dozen times but at this point I want to move on more than I want to get it all perfect.
> 
> Thanks to PseudoSteak for proofreading and helping out, he's a huge help.
> 
> Thanks to Tirfarthuan for helping with ideas.
> 
> Also a reminder that Mordin is a god damn harem protagonist and is now officially in the lead in the Emiyabowl :V
> 
> * * *
> 
> ;
> 
> * * *
> 
> OTM: Reformatting text to html is NOT EASY, but thanks to _an actual pandemic,_ I actually have time on my hands to finish 2.5(?) arcs of MOTM. I expect to finish reformatting the rest of MOTM by end of next week, and then we'll finally be up to date!
> 
> Also new readers: welcome!


	17. Serene Serrice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OTM: Right. Things suddenly came up, so I haven't been able to reformat recently, but at least I finished this chapter! Enjoy

Massive flashing advertisements blurred past a leaping figure as he moved; the newest action vids; that super popular MMORPG that just received a new update; various products, foods and snacks in the real world.

Anything and everything could be found here, in the virtual world of the extranet.

Emiya dove through the connection, jumping from one computer to the next without pause as he ignored everything around him. At first everything had been rather blinding and stupefying, but soon enough he had grown used to and become bored by all of the spectacle and pomp. It didn't really matter whether he was looking at the holographic display of an omnitool or the inside of the digital ocean as he dove through it—you simply learned to ignore everything that wasn't your current interest at the moment.

When a single personal omnitool seemed like a world unto itself, then the complex network of connected computers, servers and routers became something beyond words. They were like small island worlds; spheres of 'reality' floating in the void and intersecting with many other spheres around them. Servers; computers that functioned as hosts for specific content that could be accessed by numerous computers through the extranet were truly mind-boggling at times. A single sphere of reality could have windows and connections to millions of other smaller bubbles, all as complex as any of the omnitools he had been in before.

Thessia was home to 5.5 billion asari, a rather paltry number in the face of the total population of the galaxy. But for all that, the local extranet was still humongous beyond words.

Unlike the internet of his age, the extranet was not really _one thing_. Due to the immense distances involved between planets, even assuming unbroken communication was possible, the lag between two different worlds would make it difficult to maintain for commercial use.

Thus, it was more like a series of internets, updated regularly to retain a somewhat parallel development, but distinctly different nonetheless. Information packages were copied over and moved to other planets to access on demand with only high priority connections being allowed to regularly have a 'real-time' communication between planets.

In theory that should have meant that as long as he was on Thessia, he could only interact with computers and users that were on Thessia or within immediate range.

But, in practice it was different.

The asari were the ambassadors and peacemakers of the galaxy, known of and generally accepted in every corner in the galaxy. In heavily krogan populated worlds, turians and salarians would face hostility everywhere they went, but an asari could usually walk around unmolested. Perhaps it was due to their ability to rapidly and smoothly get along with any civilization, or perhaps it was simply a result of their status as the first of the Citadel Council, but as a rule, no one troubled the asari.

Which made them the natural traders of the galaxy.

Personable, with long life and memory, and with privileged access to the Citadel, they could travel anywhere and trade with anyone. The volus might have been the most industrious of all the Citadel races, and could control most of the banking and financing going on, but when push came to shove most would rather deal with an asari than a volus.

The salarians might have been the most intelligent and forward-thinking of the races, but their habit of making short-term decisions had a tendency to keep their economic strength rather unstable. For all that the salarians could spike ahead with their innovations and brilliance, they would sooner or later always come crashing down as whatever economic bubble they had created inevitably popped.

Where the volus were industrious and the salarians brilliant, the asari were stable. You could always rely on an asari company to be able to meet your needs, to remain unaffected by the market conditions due to their foresight and experience. It did not hurt that the asari still held an iron-hard vise grip on the eezo market, backing their economy with a material that would _never_ lose value.

For two millennia the asari had been creating FTL starships, using Thessia's natural element zero resources, spreading themselves ever outwards in the galaxy. And yet, those reserves did not seem to be dwindling at all.

Simply put, despite the Citadel being the nominal heart of the races colloquially known as the 'Citadel races', it was Thessia that remained as the economic center for most of the trade that was ongoing. This meant that nearly everything that was sent to the Citadel through tightbeam buoy relays, was _also_ sent to Thessia.

Meaning that in practice, nearly the entire galaxy was within reach when he simply dove in. Simulstim movies, chatrooms, video games, forums, image boards, databases and so much more.

And all of it was simply there, asking to be explored. At times he had begun to feel less like someone who existed in the real world that dove into the digital world, and more like a digital entity that occasionally spent time in meatspace.

But that was mostly the time dilation he experienced in dive, he figured. Though it felt like an indescribable amount of time may have passed, he realized without fail that it was time to wake up now.

Leaving behind the digital world, Emiya closed his eyes as he settled back into himself.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya opened his eyes, inhaling slowly as he sat up.

Scratching his scalp, he lifted aside the blanket and swung down his legs. The floor was nice and cool, the blanket thin and light. Serrice wasn't the warmest of Thessia's republics, but it was hardly a cold place either.

It had nothing on Fuyuki's winters, that was for sure.

He got out of bed, stretching as he walked to open the electronic blinders on the windows. Outside, the sun had yet to rise, giving him a view of the deep indigo of Thessia's night sky. The stars above were still unfamiliar and strange to him, even after all this time.

Shaking his head, he opened the window and inhaled deeply the ocean air, smelling the unique scent of Thessia's Serrinan Sea. Like many of Thessia's cities, Serrice was located near the ocean, with a long beach vista and a view that was breathtaking even at the worst of days. The asari seemed to have something of an affinity to water, he had noted, as often times they were drawn to and built their cities near the ocean. The Presidium lake, back on the Citadel, was also their doing—the keepers stubbornly maintaining the open-air water tank for millennia now to accommodate for the first arrivals' desires—or so he had heard.

Looking out, Emiya could scant tell the difference between the air and the ocean, as both melted into one somewhere in the indistinct and distant horizon, with the stars twinkling merrily on the unified canvas of sea and sky. In the distance he could see just a hint of something; a pillar of water stretching high into the heavens over the edge of the horizon. _Huh, a waterspout. How rare,_ he thought with a shake of his head.

"Well, that was a productive night." He noted to himself, turning around to begin preparing breakfast. With a mental effort, he also turned on the news vidreel. With his cybernetics, he did not really need to turn on the terminal—both in the sense of physically activating a button, or having to actually have the terminal on to be able to hear the news—but it was a part of his morning habits.

The chatter filled his otherwise empty apartment as he continued.

"— _but, this recent string of corporate and governmental leaks and exposees show no signs of stopping. Can this vigilante redhat hacker even be stopped?_ " An asari in a blue, green and purple dress spoke with a calm and precise words, nodding her head at just the right moments to emphasize her words. " _Here in the studio with me, C-Sec representative Castis Vakarian. What do you think about these recent events?_ "

Looking at it analytically, he could see she was throwing out human, salarian, volus and turian body language cues all at the same time, getting the same idea across in numerous 'frequencies' at once. She really was quite talented, most asari could handle about two different and distinct body languages at once.

Three was already quite rare, with four being at possibly the peak of what was physically possible. As expected of the asari, really.

" _Firstly, I must protest to the erroneous and inflammatory terminology used in the newscast previously. There is no such thing, as a 'redhat hacker', as you claimed the perpetrator was. This terminology stems from humanity—as many things these days seem to, unfortunately—but even among their culture it is not an accepted term. There are but 'blackhat' and 'whitehat' hackers, based on old human terminology from 'bovine child' vids._ " The turian with blue facepaint that appeared on the show immediately began to disclaim. " _Thus, the very premise of that newscast incites vigilantism and—_ "

Emiya shook his head and went about his business, letting the newsreel play as background noise for him.

It had taken him some time to regain old and necessary habits for independent living, but after the coating of dust had been blown off, he had had no trouble with adjusting to life again. Having to personally go to sleep, exercise, cook and clean all came back with ease once he set his mind to establishing a pattern. Though at first he had to draw up a time table, akin to the one he had had in the Navy, as he simply did not feel enough discomfort from hunger or lack of rest to notice it if he was not paying attention.

But, once he got back control over his life, there was even a slight pleasure to be derived from the acts, as each reaffirmed his existence in a small but undeniable way, that simply had not been there back in the Navy.

After being sent out of the Moon Cell, he had not really let himself slow down or rest. Not until he had arrived on Thessia anyhow, where he had essentially been forced to re-civilianize himself, in a sense.

Emiya went about performing his morning exercise while the water boiled in the kitchen. After five hundred push up clap burpees, he exhaled and stopped; there was no need to keep going after twenty minutes. The point was to keep in shape, not over-perform and burn out since it was a daily exercise. Additionally, while as a compound move it worked everything, it was not a very good exercise to repeat for extended periods of time or at a rapid pace. It also required considerable concentration to ensure that all the movements were done correctly, as poor form could stress many parts of the body needlessly. It did not work the cardiovascular system as a whole very well either, nor did it train any of the muscles involved very much since it a purely calisthenic effort. At most, it could be said to be a superb exercise for raising one's heartbeat, thus that was what he really used it for; a wake up call.

With his heart beating more rapidly, he could feel his entire body waking to life already.

Jumping up, he rolled his arms and shoulders, checking that everything felt fine. Satisfied, he hopped into a handstand. His feet pointed at the floor as he stood upside down with his hands extended, balancing himself for a few seconds. Then he began to dip down, until his nose touched the floor. Pushing back up, he repeated the exercise. After thirty repetitions, he pushed off and felt his entire body be airborne for a second. He clapped his hands together three times in the air, before he had to catch himself against the floor.

His feet and body swayed as he spread his legs to balance out. _Hmm, still just three. Is this the limits of the human body?_ Repeating it nine more times, he swayed back down and stood up.

A sheen of sweat coated his skin, with his heart rate still quite rapid. Getting up, he moved over to the bar he had installed into the doorway to his bedroom and began to perform pull ups without letting his heart rate or breathing normalize quite yet.

Working his way through varying grips and widths, he finished off with thirty one-handed muscle ups with both hands.

Dropping down and exhaling as finished, he began to go through a few half-remembered—and long since modified for personal use for his physique and specific needs—martial arts forms before he grabbed a pair of sticks and began to work with them. They were the same length as his favored swords, though they were considerably lighter.

Strike forward, step back, parry a blow and use it to riposte with a triangle step, moving left and right continuing to exchange blows, occupy the center and strike around...

He spent another ten minutes simply dancing with the two short sticks as if they were swords, before he set them aside as well as he finished through his basic sets. Performing cooldown stretches and light massaging on his limbs, he loosened up and went to take a cold shower.

For exercise, he had a few simple rules, but 'little and often is best' was his general rule of thumb.

The point was to normalize a level of performance, not to be able to reach specific peaks for short periods of time. He hadn't ever really been able to overpower anyone when it came to a fight, thus he had settled for focusing on his endurance and agility. As long as he could keep moving, he would find a critical moment to bring him decisive victory. Humans in general weren't very strong, anyhow. As a species, their focus had long been stamina and wits.

He really only used a handful of exercises to that end; push ups, pull ups, jumping and running only, really. Burpees handled two out of four, which made it an especially efficient exercise in his mind. The sword training was to maintain a sense of familiarity with the weapons, as like with most skills, swordsmanship was highly perishable. Just a week of inaction could result in a major drop in ability, as the sword would not feel quite _right_ in your hands.

Well, it was also relaxing to play around with swords, he had found.

As he returned from his shower, the preparations for breakfast were complete. The water was at a boil and his freshly pressed _aruni_ -juice was ready. Downing three glasses of water, he took a glass of the juice and slowly drank it, relishing the bittersweet tang.

He had been working on his asari cuisine for a while now, and he thought he was getting along quite well, though there were obvious handicaps that prevented complete mastery on his part. _Though the pressure cooker is getting there, already giving me quite a few options... But I can always take it further._

After he had eaten he began to get clothed, checking that he had everything necessary for the day before he walked out and closed the door to his small apartment. Jumping down the stairs, four steps at a time, he got into his skycar and flew off.

Though he had applied for University of Serrice almost five years ago already, most of his time he spent off in the other republics.

Serrice had Thessia's best program for exo-archaeology with a focus on Protheans, known far and wide across the galaxy as the most comprehensive course there was on the subject. He had applied, faking his way through everything and using his newfound ability to hack things without leaving his body to look up most of the answers he needed to get through the various tests.

If it was merely a matter of factual information, most of it he had already gained access to over the years, but it was one thing to have _raw data_ and another to _understand_ the subject. Simply put, he did not really know anything about the Protheans themselves, despite knowing what most people knew about them.

For that, he needed to understand their culture; their _logos_.

And the only way he reasoned he could find that, was by being taught by someone who had been studying and trying to understand Prothean culture for almost a thousand years now. Professor Nirida Henell, Asari Matriarch and revered expert on all things Prothean, was the source he had settled his eyes on. Holding a professorate in numerous related fields, she was the most well known and often cited authority when it came to discussing Prothean culture.

He had signed up for her courses in exoarchaeology and xeno-anthropology here in Serrice.

Of course, at the time of his arrival, he had not considered everything through completely. Thus, he spent more of this time in Ulee and Usaru, than in the University of Serrice during daytime. Though he still stood by his decision, he had had to consider the unexpected hiccups he had run into along the way.

Simply put, he had not considered all of the consequences of trying to study among an alien race. Though he understood their words and he had been accepted as a transfer student easily enough—thanks to his cheating at every turn—he still ran into a quite a bit of _friction_ as he began his studies. For one, Thessia's strict policy on immigration made him stand out wherever and everywhere he went. On the surface, it was to restrict eezo smuggling, though given how conservative asari culture as a whole seemed to be, he thought it entirely possible it was to quarantine the youngest of the race to the planet for a few decades, all in an effort to curb out the most of their youthful exuberance.

In the galaxy at large, it was widely thought that asari were exceedingly promiscuous due to their preference in marital partners, but the asari themselves often and vocally protested such characterizations. However, coming to Thessia, he had come to realize that there was more than a grain of truth to such stories. At least as far as asari who were younger than a hundred years or so went.

Shaking his head, he opened the skycar's window to let some of the fresh air inside. He kept flying, reaching for the sunglasses as the Thessia's star Parnitha began to rise over the horizon.

Though the excitable and curious asari were often times something of an annoyance, they weren't really a problem. Not compared to the reason he was still on Thessia, five years after he had arrived, anyhow.

Simply put, when a species lived for a thousand years and was considered to be a still nearly a child at the age of a hundred, education took on an entirely new scale. Five years for a human was a considerable investment of his life. For an asari it was a _trivial_ amount of time.

The five years, attending classes nearly every day, was not enough for him to have earned a single degree. He did not even have the beginnings of a degree, _really_.

It was not unusual for asari to spend _decades_ on a single subject in school, achieving a mastery that was simply beyond any human. He had understood that, seeking that very same inhuman mastery and understanding from Professor Henell. But he hadn't understood quite what it would mean in practice.

In 2171—a fifteen months before he had arrived on Earth—she had left on an expedition to the planet Dretirop, along with a contingent of various experts and students from the Universities of Serrice and Usaru. The joint expedition was to research and uncover a Prothean ruin that had been found by the locals, leaving most of Thessia bereft of Prothean experts. She had been gone since then, scheduled only to return this very month. He had asked about that from the University staff, only to realize that having decade long breaks between teaching courses was par for the course for the asari.

What was ten years for a species that lived to a thousand, after all? It was something he hadn't considered at all, when he had applied.

He had prodded at the possibility of joining that expedition, but even with his best attempts at spoofing credentials and ability, he had been firmly—if rather politely—turned down. He had even considered going there on his own, only to give up after thinking about it for a while. He doubted Professor Henell would appreciate his barging in to demand education.

Emiya had of course tried to look for alternatives, but apparently most if not all of Thessia's top experts had joined that expedition, meaning he was completely out of luck on that subject.

Accepting the state of things, he simply decided to study what he could in the interim. Which lead to a rather eclectic and unstructured syllabus, including everything from history and socio-politics to element zero engineering and theory. He had been called in for discussion more than once, as several of his teachers at the University of Serrice had professed worry over his lack of focus. Entirely understandable, given that he simply took anything and everything he thought could be useful, combing through course plans for individual lessons and appearing for specific lectures in various universities without any seeming rhyme or reason.

Even now he was headed for a lesson on mass effect field theory, held in Usaru.

As his professors realized his problem, they had tried to accommodate their lesson plans to him, making the effort to contact other Universities to allow him to attend classes around Thessia, which had been helpful. As expected of the most diplomatic of the Citadel races, really. But even an accelerated course would necessitate for him to stay on Thessia for another two decades if he wanted to graduate with anything resembling an actual degree.

Not that he needed one, _really_. At this point, he was more than happy to while away his days while working on odds and ends. It wasn't like he was sitting idly by, or anything. The Protheans had been gone for 50,000 years, what was another five, he had concluded.

Well, he had learned a lot and had gotten a decent grounding into the galaxy with his time here. If nothing else, his persona as Fujimura Saiga was now strong enough to allow him to act as a civilian. Well, as long as no one started to prod deeper at it, since his face still existed on various records on the Citadel and on Earth.

Though, with this, as soon as he had a chance to take Professor Henell's courses, he would be just about done. He already had a pile of things he wished to work on, leaving him itching at getting some proper privacy and space to work with. Though he nominally had privacy in his apartment, rare was the week that went by without someone coming to visit him.

As social as the asari were, it seemed that loners were not taken kindly to. Sometimes it almost seemed as if all the asari around him were conspiring to keep him company whenever possible, neighbors, teachers and fellow students alike approaching him at the oddest of times.

Emiya shook his head.

He rolled up the window as he began to land, the sun already inching upwards over the edge of the sea as he landed at the University of Usaru. He only had the one four hour course today, meaning he would have plenty of time for other stuff later.

"Maybe I should eat out, today?" He mused, almost hesitating despite still having over four and a three quarters million credits to his name. He nodded to himself, _might as well._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya stretched, getting up and walking out.

He only had a datapad he needed to carry his lesson notes, or rather to keep people from asking why he _wasn't_ taking notes _._ With his cybernetics, it wasn't really a problem to just write down everything as it was being said, after all.

Most of the lesson was centered on the lecture followed by discussion and questions by the asari teacher. Overall, it was a rather dry subject, most of which he did not entirely follow. Partly it was the fact that he had not been for many of the preceding courses which had started several decades ago, but that was fine as long as he got the gist of things. Understanding practical things was one thing, but the mathematics and theoretical formula to explain it all was something completely different.

A lot of this lesson had been just that, theory and numbers.

Nothing he could really use, but something of a foundation for his other ideas, giving him a feel for the subject. He had been looking into it in relation to i'usu and his other interests in eezo for the most part, but he doubted he would be getting much out of this course. Really, it was a filler course during a slow season.

Arriving outside, he inhaled the ocean air and looked out at the city. Usaru was much like Serrice, in how modern it was.

In practice it did not look any different from the Wards on the Citadel. Certainly, the buildings generally had that same swooping design that was also a tell-tale sign of asari culture. But aside from that, at a distance it could have very well been any city on Earth. The same metal and glass spires dotted the horizon, the sun shining high above signifying that noon had come and just gone.

His belly rumbled and he exhaled as he turned to walk down the steps leading up to the main University entrance.

A consequence of his cybernetics leeching off of his bioelectricity to function, was that he had to eat more than before. Not that he had ever been a light eater, but since he had had to boost his metabolism to keep up, he was currently forced to eat four solid meals a day.

Making him a distinct oddity, given that most asari only ate two meals a day. He resorted to eating home-made nutrient bars when he was low on time, which wasn't always optimal. It was simply more efficient for him to make a batch of dried foods that would last him for a week, once a week.

Continuing to walk around, he eyed the surroundings.

No matter the years he had spent here, he still could not get over how _normal_ Thessia seemed. The gravity was just a touch above that of Earth, the days a few hours longer and the years just a bit shorter. The same blue sky above, the same green trees and grass below, the same daily lives he had seen all his life playing out in between. Really, once he got used to the asari, he almost forgot that they were technically an alien race.

The only problem he really had was that no matter where he went, he was a center of attention.

"Who's that?"

"Is that a _human_?"

"Do you think he's a student here?"

He did his best to avoid making himself stand out, but it was a wasted effort he had realized quite early on. Just his hair color being the opposite of the norm made him catch the eye of any asari.

However, since very few of them actually knew anything about humanity, they left him alone for the most part. Well, most of them anyhow.

"Go talk to him!"

"No, _you_ go."

"He kinda looks like my dad..."

"Your dad's a human?"

"No, but..."

Ignoring the whispers, he moved on.

At first he had tried to simply avoid line of sight, but that only lead to them growing more interested when he seemed to appear out of thin air at classes. Trying out various methods of keeping his distance, he finally settled on simply pretending he didn't notice any of it. Usually a brusque surface worked, but many were still rather curious and approached him nonetheless.

Emiya stopped, glancing to the side.

Something flew past him, hitting the wall and bouncing on the ground, almost hitting him in passing. He blinked, looking at the synthetic leather ball the size of a honey melon. _A biotiball?_

"Heeey!" Someone shouted, a cheerful voice some three dozen meters away by the grass lawn just next to the University entrance. "Pass it back, won'cha!"

He turned to look at the asari who was shouting at him. The same blue skin and fringe as most any asari, but with a pattern of 'freckles' dotting her cheeks and a pair of lines marking her jaw, was standing there and waving at him. _Turian father, then_.

Crouching, he grabbed the ball with one hand and blinked as he felt it. He hadn't actually ever touched one before, only knowing of the popular sport in passing. Like most anything in asari culture and as the name implied, it was a sport heavily based around mastery of biotics.

 _There's a freely moving weight inside of it?_ He stood up, throwing it up once, twice, into the air as he weighed and judged. Simply throwing it, he judged it would probably fly oddly, since the insides weren't a perfect sphere inside, but a sort of three dimensional Y-shape with four legs, which would throw off the center of balance once it was thrown, when the freely moving weight settled into one of the branches.

Tossing it a third time, he added a little spin to it to see how it would behave.

As expected, it was spinning lopsidedly as the internal weight settled into one side causing the point of balance to be off-center. _Huh, this would be pretty interesting to actually watch. I thought biotiball was simply handball with biotics, but..._

Judging the spin, he looked at the expectant asari. She stood there, with one hand on her hip.

Pulling his hand back, he threw it forward, adding a spin to it in a way that he expected it to keep the weight centered. It flew straight until halfway through its arc began to rapidly degenerate and slow down, as if the wind resistance had suddenly increased. Or rather, as if the ball's weight had suddenly increased. He blinked, not having expected that.

"Heh! Nice try." The asari grinned, running up to grab the ball and then walking up to him.

Emiya frowned, not quite understanding what had happened.

"You shoulda spun it the other way around, would have been a perfect throw." The asari said, grinning up at him as she came to a halt, tossing the ball in her hand. She was wearing an exercise jersey of a sort, showing off the definition in her shoulders and arms as she grinned at him.

At those words, he understood it. "Ah, there's eezo in the internal weight."

It was her turn to frown, before realizing what he was talking about. She grinned spinning the ball in her hand with a motion of her wrist and tossing it up slightly. It rose slowly, continuing to stay in the air for several seconds at her head's height before it slowly landed in her hand.

"Yup, it's all about how you spin it." She caught the ball on her extended index finger and leaving it spinning there, raising an eyebrow at him. "I'm Tyra, by the way."

"Saiga." Emiya answered, his eyes on the ball.

"You play?" She asked, nodding at the ball though the answer should have been obvious from his inexperience so far.

"Biotiball?" He shook his head. "No, but I've been doing i'usu for two years now."

She snorted at him, then, and he had to raise an eyebrow. "Figures you're a _nerd_."

He huffed at that judgment, not deigning the assessment with an answer.

"What? Everyone knows only nerds who wanna play around with swords do i'usu. I bet you played one of the MMOs and thought ' _I wanna a be a aryi i'ususa like all my favorite vid stars_ ', huh?" She mocked him playfully, grabbing the ball as it landed on her hand again and resting it against her hip.

"Would you believe me if I said I was just interested in the swords?" He offered and she only scoffed again.

"Like I said, _nerd."_ She grinned at him. "You wanna come an play some ball instead? Way better, trust me."

He shrugged. "Not a biotic."

"And you're doing i'usu?" She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Pfft, shouldn't be too hard to throw some ball, or you scared you can't keep up?"

He looked at her, raising an eyebrow to show he could tell she was baiting him. But he was kind of interested in the ball, now that he had realized how it worked. _Spin one way for a current, spin another for a counter-current. Should be simple enough._

"Sure. Why not." He said, nodding and she grinned at him, tossing the ball up with the flick of a wrist, turning to lead the way. As he moved to follow, he grabbed a homemade snack from his bag and ate it to keep his stomach from complaining too much. Lunch would have to wait.

"Huh? The captain actually brought him over?" Another asari in similar clothes shouted at their arrival, causing a whole host of asari to look at them.

"What's this, Tyra? Got us a cheerleader?"

She cackled at that. "Nah, thought I'd try and see if he's any good. We don't have a good passer and just _look_ at his arms. Bet he could throw _you_ further than _you_ can throw the ball."

She nodded towards him, causing everyone to look at him for a second. For a moment, he felt vaguely uncomfortable as each one of the twenty something asari seemed to be judging the circumference of his arms.

More than one seemed to consider wrapping their hands around to get a better feel. _I shouldn't have worn a sleeveless shirt today._

"Cap, there's more to biotiball than just how throwing the ball. Like, you know... biotics? I mean, humans aren't even biotic, right?" The asari replied, with a tone of voice that spoke of long-enduring suffering at the other's antics, sitting on the grass and stretching.

"No, _some_ of them _are_. They mentioned it in a class about humans in exo-sociology. A case study for how primitive races treat biotics with hostility and suspicion." Another piped up, holding a bottle of water as she gestured at him. "Umm, no offense intended. And I don't think he is one, either. No amps that I can see."

"He seems kind of bulky, like an elcor. Can he even run around for a whole game?"

The exo-sociology student shook her head at that. "No, humans are crazy good runners. Like, _best in the galaxy_ -good at most distances. Krogan can technically beat them in a super-long marathon since their humps have more nutrients, but they need way more breaks. Humans just don't stop, ever, until they're just completely done."

"Huh, well, I guess that's a thing." An asari nodded, looking at Emiya askance now. "I wonder if running is the only thing where they just _never stop_..."

Several giggled at that, throwing knowing grins at Emiya.

"Eh, quit complaining. I'm the captain, so I when I want to do something, you should all just listen and do as you're told. Or I'll make you do more laps again!" Tyra immediately proclaimed as others began to pipe up with similar comments. "He's a part of Usaru U, so there's no problem, right?"

"I'm not actually an Usaru student, you know." He quickly noted, having realized they were the University team.

"Huh?" Tyra looked up, frowning at him. "But you went to class this morning, saw you go in and all."

"Special circumstances. Enrolled at Serrice, actually." He said, shrugging.

"Wha— _Serrice!?_ " Tyra blanched, as several of the asari looked up at him at that. It was as if 'Serrice' was a taboo word among them, he realized.

"Do they have a team, too?" Emiya asked, causing murmurs to spread among them. _Ah, a rivalry of some kind._

Tyra was now half-glaring at him, now. "Yeah, so you better not go blabbing to them about this, okay?"

He merely blinked, affecting amusement at her annoyance. "Sure, _sure_. Never even seen them before, but if I do, you're the only one to blame since you dragged me over."

"Wha—?" She blinked at him, turning slightly purple in the face as she flushed, as several of her teammates were laughing at her now. "Well, now you're definitely going to practice with us. I'll have you running laps till you're sore all over!"

Half of the team was now grinning at him, apparently accepting his presence while the rest seemed content to ignore him. There was something to be said about asari jocks, but at the moment he was too interested in actually trying his hand at the game to care.

After a quick and light warm up not too dissimilar to his morning work out, they began to practice specifics.

"We'll play a match afterwards, yeah?" Tyra promised, grinning at him as she showed him how to do a basic pass or toss, explaining the rules at the same time.

Off to the side, the rest of the team was pairing up and performing various drills. While he was figuring out how to throw the ball, the asari were jumping around and performing curving shots with their biotics while using biotic charges to move around.

Finally, after half an hour, they started to get a game going.

Unexpectedly, Emiya proved a rather popular choice as both teams wanted him. Though he gathered it was more for the mascot slash bragging right value, rather than any trust in his ability to play well.

Not that he minded, he had come along on a whim anyhow.

Like he had originally thought, the game was rather similar to handball or soccer, though the rules for physically engaging the opposite team were actually closer to rugby. Simply put, the point was to get the ball into the other team's goal-zone, but the scoring zones from where it was allowed were somewhat limited. The closer you were, the more restrictions you had on what you were allowed to do—no touching the ball with your hands at the closest zone etc. But the further away you were and tried to score, the easier it was for someone to disrupt the shot and catch it out of the air with biotics.

Soon enough asari were using their powers to jump twenty meters into the air and to rush from point to point, while using mass effect fields to push and pull at the ball in blinding patterns and feints. The innate property of the eezo inside of the ball also made it grow heavier or lighter, depending on how you spun it as he had noted earlier, giving the game another level of complexity. It was actually rather similar to the i'usu swords he had grown accustomed to in that.

Watching the others throw the ball, noting the wrist movements and motion of the ball on release, he began to understand a bit better how the game was played.

Not that he got much of a chance to get any hands on practice during the match, since without biotics he had no way of cutting off any passes or charging for the ball. Well, he could have upped the ante by using magical energy to blitz the ball, but at this point he was rather enjoying just using his base ability for exercise.

Running around, closing gaps and blocking shots at his team's goal, he spent a good hour simply playing around. In the end, as he could not rely on anything but his own body and had to put in double the effort to keep up, he was soaked from sweat when the practice match finally ended.

His team ended up losing, though not because of him pulling the team down as he had found a niche for himself as an extreme-rear defender keeping any scoring attempts from coming through. Without him on the defense, he thought it entirely possible that the score would have been ten times more lopsided at the end of the game.

Rather, Tyra's offensive chain with two other asari on the other team was so strong that she could simply keep his team on the backfoot, allowing her to keep attempt scoring until they got something in past his guard.

It was nice game, reminding him of the easy competitiveness he hadn't experienced in years. Not since high school, probably. He really felt like he was back during the boys' physical education lesson again as everyone joked around, cheering and jeering at every turn.

"Nice game, everyone. Cool down and then get cleaned up. We have practice again tomorrow at the same time!" Tyra shouted, clapping one and another asari on the back as they began to clean up after themselves.

Turning to Emiya, she grinned at him.

"Well, you sure got into it."

Looking down at himself, he pinched at his soaked shirt and pulled at it to separate it from his skin. "Yeah. Thanks for the invite. Haven't had a chance to blow off steam in a while."

"No problem, no problem." Tyra answered, smiling widely.

"You're free to come ' _blow off steam_ ' any time you want, Saiga~" One of the passing by asari said, winking as she walked past them.

Emiya huffed at that, taking the ribbing with good cheer. "I need to get back home and take a shower. I didn't even bring a change of clothes, either. See you around."

He nodded at her, grabbing his coat and turning to leave.

"Ho... wait up, Saiga." Tyra immediately ran up to him, putting an arm on his shoulder to slow him down. "You're gonna leave like _that_? You're a mess!"

"It's not a problem, my skycar is just around the corner..."

She rolled her eyes, grabbing his arm and pulling at him as she spoke right over him. "You're flying all the way back to Serrice like that? Naaah, screw that. You've coming over to my place, you can take a shower and quick-wash your clothes."

"No, it's fine—"

"C'mon, no need to be shy. I won't bite! 'Sides I asked you to mess around so it's only fair."

Emiya considered that, before shrugging. It would be more convenient. "Alright then, if you insist."

She grinned at him, then, as she grabbed his arm and began to pull him with her. _She certainly is thoughtful. Or, hmm... No, I'm just overthinking it._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya came out of the shower, rubbing at his hair with one hand while the other held the towel by his waist. The apartment seemed rather big for just one person, but there didn't seem to be signs of anyone else living here. _Though with prices being what they are... I don't think she could live here alone?_

"Hmm... _Nice_."

Looking up, he found her by the kitchen, sitting and drinking from a bottle as she sized him up.

"What now?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, nothing. Just checking take out prices, you wanna get something to eat?"

"Hmm... How about my clothes?" He asked, looking around.

"No worries, no worries. They'll be dry before you need them." She said, with a smirk.

He blinked at her, before shrugging mentally. _Well, I guess I don't need to be wearing clothes to eat, if she doesn't mind me walking around half naked._

Noticing the biotiball by the couch, he turned around and reached for it with his foot. Rolling it toward himself, he kicked it up and snatched it out of mid-air.

"So how long have you been playing?" He asked, settling for a topic of discussion to start with.

"Yeah, for about sixteen years now. Pretty good already, but need a few more years before the pro league scouts are willing to talk to me." She began to explain with enthusiasm. "You don't follow it, right? Generally it's divided by age. Cuz the older you get, the stronger your biotics are."

"And asari do not suffer much from physical deterioration until the very tail end of the matriarch-stage, right?" Emiya nodded, noting that she seemed to have forgotten all about food already.

"Yeah! We played Usaru's Matron-league team once and we got our butts handed to us! They're just on a whole other level!" Tyra excitedly told him bouncing on her feet.

"The ' _maestros_ ' right?"

"Huh? Oh, no, that's the Maiden-league team, the Matron-league team is—oh, right I didn't even explain it yet." She made an awkward laugh. It was obvious that it was a passion to her. "So because of the gap in biotic power, there's a bunch of leagues. The novice league is for those who haven't gone through puberty yet, though everyone just calls it the kiddie games. The biggest league follows that one; the Maiden-league. Since everyone is really energetic and there's a huge pool of players, its the most popular one. They also play against the other races, usually. Though there aren't that many, not compared to us anyhow. Do humans have any yet?"

Emiya shrugged. "Not that I know. But wait a decade and I'm sure there'll be a bunch."

"Huh, neat. But yeah, see, once you get to the Matron stage and keep playing... Well at that point you're so good that no one can keep up. Like, _no one._ But most quit before that, anyhow. Matron games are more rare, since most of the time they'd rather just go around coaching the Maidens. Also lets them settle down."

"Matrons are usually three to four hundred years old, right?"

"Yeah." She answered nodding twice. "But even the veteran Maidens are really _tough_."

Emiya almost asked whether she wasn't a Maiden herself _,_ before deciding to steer clear of alien puberty as a topic of discussion.

"So why'd you ask me to join, anyhow? Not that it wasn't fun, but I could tell that it made the teams a bit lop-sided, even if I wasn't all that good." He asked instead.

"Right, yeah... Well, since I'm not really all that good with biotics, I've been thinking about how to get better at the game. Well, it's not like I'm _bad_ or anything, but all the Maidens in the league are a hundred years older than me, so I'm completely outclassed." She looked at him, pointing at his arm. "So I'd been thinking that maybe if I could figure out how to play better without biotics, then I'd have an edge.

"Something to catch the eye of league recruiters, like. Get invited into the league next year, rather than next season, you know?"

He blinked, nodding.

"Right. Well, as you saw, muscle doesn't really help much when its a game of biotics. I barely got to touch the ball, even." He shrugged.

"Nn, yeah, I noticed that too." She sighed. "But still, I bet you could throw the ball _really_ hard, if you did get it. So point kind of still stands."

He made a thoughtful noise, considering the honey melon-sized ball in his hand. It fit quite comfortably into his palm, though he could not grip around it completely. But, his hands were considerably larger than the average asari so perhaps that wasn't a good comparison.

"It's a bit too big, I think. The air resistance means you have to be pretty close, too close, I think. If the hand-scoring zones were a bit closer, you could pull off some tricks I've seen in handball. But since you aren't allowed to grab the ball that close..." He shrugged. "If it was about the size of a baseball, then you could probably pull off some good throws with it."

"Hand-ball? Base-ball?" She perked up at the words, obviously interested.

"Handball is pretty much the same as biotiball, just without the biotics. And you aren't allowed to hit the other players." He elaborated.

"Huh? What's the fun in that?" She looked confused at the very idea.

He shrugged at that.

"No biotic barriers, so injuries would be more common. Baseball is a bit more difficult to explain, but..." Looking around, he spotted a bowl of _aruni_ -fruit by the table, that were about the size of a baseball. "Toss me one of those, will you?"

She blinked, noticing what he was pointing to and nodding as she with an underhand toss gave him one. He opened the window, with a view out to the ocean in the distance. _At this range... I can't see any swimmers either. Should be fine._

"If the ball was about this big, then you could pull some interesting throws." He said, showing the fruit in his hand as he set aside the biotiball.

"Uh...?"

"Here, see..." He said, acquiring the stance of a baseball pitcher. It had been literally over a hundred years since he had last played, but the muscle memory took over from his middle school days.

Additionally, the motion was the same as with most every other martial art, for tossing the ball.

The turning of the hip; the whirling of the shoulder and the driving forward of the hand as an extension of the whole body. It was the same as in the basic diagonal overhead cut from any school of swordsmanship; the same as any over-the-hip toss of all grappling styles; the same motion as used in a power straight in striking with the fist; the same motion as anything that required a lot of power to be generated nigh-instantly.

Once you learned one thing, it tended to happen that you began to see that pattern in everything else, he had noticed.

Well, more logically put it was simply a consequence of the biomechanics of the human body. Which also—strangely enough—were the rough biomechanics of the asari body.

He raised his front leg and leaned his center of mass forward; causing him to fall forward as he began to take a step down with the raised leg. His arm cocked back; preparing to whip forward. His front leg touched the ground again and his rear foot began to turn as he pivoted his hips. Starting from the ground up—like a whip coiling outwards; accelerating more and more with every inch it went upwards along the length of the cord—all of the force concentrated into his arms as it struck forward.

"Hey—"

The ball was released, loosed like an arrow with enough force to cross the hundred and fifty meter gap all the way to the ocean in two instants.

"—what are you! Whoa!" Tyra jumped up, blinking as she saw the fruit flying off into the distance like a rocket. She blinked, and Emiya huffed with satisfaction as he saw the surface of the water splash on impact.

"Hmm, a little overripe. You should eat them before they go bad." He commented, smelling at the pulp juice in his hand from the sudden acceleration.

"Whoa, that's super far! I can't even see it! Hey, hey, how do you throw like that. Show me again." She turned to look at him as he walked to go wash his hand in the kitchen.

Looking around with some annoyance, he realized that faucets did not come standard in asari kitchens. Usually they had containers of water for use, instead. He had forgotten all about that fact, having renovated his own apartment to have one.

"Same way you tossed the ball when you pass in biotiball. It's just that you compress your body more and put more of your hip into it, and you need a better grip on the ball, which isn't really possible since it's so big. Well, maybe if you compressed it with biotics, but..."

She blinked at that, nodding thoughtfully. "No... Singularities are banned from league games. Wouldn't work, huh."

"Really, if you just want a lot of power, then you'd probably be better off kicking the ball." He noted. "I mean, human legs are considerably stronger than human arms, and Thessia' gravity is higher than Earth's, so it should be pretty impressive."

She looked at him oddly, then. It was as if he had suggest something completely outrageous to her. "Kick it? Really?"

"Absolutely. Football is a pretty popular human sport, after all." He tilted his head at her, at that. "Well, I see how it would be a problem with how easy it would be to snatch it away with biotics and how you can't as exactly control the spin, but it would definitely solve the power problem. Besides, none of the rules say anything about kicking the ball."

She frowned at him. "Foot-ball? But... Wouldn't you break your toes, or..."

"Well, no. You don't kick with the toes. It's like a roundhouse kick."

She blinked at him, not quite getting it. _Well, I suppose it makes some sense. Turians and salarians probably don't have anything like it, either._

"Well, you can look it up on the extranet, I'm sure you can find a lot of stuff that way. Are my clothes dry, yet?"

"Huh?" She blinked, realizing they had been talking for a good while now. "Uh, oh, I..."

"I really should be going already." He said with a polite smile, having effectively killed any mood there was already. "Thanks for letting me shower and wash up, it was really nice of you."

"H-hold up, we could still, uh..."

— _piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_

Emiya blinked, the sudden noise causing his vision to double. It was like tinnitus, only ten times worse. He shook his head.

"What the hell is that sound...?" He ground out, raising a hand to his temples.

"Err, what sound?" Tyra asked, looking at him askance.

Emiya blinked, shaking his head again, but the sound did not disappear. It seemed to be coming all around him, as if everything was echoing and amplifying it. _No, it_ is _coming all around me; the terminal, that datapad over there... Everything connected to the extranet, I guess?_

With some force of will, he suppressed the sensation and ignored it, as it did not seem to be harmful after all.

"Never mind, my ear just popped." He said, putting on a forced smile as he suddenly felt uncertain of what was going on. "But yeah, my clothes, if you would."

"Ah, uh, sure..." She blinked at his suddenly forceful tone of voice, walking to them.

Emiya frowned, focusing on his senses. It wasn't coming from just one place, rather as he had noticed it was all around him. It wasn't a physical sound, but something that his brain was translating into such, he realized. _Like how my soul understands something inside of a computer when I dive in. It's a signal of some kind?_

Closing his eyes and _reaching out,_ he could suddenly place four dozen sources for the continuous signal all around him. Omnitools, terminals, datapads; anything that had connectivity functions, he realized. Each had a unique return signal in response, he realized.

"Ah, sorry, I made a little mistake. You shirt is still wet, but it won't take long to dry..." Tyra came out holding his pants while apologizing.

"...Well, it's fine." He nodded, accepting the clothing article, also noticing that she had taken off her jersey top, leaving her in a slim sleeveless shirt.

She had been exercising and hadn't showered yet, but given that she had been relying much more on her biotics, she hadn't been quite as sweaty as he had been.

Looking up at him with large green eyes, she bit her lip. "Do you really have to go...?"

He opened his mouth to reply, when the front door suddenly opened.

Another asari, carrying two large luggage bags came walking in, her eyes stuck on an omnitool display she was reading while walking. Noticing them, she looked up.

"Oh, hello Tyra. The flight from Dretirop took less time than I had—" The new asari spoke, only to freeze at seeing the nearly naked Emiya and Tyra all but holding hands as she was handing him his pants. "Oh my! I—I did not mean to intru— _Tyra_!"

The asari in question standing in front of him blinked, licking her lips in a sudden unconscious gesture as she glanced at Emiya with growing panic in her eyes.

"This again? I thought your mother made it clear that you weren't to—"

"Liara, calm down, this isn't what it looks like—"

"Oh, I am certain it is like nothing what it looks like. Did Dreniza not have you pulled from the Citadel because you could not be trusted to stay out of trouble with—oh my, is that a human?"

Emiya blinked, nonplussed by all of this.

"Will you stop making a scene, _goddess_ , I can't even invite friends over—"

"And have them undressed in the living room?" Turning to look at him, she made a slight bow. "Ah, I apologize, this is nothing personal, but her mother had entrusted me with keeping her out of trouble since her father passed away."

Emiya wasn't sure whether to be amused or taken aback by how polite this Liara was in comparison to when she spoke to Tyra.

"Hey, this wasn't anything like that, so just mind your _own business_."

"Well pardon me, for not being able to distinguish the difference between a naked krogan and a naked human."

"He wasn't naked! Trog wore that everywhere! And mom was overreacting anyhow! I hadn't even become a Maiden yet, I couldn't even have melded with him even if I had wanted to!"

"Should I take that to mean you were thinking about it now?"

"You—!"

Emiya sighed, raising a hand into the air between the two. "I think it's time I take my leave, then. My shirt?"

Tyra sighed, throwing a glare at Liara as she turned around and stomped to get the shirt. "Yeah, _yeah_... I need to get my scolding from _Matriarch Liara_ , I get it..."

He blinked at that, glancing at the other asari who seemed to be more embarrassed and uncomfortable about what she had been called, than angry.

"This... Umm..." Liara said, approaching Emiya and suddenly appearing much more bashful now that Tyra was no longer in the room. It seemed like she was not very used to people, or perhaps it was merely strangers that put her off, so.

"So you live here together?" _It would explain how Tyra could afford it, then_.

"Ah, umm... Yes, that is right." She answered, having obvious trouble deciding where to look.

She seemed quite uncomfortable with his appearance, so he shrugged and put on his pants, settling the towel over his shoulder to cover up himself for the most part.

It seemed to help a little.

"The University Campus apartments are sorted out alphabetically, thus we have been living here together for a while now." Liara explained. "It is not always easy, but... What can you do."

"Hmm..." Emiya nodded, asari writing was similar enough to the latin alphabet in structure that that made sense.

They waited for several awkward seconds, as Tyra was looking for his shirt.

"And yourself? It is quite rare to see aliens here on Thessia—ah..."

"I'm enrolled at the University of Serrice." He answered.

She perked up at that, raising her brow and making him note the eyebrow-like markings on her face. "Oh? That is quite impressive."

"Really?" He looked at her, causing her to blink. He looked at the eyebrow-like lines, noting that they weren't reminiscent of turian facepaint.

Was her father a human? No, she seemed too old for that. _Curious_.

"No, I did not mean anything by that, I just..."

"Well, I suppose it is, for a human anyhow. I hear asari prepare and study for years for the entrance exams." He said, realizing she had thought he had taken offense.

"Yes, it is a rather prestigious school." She agreed. "What is it that you are studying?"

"A bit of this and bit of that. Right now, I'm focusing on eezo and mass effect theory." He said and she nodded. "Though I find parts of all courses rather strange."

"Hmm?" She looked up at him, their eyes meeting for a few seconds before she looked away. _She's treating me like a carnivore or something; he body language is strangely demure. Hasn't she met humans before?_

"I've noticed something unusual about the subjects taught. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, in asari knowledge bases in general. They seem strangely concentrated and focused. It's like a tree with no branches, except at specific and periodic intervals." He frowned. At times it felt like as a species they had skipped entire steps in development of certain ideas and technology, as if they had been reading ahead in a script or something. "I mean, you asari never had propellant firearms, when most every species in the galaxy did. Well, it could be a consequence of your biotics rendering primitive black powder firearms useless, but it's still strange."

She gave him a pointed look, which he recognized at asari body language for curious before she realized he wasn't asari and switched to a more neutral stance. She seemed to mentally stumble for a moment, not sure what to do before she used an awkward smile.

_Perhaps she's never met humans before, or seen other asari interacting with humans. So this is a first encounter, of sorts?_

"I think it might be a consequence of your long lives, and how Matriarchs have a tendency to focus on one thing until they reach mastery, only then releasing it to the general public. I mean, it matches historically as well. Matriarchs Dalikhan, Voaszia, Erultie, Benezia, Phaeldis..." He listed out various names he had heard and read about.

Each had brought forth some great innovation, shooting the asari forward decades at a time. They were like cultural torchbearers, setting forth into the dark unknown and leading the way for the rest of Thessia to follow.

"Ah... Yes..." Liara answered, looking away.

 _Huh? What did I say?_ He wondered, realizing her asari body language spoke of being very uncomfortable at that moment.

Tyra returned, holding his still half-wet shirt in one hand.

They exchanged the towel and shirt, while Liara was obviously waiting for him to leave as she was glaring impatiently at Tyra. Emiya nodded his thanks, folding up the shirt rather than putting it on, as he would rather drive home shirtless and let it dry out a little while longer.

This dispute really wasn't his problem, so he really should be leaving already. Nodding at Tyra, he turned around to leave.

"You wanna come play tomorrow? We're having practice at the same time, same place. You could show me that thing with the feet you were talking about?" Tyra asked, looking up at him with a hopeful grin.

He considered it, shrugging. "Sure, why not. See you there."

Liara blinked at their byplay, saying nothing. With that, he turned around and left.

* * *

;

* * *

_As expected, everything is emitting this signal._ Emiya noted, arriving back at his house in Serrice.

The 'sound' had not lessened, but it seemed to wane a little as he had flown over the sea as only the connectivity capable items he carried around were nearby. Still, returning to his apartment it seemed like he was in the middle of a thousand little screeching devices. It wasn't quite painful, but was definitely becoming an annoyance, especially because he could not divine the cause behind it.

It simply seemed like pretty much everything had received a sudden firmware update, for no reason he could divine.

Parking the skycar, he hopped out and began to walk back to his apartment's front door. He halted, realizing that something was off. _Someone is inside._

Opening the door, he looked around and immediately spotted the dark haired beauty sitting in his living room. He blinked once, checking the door before entering and closing it behind him.

"Excuse me, how did you get inside?"

Miranda smiled, looking up at him with a knowing spark in her eyes as she crossed her legs. "That is of no consequence, Shirou Emiya."

He blinked again, inhaling slowly through his nose. She merely smiled at him, motioning with her hand for him to sit down opposite her.

Emiya sighed, noting the gun in her other hand under the table. It was hidden from view, and she did not show any signs that she thought he was aware of it. "No, I think I'll stand for now. Do you mind if I start preparing dinner? I haven't eaten lunch yet."

She blinked, tilting her head and looking at the rather well equipped kitchen to her left. He had a dozen knives there, along with plenty of other things he could use as a weapon.

Not waiting for her answer, he simply strode into the kitchen and began to pull out utensils and ingredients. He could feel her blinking gaze at his back, the momentary confusion almost enough to make him grin. _If you're going to play with subtle threats, then the danger of your opponent playing obtuse completely negates your advantage if you aren't willing to escalate it. What will you do, Miranda? Play hardball?_

Her decision would tell him a lot about what she was doing here.

"Well, then. I'll be joining you for lunch, if it isn't too much of a bother." She replied a second later, just a beat out of sync to reveal her improvised response. But it told him plenty, nonetheless. _She has no intention of shooting me, not yet, anyhow._ _That's... weird? Well, she doesn't really know who I am, so it makes sense, I guess?_

Shrugging outwardly, he motioned at the cupboards. "Sure, sure. Make the table for two, then. It's all in there."

Miranda hesitated for a second, before getting up and doing as he had suggested. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her hesitating at what to take out. _Huh, she's never had to make a table, before._

"Flat plates will be fine with knives and forks. Glasses are by the top corner." He said, taking out the Thessian fish he had cold smoked last weekend and prepared portions of it for two.

Then he took some of the local vegetables and put them in his tiered mass effect field pressure cooker. He hadn't thought up of a good name yet, but he simply thought of it as his _pagoda_ , since he could put five separate pots into the same system, all with their own adjustable pressure and seals, stacked on top of each other.

The pressure cookers from his time worked by raising the internal pressure so that the boiling temperature of water rose, allowing it to be superheated, cutting down on cooking time. The asari did something similar with biotics, lowering the mass of foodstuffs to alter its heat capacity to give chefs a very high degree of control over how something cooked. He couldn't do something quite on their level, but with his pagoda he could come close already.

The trick was to control how it returned to normal mass without the heat being lost; something that required a precise feeling of feedback that machines simply could not do. His mass effect field pressure cooker performed some of the simplest of procedures based on raw calculations and predictive modelling, allowing him to very quickly make simple ingredients.

Vegetables for example could be prepared in minutes. Asari chefs could prepare entire meals on the go, for comparison. _Still have a long way to go._

Though they had no direct equivalents on Earth, he had mentally simply labeled the things he put into the _pagoda_ as 'potatoes', 'kale' and 'carrots'. The consistency and shape were different, but the regions of the mouth they activated and the taste was similar enough that he felt the comparisons apt.

Taking out the spiced mayonnaise mix he had made from local herbs and eggs, he set it by the table while the pagoda filled with water. Setting up the timer and pressure, he cut off the water and set the mass effect field generator on. With that, it would soon be done.

All the while he had been doing this, he had been extending his senses. Since his operation and cybernetization, parts of his brain had been replaced with circuits and processors. One of the advantages he had quickly grasped from this, was that since he was in a constant state of a "half-dive", interacting with digital tools was incredibly easy. Almost instinctual, even.

He simply reached out and focused on her omnitool.

It was similar to the ones he had encountered before in Cerberus use, though their methodology had advanced considerably since last he had run into them. Too bad; he had also improved exponentially at handling cyber-security since he had last tangled with Cerberus.

"So, how can I help you, miss?" He turned to look at Miranda who had returned to the dinner table.

"Lawson. Miranda Lawson." She supplied, smiling at him as she crossed her legs. "For starters, how about the real name of the man who I knew as 'Emil'?"

Emiya exhaled slowly through his nose at that, raising an eyebrow. At the same time, he trawled through her omnitool. It seemed empty enough, aside from a copied schedule and a mail client that only received notifications of mail arriving to another account. _That must be her real omnitool, then._

"He's _no one_." He said, shrugging. "Though he goes by Emiya, too."

At first, she affected amusement at him, but at the last bit she became serious once more. "I see, so it really _was_ like that..." She gave him a measuring look, before continuing. "And where is he right now?"

Emiya considered how to go about that, before he simply decided to go with the truth. In one form, anyhow. "You've heard about the hacking and information leaks that have been going on for a few years now, right?"

She nodded, understanding in her eyes. "I had thought as much. It figures that he would continue with what he knows best. Well, it makes me feel better to know my case wasn't merely a fluke. But, to clarify, you do mean ' _Redhax_ ', don't you?"

"...Just to be clear, that was something the media tagged onto him, he's..."

"Never used any names or signs for identification, yes, I've noticed. He is _'no one',_ after all. Yes, I thought the moniker a bit... too flagrant, for his style." She said, nodding. "So he is on the Citadel, then?"

"He would have to be somewhere that has extranet connections to everywhere in the galaxy. The Citadel certainly fits that bill." Emiya shrugged, getting up as he noted that the _pagoda_ was just about done.

Following the mail client, he found a connection to another omnitool, similar to the one she was wearing. Only, it had not been wiped clean but still had considerable amounts of data stored on it. He found it nearby, not fifty meters from his apartment. _Probably in her skycar or shuttle._

She blinked at him getting up, following him with her eyes as he turned off the power and began to pour out the excess water. The moment he let out the excess pressure, the boiling temperature of the water dropped sharply, and a third of the water began to evaporate within seconds.

Straining the rest of the vegetables, he moved them to the table and then brought out the cold smoked fish as well. Sitting down, he motioned for her to begin. "Well, it's not much, but go ahead."

Pouring himself some water, he watched as she took a little bit of everything and then waited for him to take some as well. _She thinks I might have poisoned the food. How insulting._

He said nothing, taking a bit of everything as well and then with a quick 'itadakimasu' began to dig in. Ignoring Miranda's expectant blinking, he simply ate at his own pace. He had been hungry for hours now and had no interest in waiting any longer to sate himself.

At the same time, he went through the data he had found, verifying that it did indeed belong to Miranda. _So, she found me through a photograph someone posted on social media, with me in the background. I thought I had been spoofing all cameras to avoid having my face show up anywhere, but as expected a 'dumb machine' can't be influenced in real time._

Opposite to him, Miranda sampled everything he was eating in the same order, making sure not to eat anything before she had verified that he thought it edible. But it was obvious her wariness was being replaced by her being impressed and increasingly distracted by the food. After all, if there was something he could hold pride in, it was his culinary skills.

As he continued digging through her files, he blinked in the middle of his eating. Before Miranda noticed, he continued. _Her boss did not tell her about my kidnapping, but she dug it all out herself and is here without telling anyone? What the hell?_

"This is quite good. What is it called?" Miranda suddenly asked, reaching for a second portion.

He looked up, tilting his head, not certain what to say to that.

"It doesn't have a name, really. I just made it. Cold smoked fish with cooked vegetables, I guess?"

She looked up at him at that admission. "Using Thessian ingredients? I had heard that the trace amounts of eezo and the higher gravity made it so that the taste of most foodstuffs is different from Earth foods."

"...Well, you're not wrong. But in the end, ingredients are just ingredients. As long as you know what you're doing and understand the palate who you're serving to, then making food isn't all that difficult."

She raised an eyebrow at him, obviously skeptical at his nonchalance. But it really was the truth; there was no need for recipes or rules once you broke down ingredients into their base components and properties, that was all.

He continued eating, taking his third portion as he continued going through her files in secret. _So she wrote an aging program and threw in all the data she had on me and then let it run, keeping it looking for me for years. What a woman._

For a moment, he considered how to handle this. So far, he had simply been playing along as a host ought, even if she had invited herself inside. He really had nothing against her, or Cerberus, at this point in time. They had inconvenienced him, he had repaid them in full and then let the Systems Alliance deal with the rest. Thus if they were content to leave him alone, then he did not see any need to continue hostilities.

But he had used them; had used _her_. He had little hope that they felt as _laissez faire_ about the whole matter as he did.

 _Wait... Cerberus itself doesn't know I smuggled myself to the Citadel? Or that I'm on Thessia? It's just her? And it doesn't look like she or Cerberus knows about my cybernetization with the STG, either._ Emiya looked at Miranda, then. _What exactly is she doing here?_

"So, what can I help you with?" He said, as they began to be mostly done with their meal. A little bit of everything still remained, as he had been holding back so as to leave enough for her if she wished to take thirds.

She looked at him, huffing and smiling lightly. "No, you've done plenty already. Well, a few questions if I may...?"

He shrugged at that, making her nod.

"What are your intentions here? You have been whiling away here for years now, I know. Certainly, you have been busy as your eclectic syllabus will attest, but what is it that you're after?"

There wasn't any reason he could think of to lie here, not really. "To find out more about the Protheans. Their culture, mostly."

She blinked at that, obviously surprised. Turning thoughtful, she nodded to herself. "Ah, yes. Professor Henell should be returning this week. That does make sense, I suppose."

They sat in silence for a good ten seconds, before Miranda shook her head. She seemed to have come to a conclusion about something she had been thinking about for a while, now.

She stood up and holstered the pistol she had been resting on her lap during the whole meal. If she thought he had known about it, she did not react to his stoicism. She walked over to him, as he still sat by the table and smiled down at him.

He was already much taller than she was, his growth spurts bringing him to his full height. But sitting down as he was, he was still shorter than she was right now.

For a moment, he felt utterly bewildered. She was patting his head, obviously aware of how strange it was as he could see a slight widening of her pupils at his reaction.

"Stay out of trouble, mister Emiya. And don't trouble your _brother_ too much." She said, turning to walk to the front door.

"Er... Okay?" Was all Emiya could say as he blinked.

"Thank you for the meal, it was quite delicious, and I apologize for intruding like this." She said, walking out and closing the door behind her with a knowing smile and a wave of her hand.

_...What just happened?_

He looked out the window, seeing Miranda walking to a skycar parked by the adjacent block, where he had located the omnitool. He instantly managed to connect to the vehicle and find out it was a rental with nothing to it.

 _Should I follow her? Or take her out, now?_ He hesitated. He did not really have anything against her or Cerberus, really. He was certain they were shady, but he hadn't seen much of what they really did. It was part of the reason he had chosen to lead the human authorities to them, rather than trying to handle them on his own.

They would have known what to do with such an organization better, he reasoned.

To him, it was already long in the past, but to them it was something they would probably never let go. Even if she had no intentions of harming him, could the same be said about the rest of Cerberus?

He watched as she began to drive off, the back of her skycar already fading into the horizon as she sped away.

 _I'm not going to kill her, but... I should follow her and see if I can find out something more._ He thought, walking back to sit by the dinner table and exiting his body, setting his cybernetics on a _stand-by_ protocol that would keep his body running in a low-power mode, as if he was meditating.

Immediately, _something_ went wrong.

He only realized because he was still half in a _dive_ in his brain, but the moment he was letting go of his control, his cybernetics began to do something on their own. The moment he almost vacated himself, the keening sound that had been playing for hours now seemed to suddenly _echo_ back from his own head.

 _What?_ He blinked for a second, before diving back inside himself instantly. He traced the outgoing signal and cut it off. _Why did it do that?_

He extended his senses, realizing with sudden horror that the signal had been intercepted and was being bounced forward and being propagated by every computer around him. He could tell it was wholly unique, nothing alike any of the signals he had been aware of until now.

 _Damn, what is this?_ Realizing immediately that the signal that had originated from him was distinctly different from that of everything else, a thought occurred to him. Was this some kind of trap for him? He began to try and delete the signal, but for every one he could get his hands on, two others split off into other computers.

 _I can't stop it._ Realizing he couldn't handle it all, he instead began to try and spread it. If this was some kind of attempt to track him down, then he could assume that if they could pinpoint his location then he was just about done. He would have to disappear again, if that happened. _No, even if I manage to dissipate the signal's origin to a wider area, I'm still one of the only humans on Thessia, damn it, I need this thing gone!_

Emiya focused, pushing more and more magical energy into the dive as he began to phase his consciousness out of his body, keeping only a tendril behind to keep the signal from being propagated again. _It's just spread to computers in Serrice, it's not just trying to go to one terminal which would make it easy to track. It's almost like this was tailored to work against me..._

He was burning through magical energy rapidly and he could distantly note his exhale feeling like he was blowing fire through his teeth in his body. _I need to wrap this up before my body gives out. If I could just jump out and not worry about my body, I could go all out, but that signal will just start again from my body if I do._

Emiya blinked, pulling his attention back to his body. He stood up, kicking away from the dinner table as he extended his hands.

"—Trace, _On!"—begin projection,_

The coffin-like steel chest instantly encased his entire body. It was three times in thickness of the icebox he had used years ago, with fourteen layers of Faraday cage-like isolation. No signal should be able to go through this.

He immediately jumped out of his body, diving into the nearby kitchen terminal. _Good, my body isn't sending out any signals. That means I can go all out!_

He dove deeper, falling into that dark ocean once more. But he didn't wait to fall to the blue plane beneath, instead immediately focusing and _pushing_ his essence outwards.

It had been two seconds since the first signal from his cybernetic parts had begun to spread outwards. Since then, it had spread outward into everything and replicated anew to spread into everything else around that, again. It had almost already reached the extranet hubs that could take it off-world. Only his prioritization of cutting off those signals had kept it from already happening. But the longer he waited the less he would be able to do, as the signals spread exponentially while he could only deal with things on a much smaller scale.

Thus, he had to exterminate it right now, while _he still could_.

" _I am the bone of my sword."_

He intoned and everything began to warp around him.

In the past, he had tried to project various items inside of this digital reality, experimenting with the results. Generally, it required extremely powerful hardware to handle the results. He hypothesized that it was not so much the function of the noble phantasm that did it, but the forceful addition of something that was too big into a container that was already straining under trying contain his own diving self. Whatever the cause may be, the results were usually always the same. Even a noble phantasm that was characterized by how it would not damage what it struck, such as Rule Breaker, could cause considerable 'pressure' to the system.

This time, he was going to go way beyond that time.

Emiya beheld the fourteen thousand two hundred and sixteen computers capable of wireless communication that were propagating the signal, each represented by a dot of light in this digital world beneath him. They were spread out all over Serrice, from where he lived as a rough center. He had to destroy them all, right now.

The preparations were set, he raised his hand.

— _all processes completed, all projections stand by, ceasing decompression,_

Fourteen thousand two hundred and sixteen virtual swords appeared above him, all pointed at the signal propagators he could see. His arm swung down, like an executioner's blade crashing down to cut off a head.

— _all projections fire!_

The swords exploded forward as his magical energy roared, shaking the entirety of that reality. It was like a depth charge had gone off, and what followed only grew more potent.

White static, nothing could exist in that moment as the reality itself came crashing down.

The digital ocean exploded and he was ejected forcibly out into the real world again as he barely had time to see his swords striking true. He shook his head, looking at the smoking terminal he had dove into earlier and been spit out of just now. The screen was dead, its internal systems burned out.

 _It's broken_ , he thought as he turned on his heel and jumped outside his house, phasing through the wall.

Miranda's skycar had shut down and she was looking around, obviously perplexed by what had happened. Emiya didn't spare her another glance as he moved to find a working omnitool to dive into.

Back in the digital world, he began to immediately search for any other signals with the unique imprint that had started from him. That was the biggest problem with his dive; it wasn't the same as what a skilled hacker did. He wasn't writing code, that could self-propagate and spread like a wildfire. Even the earliest computer viruses humanity had made had the ability to spread and 'act' independently to fulfill their purpose.

He could only act himself and on things he could perceive. If a single ping had escaped beyond his notice, it would have already spread beyond his reach. If that was the case, there was nothing to be done but make his escape before anyone thought to come investigate in meatspace.

Emiya began to go through system after system, jumping from server to server, checking everywhere he could think of for signs. As he found nothing, he finally let out a sigh of relief. He immediately began to trawl the extranet for any information as to what the hell he had stumbled into.

As he found a news article that seemed related, he blinked.

' **Citadel Council pushes through invasive new cyber-surveillance bill that will allow it to gather metadata from all computers!** '

He blinked, reading through the article.

' _In an attempt to fight back against the malicious blackhat hacking that has been on the rise in recent years, the Citadel Council has signed a bill that will allow it to gather information on all computers with extranet connectivity capabilities. This controversial bill has been propped up by three hundred top companies operating in Citadel Space, along with Salarian Union officials and the Turian Primarch. The justification behind this claim is that due to the recent string of hacking attacks, the companies have not been able to do business safely and that with governmental communications so exposed, it poses a grave risk to all Council races if this vulnerability is not rectified._ '

Emiya ground his teeth, realizing that this wasn't just something that had come out of the blue. This was something mentioned in the morning newsreel, yet he had completely ignored it.

' _Critics of the bill have argued that the economy has not suffered at all, but rather that consumer trust is at an all time high, even if investor trust has dipped slightly in recent years(_ **Click here** _for more). Additionally, objections have been raised to installing tracking software on all computers, since there would be a significant resources drain on every computer. Earlier this week, concerns over the sapient rights' violations over privacy were also raised, but after the asari-lead Sapient Rights Council based in Ulee gave the bill the greenlight, many who had been vocal objectors prior have fallen silent._ _On social media, the famous free-information group TruthHax has continued to rally against this bill, but as of today it seems to have all been for naught.'_

"Oh for fuck's sake." Emiya sighed, palming his face. This was all his fault, wasn't it?

He stopped reading and began to navigate towards one of the hacker boards he knew about. It was an surface-level board, but it still held a presence of more experienced and knowledgeable cyber-specialists who would know what was going on. He immediately found the thread discussing the bill and began to leaf through.

As expected, there were people who had found connections to both the Special Tasks Group and the Spectres. One poster claimed that an asari by the name of Tela Vasir had visited the Ulee Sapient Rights Council days before they had received the bill, postulating that there must be more behind that than a mere courtesy call.

But just as he had thought, this really all was his fault.

' _RedHax has been way too indiscriminate. I mean, it's one thing to reveal to the world that a corporation is laundering money or using child labor on a colony world... But hacking into salarian and asari ministries to reveal corruption and tweedisms? Even if those people have been tried and sentenced by the governments, they can't just let someone like that stay around and do nothing about it. This is just the natural consequence of that._ '

He exhaled, pulling out and returning to the real world. He leaped back to his house, settling into his body and dismissing the coffin he had created. "What a mess."

It had all started about four years ago, when while reading some news, he had stumbled upon unusual signs that he felt were vaguely familiar somehow. His instincts drove him to investigate further, and he ended up diving through a company's internal records regarding a distant planet near the border of the Terminus systems.

As a result, he had found a full scale slave revolt going on, where the corporation had been abusing the colonists to make a profit, using the inhospitable conditions and the long distance from any other system or mass relay to isolate them. It was so far away from everything and everyone, that no one had noticed. Enough so that he hadn't had any means of going there himself, either.

Feeling rather helpless, he had wracked his brain over what to do.

Finally he simply decided to reveal the truth of the matter to the world, without revealing his identity or the exact means through which he had uncovered that information. Spreading proof on social media sites, and revealing attempts by the company trying to suppress him, he had managed to rouse enough attention for something to be done about it. The galaxy had been outraged, the company's stock had plummeted and public outcry for action had stormed the various social media.

The Citadel Council had intervened and things had seemed to work out surprisingly well, with the company forced to take responsibility and conditions improving for the people on the distant colony. Of course, since they still lived in such a distant and inhospitable region, their lives had only been really affected in the short-term. But he _had_ helped them.

Thus he had started hacking into places and things he found suspicious, and had begun to spread information whenever he found something questionable or illegal going on. He was essentially stuck on Thessia, yet aware of the goings on in the rest of the galaxy, thus it only seemed to make sense.

It was quick and efficient; he was not the arbiter of justice, merely the one who made the truth known to the people, letting them dispense their own justice. It was actually rather nice for a change, he had thought. No need to bloody his hands, no difficult moral quandaries when it came to revealing that a CEO was laundering money and using it to sell drugs, no need to even leave his apartment. Most nights as he let his body rest, he spent his time diving and investigating the extranet, finding leads and following up as he felt necessary.

He hadn't ever left any kind of calling card or signs of how he accomplished what he did, thinking that there was no need to draw attention to himself. But it seemed that his ability to ferret out the truth from anywhere and anyone, along with usually undeniable proof without any kind of traces being left behind anywhere, had instead become his 'signature' in the eyes of the public.

There had of course been copycats and those who tried to coast along on that infamy, but if he thought they were stepping out of line, he revealed the truth of their duplicity just as he did with anyone else to the galaxy. He had thought that to be the extent of his troubles, that outside of a few individuals he wouldn't have to worry about the consequences of his actions.

But expecting the governments and companies to do _nothing_ had been naive of him, he now realized.

He sighed, rubbing his brow. Looking out, he tried to search for Miranda. The skycar was still there, dead in the water, but she was gone. She must have left quickly, realizing something was amiss.

Jumping up through the roof in his spiritual form, he tried to scan the area. But she was nowhere to be seen.

Landing back inside his apartment, he closed his eyes and weighed his option. Look for Miranda or continue monitoring the situation here? She could have shot him, taken him in, could have done any number of things, given that she had the gun and he had been unarmed—from her perspective anyhow.

That meant he could probably assume she had no intention of burning him at the moment.

 _Probably,_ _anyhow._ Emiya thought, getting back to the table and taking the rest of his lunch. He had burned through a lot of magical energy with this debacle and he needed to recover in case everything went south again.

He was less certain of the entire situation here. He might have missed something, someone might be coming in to investigate and could trace it back to him. Really, he needed to be keeping an eye on this situation and seeing how it developed. He nodded to himself, deciding on a course of action.

In the worst case scenario, he had to be able to leave Thessia in minutes. Once he had preparations set for that possibility, he would dive right back in to continue his investigation.

* * *

;

* * *

Mordin rolled his eyes, closing the mail with a heavy heart.

Another of his old colleagues had just perished—the approach of old age once again making someone among the ranks of the STG grow desperate enough to try something outrageous. They could push themselves to a very advanced age, but they could not deny death.

The promise of longevity through self-modification was as tempting as it had always been to the salarians. And with an example of someone so clearly staving off death using such methods...

In recent years, some had been growing bolder and bolder. Despite constant failures, that _one time_ still taunted and tempted them. Surely there must have been some detail they had not considered, surely _something_ could be gleamed from that operation, surely somehow they too, could turn themselves more synthetic than salarian.

Anything for just a little bit more time.

He had read the detailed analysis on the exotic matter pulled from that anomalous human's brain and as expected, it hadn't worked as had been hoped. One of those who had been looking into that case had thought to use the exotic matter as a form of bridging material, attempting to perform a highly invasive and complex cybernetization operation on himself, thinking that it would allow him to recover as quickly as the anomalous human had.

"Foolishness." Mordin shook his head.

As he had outlined himself in his original analysis, back with 'Shirou Emiya' himself, the exotic matter was something that was _disappearing_. The human had been seeking something to replace the exotic matter, thus assuming that it had anything to do with his recovery was quite fallacious. All of it had been removed from the brain, thus assuming that it had been the catalyst for the flawless cybernetization was ridiculous.

A great amount of the exotic matter had been disappearing, only leaving the Special Tasks Group with a fraction of the original amount by the time they had found a way to halt its decay. Since then, many attempts had been made at investigating the matter, but so far nothing had been truly made of those forays.

Yet, it still seemed like the key to the holy grail for many. There would be no funeral, no wake and no one to send off the recently passed away salarian. Their colleagues had not even waited for the body to cool down, before beginning their biopsy on him.

It was beginning to seem like an obsession to Mordin.

Another good reason to distance himself from that branch of the STG. He had worked on the cyber-division for a while instead, using his personal experience with 'Shirou Emiya' as a basis for the new contingencies and plans. They had long since connected the dots between 'Shirou Emiya' and the entity publicly known as 'Redhax'. Attempts had been made at tracking down the individual, but so far nothing had been found.

Several sting operations and tracking attempts had been made, resulting in many arrests and interesting revelation regarding the prevalence of un-monitored AI, but those had been incidental. Often times, it even felt like a lead was nothing more than a red herring meant to sic the STG onto various criminal activities. Ranging from hard drugs and arms merchants to organ trafficking, from political corruption and kidnapping rings, anything and everything somehow seemed to be related to 'Redhax' when the STG went snooping around. While Mordin was always happy to do good, it did feel slightly irritating on a professional level to be held in such low regard as to be made an errand boy.

Attempts had been made to prod the Alliance Intelligence Agency for information regarding 'Shirou Emiya', but aside from evidence gathered from Cerberus' assets regarding a hunt for an individual called 'Outis', the STG had nothing to show for their work so far. As a result—on explicit Council orders—very little information had been passed back, causing a rift to occur between the intelligence branches of the Citadel and of the Systems Alliance. The humans _knew_ that the STG knew something, but aside from the connection between Cerberus and 'Outis', they couldn't have known much.

It really was a rather embarrassing and uncomfortable state of affairs, given that 'Redhax' never seemed to stop or slow down.

As a result, the Citadel Council had been growing rather desperate. Certain extreme measures that had been drawn up were taken into consideration in recent months, and against the Special Tasks Group's advisement, the new security bill had been passed. Mordin thought it a foolish policy, given that it was predicated on the model that 'Shirou Emiya' was an advanced Artificial Intelligence bound to a bluebox computer, for which no proof existed. But the Council was under a lot of pressure and could not be stopped, thus half-cocked measures were better than no measures.

Already things were shaking up to be complicated, as it was being enacted. Merely the reveal that the STG had a model of nearly every operating system used in the galaxy and could create firmware additions to their base code, with the practical considerations for such a thing already in place, was telling of how long the Citadel's reach _really_ was. No intelligence agency worth its salt should fail to pick up on that.

Mordin rolled his eyes again, wondering at the long-term effects that the bill would have. The Systems Alliance had never taken kindly to being restricted or monitored too closely, thus the effects of the bill would undoubtedly only serve to chill the relations between humanity and the Citadel races, just for starters.

But it was out of his hands already.

He set aside the omnitool and began to pack up. He was moving to another facility, where he would be tackling another problem which while older and far slower, presented a far more insidious threat if not handled delicately. Already he had been reading up on the planet, familiarizing himself with the subject as preparation.

"No time for rest, always working~" He hummed, thinking of a song he had been writing up for a play recently. Perhaps he should try his hand at publishing another one, again.

Well, it would have to wait until after this Genophage situation was handled.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sighed, rubbing his brow.

After Miranda had left, evening had fallen, followed by night and finally by the dawn of a new day. He had just returned to his body, dispelling the coffin and getting himself something to eat again to re-fuel his magical energy.

He hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, as he looked around for information and kept an eye on the investigation that occurred after his mishap. Despite his earlier confidence, he hadn't been able to find any good information on the cause beyond something the Citadel Council had passed into law. The signal simply seemed to work like a ping that echoed back from anything that had the necessary extranet protocols to connect to anything—be it through wireless or wired connection—creating a unique ID based on the physical characteristics of the hardware.

And all of that he only knew based on the speculation of a forum poster whose account was subsequently scrubbed off of all records. Even though he had read up on a variety of subjects, he really did not have a solid enough a foundation in tightbeam communications to be able to actually figure out what was going on. When he was diving, he was not acting in the capacity of a talented hacker. He was simply cheating, powering through with magical energy when he faced problems.

He could not understand why the signal only pinged when he left his body, either. Perhaps his dive inside of the hardware somehow blotted out the base functionality necessary to send a confirmation signal? His constant state of half-dive while he was in his body meant that the hardware was not operating independently, but rather only acting as a vessel to house half of his consciousness. The only counter-measure he had come up with so far, was encasing his body in a strong enough Faraday Cage to block out any possibility of connection. This put a serious hamper on his ability to act as a heroic spirit, he realized, as it would require him to project that coffin every time. At night, when he was sleeping, it wasn't really a problem.

But if he needed to suddenly act during the day as a heroic spirit, it would require some careful planning to handle.

Finally after hours of looking around for anything with no real luck, he had pulled back and settled back in his body. So far, it seemed that no one had caught on as to what had happened; the damage he had done had spread out far enough in the city that it couldn't be traced down enough to point to his location directly.

Officials were completely flabbergasted by what had happened. There were rumors of gamma ray bursts or an EMP attack, of a hacker out on the loose or even of a rampant AI causing this. But there was no official word out by Serrice Police, yet.

The omnitools, cars, household appliances and public terminals that had been absolutely destroyed in his rampage, had accrued material damages that were being conservatively estimated in the tens of millions of credits. Luckily, no one had actually been seriously hurt, though several skycars had been immobilized in mid-air and had fallen to the ground.

Only the numerous safety features and 'dumb' redundancies had allowed them to land unscathed.

 _I was too hasty and over-reacted. I could have gotten someone killed._ He cursed, looking over the list of injured again. That no one had gotten anything more than a bump or a scratch was a small mercy, at least.

He looked at his open palm, weighing the consequences of his actions again. Should he have let the signal go through? He could have simply run, couldn't he? Sighing again, he got up and shook his head. He had made his choice; staying on Thessia given how close he was to getting to attend Professor Henell's classes was worth the damages he had caused. No one had died, no one had been given permanent injuries. He could repay them all, with time. But he couldn't get this education anywhere else, he reasoned.

Emiya closed the file, noting that the list of damages hadn't been updated in half an hour now. He would directly repay the worst of the damages, since this had been his mess. But his current funds weren't enough, so he would have to do something about that. _Well, it's all already in place, I just need to start production._

Shaking his head, he got up and looked at the clock. He wasn't in any hurry yet, as the afternoon lesson with Professor Henell that marked the first of this years course was still hours away.

Still, he needed to get his head out of this funk.

"Might as well pay Baliya a visit." He said, getting up.

Leaving his apartment and getting in his skycar, he drove to the University of Serrice. He had a tendency to shut down his skycar completely when he left it parked, leaving it still operational after everything. It was simply a method he had thought to keep anyone from tampering with it without his knowledge.

Not that it would have mattered, since public transportation in Serrice was quite good.

Finding a parking spot where the Automated Parking System would handle it, he left the car. Getting out, he turned towards a wing on the west side of the main building. It was the museum of the University of Serrice, housing artifacts from both Thessia and many other planets within its ancient halls. Normally the sections he liked to visit were closed off to the public, but he had managed to get in Professor Haphia's good graces over the years. Apparently, the ability to repair anything cheaply and without having to pay for it was still appreciated anywhere in the galaxy.

Walking through the front entrance, he nodded at the guard posted behind a security window. The uniformed asari looked up, nodding at him as he walked past her.

He looked at the various sculptures and artworks—things deemed to be the most interesting for the asari public—held up on display as he walked towards the personnel-only section of the building. Using the digital access card he had been given, the normally locked door opened to give him access.

Walking onward through the storage areas, his eyes raked the numerous closets and drawers, all labeled for various contents by period and location. There were shelves dedicated to single plants, while there were entire rooms dedicated to specific cities on Thessia.

Even a cursory glance told him that in these rooms were things stored from half of the known galaxy's race's pasts. He walked through, not bothering to slow down to examine any of them. It wasn't his first time here, thus the awe had mostly worn off already.

Arriving at an office deep within the museum, he knocked at the door as he peeked inside. The lights were off, yet he could see that the computers were still on. _Lucky thing that it didn't spread all the way here. I would have hesitated to nuke the university's computers, considering the value of everything stored here._

"Baliya, are you in here?"

He heard a mumble from beneath the desk, causing him to huff as he walked around to find her sleeping on the floor on a inflatable mattress.

Crouching down and shaking her shoulder gently, he looked at her as she slowly woke up. _So much for the Matriarchs all being figures of respect and authority_.

"Don't tell me you were up all night again. I keep telling you you need to take better care of yourself."

"nn...?" The sleeping asari complained, raising a single hand to shoo him away.

"I'm taking the key for a moment, that fine?"

"nn..." She made a sound he knew to be roughly equivalent to 'go ahead' but could have equally been a 'go away'. _Well, close enough._

He huffed, standing up and taking a keycard from the desk's top drawer, deciding the leave her be.

Though Baliya Haphia was one of the oldest professors in the University of Serrice, she really only cared about the museum. Having been the curator for well over three hundred years, organizing and tagging everything stored within these walls was her passion and purpose in life.

Walking out, he continued on until he arrived at another door. Reinforced and hermetically sealed steel, this section of the museum stored the oldest and most valuable pieces housed within. The door closed behind him and he pocketed the key card as he looked at a specific wall. _Third section from the left, fourth drawer from the floor_ , he remembered clearly.

Reaching out, he opened the drawer to reveal a collection of asari artifacts, dating back more than six thousand years on average. From half a meter long to almost one and a half at the most; sharpened steel with a hilt for comfortable gripping, with a point of balance that lay somewhere in the lower quarter of the blade, just above the crossguard.

Swords, a full dozen of them, sealed in plastic containers and coated in in a layer of patina that spoke of aging with grace in a way only eezo alloys could. They were beautiful pieces, all curving lines and rolling design with sparkling dots of element zero peeking through, reminiscent of the ocean and the night sky.

These were the works of master swordsmiths, he could tell at a glance.

There was just one problem.

According to Unlimited Blade Works, they weren't _swords_. Well, that wasn't strictly true. The moment he touched one, and felt the weight and thought 'this is a sword', it would suddenly become one, appearing within his reality marble.

Problem was that even then, he could not read the past of the blades. Not beyond the moment he touched them, anyhow.

It was a strange inversion of the case with the Prothean gun. Something that _shouldn't_ have been replicated, was. Something that should be replicated, _wasn't_. He hadn't been surprised; he had realized as much five years ago, back on the Citadel already. Seeing the turians' traditional culinary talon knives attached to their fingers and not having them appear in his reality marble was enough to clue him in on that fact.

But, he hadn't been dissuaded. Rather, he had taken it as a learning opportunity.

He knew nothing about the Protheans and hoped to learn more about them; to acquire their _logos_ and to be able to understand more about those strange guns he had found. Of course, such a thing was by no means an easy feat, and he had had no idea where to even begin.

Thus, these asari swords presented a possibility to him.

To learn _how to learn_ a logos.

The Protheans were dead and gone, only traces remaining of that once galaxy-spanning civilization. By contrast, the asari were still around, flourishing even. Surely it would be easier to learn the latter than it was the former, he reasoned. Then, using the methods and principles of learning he had from learning asari logos, he could plan out how to learn about the Protheans.

That had been the plan, and he had been working at it for a good five years now.

Emiya knew about asari customs, about their languages and their habits. He knew how they lived and died, how they celebrated and how they mourned. He knew about the history of Thessia, of its religions and conflicts. He knew about the rise of republics and fall of empires. He thought he had come to understand the asari, as well as humanly possible.

Yet, it changed nothing when it came to these swords, apparently. He knew the exact physical make up, he knew roughly how to use them, he knew the theory behind their function and construction. He knew when they had been made and had managed to reason out the methods of construction for each.

Yet, they remained silent before him.

Nothing had changed in the year since he had been here last, even as he had refined his understanding of eezo and mass effect field theory. As a result of his hard work, he had figured out how to create his specialized pressure cooker, something which emulated asari cooking. A feat that no one else in the galaxy had managed to get working yet.

He had even been training i'usu and even gotten rather good at it, despite his obvious handicaps in lacking biotics. Really, it was asari kendo with biotics, but he had taken to it quite well once he figured out the way the eezo-laminated swords worked.

At one point he had questioned whether the weapons held a similar meaning to the asari as they had to humanity, but upon reflection he could only assume that it was so. They were ubiquitous in popular culture, really. Ancient tales, myths and surviving theater scripts in ancient times. Action vids and simulstim spectacles in today's world. Many a game even had classes such as ' _Blade Mistress_ ' or ' _Sword Saint_ ' as asari exclusives, based on old legends of asari who had been able to hold off entire armies on their own, wielding but a single sword.

Most considered such nothing but aphoristic myths or tall tales, told again and again, with each re-telling making it sound grander and greater until the result was the legends now known and written down in ancient texts. Modern recreations had clear limits to what could be done with such blades, proving in the eyes of many that those legends could not be taken seriously.

But he had a unique perspective on such things. He had not found any evidence of magic in the galaxy so far, but that did not mean that in the past such things had not existed. Looking at it, he thought it entirely possible that ancient asari blades had been able to demonstrate effects on the level of what the legends spoke of.

He simply wasn't able to confirm it.

Emiya sighed, staring at the swords. He had been on Thessia for years now, yet nothing had changed. A part of him felt that even if he did learn about the Protheans that nothing would change then either, that even if he stayed for another decade he would get no closer to understanding what had happened in that chamber deep below the surface of Mars. _It's not like I have been sitting idly by for all these years... But is it time to give up on the Protheans?_

What if he simply stopped trying to follow this lead and focused on his 'hacktivism' instead? Wouldn't he accomplish more good that way? The Protheans were dead and long gone, what would it matter if he figured out the cause behind their disappearance?

He shook his head, closing the drawer. The time wasn't quite yet for declaring this a lost cause. If nothing else, he had learned a great deal, that would allow him to continue living in the galaxy without further problems.

"My time here _hasn't_ been wasted." He told himself, sighing as he turned to leave.

Returning to Baliya's office, he found her sitting upright and groggily looking around. On seeing him, she tilted her head and squinted.

"Fujimura? I thought I saw you come in..."

"Good morning, professor." Emiya spoke with only slight amusement. This was hardly a new occurrence, thus the novelty had long since worn off. "Shall I put the coffee on?"

"Oh, yes... _Please..."_

Though the price of coffee beans was considerable, Thessia was not the heart of galactic commerce for nothing. Importing it was merely matter of finding the right supplier.

The asari as a rule weren't great fans of the beverage, but Baliya who spent all of her time indoors and ignoring the natural day cycles as much as she could, had come to cherish the pick-me-up it presented. At first she had complained about the bitter taste, but soon enough she had grown into someone who could not stand anything but a freshly ground black brew.

Taking out the bean grinder he had made her and filling it up, he began to prepare a cup for the asari as she slowly got herself into something resembling wakefulness.

"I see you've been busy. With the expedition's return from the dig site, I'm guessing there are a lot of new Prothean artifacts to label and get sorted away."

She looked up, eyes lighting up as she processed his words.

"Yes! You wouldn't believe the things they found there. Everything from third era materials to first era artwork in nearly pristine condition! And this is just the first shipment of three. I'll be busy with all of this for weeks!"

He huffed as he put the water on boil. Of all of the methods he had tried, she had come to enjoy the French press the most. Though, Emiya suspected that was simply due to the ease of use when it came to the press he had also made for her.

"Make sure to eat and exercise properly. I don't want to find you in another coma from overworking yourself the next time I come back, alright?"

She shook her head and waved his concerns off with a scoff. Then, she sniffed herself, cringing at the smell.

"Ah, I'll have to shower and change clothes before Nirida returns. She's always so prim and proper, always telling me to 'look the part of a professor', tch... If it wasn't for how good she was, I wouldn't be able to stand her guts!"

Emiya merely raised an eyebrow as he made a noise of understanding.

"...You're not going to tell her that I said that, are you?"

He merely smiled in response making her get up and walk towards him with pleading eyes.

"Come on, I wasn't serious. She'll give me that look the next time we see, if you tell her. I've gotten along with her for fifty three years now, don't go and ruin it!"

"Well, we'll see. I'll be starting my classes with her today." He said, smiling as he poured two cups of the dark brew.

Really, he liked a touch of milk to curb the bitterness and overall preferred tea, but on Thessia it wasn't exactly easy to get the leaves he preferred. Coffee was really sold on its caffeine value, rather than on the taste. Milk was also something that did not really exist on Thessia. Not that he would have drank anything so easily spoiled, were it to be stored in this office. Baliya might have claimed to love the taste of a cup of plain black, but he knew she had only started drinking it like that due to being too lazy to store anything more than the bare necessities in her office.

He had once found a glass of water that had dried out and half-calcified on the inside from the liquid slowly gathering dust and evaporating. He had done the calculations; given the average humidity and temperature, it must have been in the room for at least thirty to fifty years untouched.

 _I hope not all Prothean-enthusiasts are this 'unique'._ He noted as he handed her the other cup.

"Thank you." She said, blowing once, twice, at the beverage before pouring half of it down her throat. He didn't bother commenting on her drinking habits, as she then as usual washed down the heat with cold water from another cup.

 _Then again, the entire species seems predisposed towards extremes. A result of their reproductive methods, perhaps?_ He playfully mused, not seriously considering that beyond a joke.

"You've been here for half a decade already, huh. It feels like we just met yesterday." Baliya said, setting down the cup and sitting down by her desk as she with her foot rolled up the mattress she had been using and kicking it to the side. Turning on the terminal, she grimaced. "Ugh, work mail always piles up in the mornings... Why does everyone always use the 'send all' button? I don't even care about any of this stuff!"

He smiled as she began to rant about staff meetings, upcoming social events and students sending adverts using the mail, clogging it up constantly.

"Well, I should be going. Thanks for lending me the key." Emiya said after emptying his own mug and pouring in some water to wash away the remains of the coffee, drinking that too.

"Hmm? Don't mention it. You're always welcome here, Fujimura." She said, looking up as she finished the last of her coffee too. Unlike him, she did not bother washing it with water, but instead there was a flare of dark energy around her and the remains of the drink floated into her mouth.

He nodded, turning around to leave.

"Oh, wait up." She said before he could reach the door. He blinked, turning around. "There's a mail here, let's see... You were talking about the Prothean-101 course with Nirida earlier, right?"

"Hmm? Yeah."

She looked up, with a look of consternation as their eyes met. "It looks like its been called off, for some reason."

He perked at that, brows furrowing. "Does it say why?"

"No, but you want me to ask? They're all online, right now."

Emiya nodded. "Please."

He walked back to the desk, crossing his arms as he stood by. It took a minute until a reply was received.

"Huh, she's still gone. She was to go on the last ship to leave Dretirop, but she hasn't come back yet. The rest of the skeleton crew with her is still missing, too. They don't know anything more, so for now the class has just been canceled." Baliya said, looking up with a frown. "That's not like her. She's very punctual normally... At the very least, I would have expected her to call in."

Emiya frowned.

"Thanks for telling me, I need to go."

She looked up, nodding as she was broken out of her thoughts. "Hmm? Yes. Come any time, Fujimura."

"You just say that because I'm the only one who will make you coffee." He shot back with a smirk.

She didn't bother to deny it, waving him away as he left.

He walked back to his skycar, mentally already connecting to the University intranet to look into the class, tracing back the mail and then checking what the faculty knew. As Baliya had said, it appeared to have been suddenly canceled, though no other word had been said as to why beyond Henell having failed to return to Thessia. If it wasn't for Baliya, he probably would not know even that much. _I could dive in and take a closer look—_

He had to restrain himself, remembering only that he had to be doubly careful from now on. He had gotten so used to the ever-present chiming signal that he had almost forgotten about it.

Settling for simply sitting in his skycar, he did it the slow way and accessed the data while still in his body. Overlaying one of his eyes' vision with the data he was browsing, he tried to find anything on Professor Henell, but ultimately nothing beyond what he already knew was on record no matter how he tried to look around.

Shaking his head, he turned on the skycar and lifted off. The flight back was uneventful.

Emiya arrived back at his apartment, making sure to make a loop around as he checked for anyone around. With Miranda and the fallout of his attempt at tailing her, he had no reason to assume his cover was anything resembling solid any more. He had considered getting another apartment, on the other side of Serrice, but that would only raise eyebrows if someone did come to investigate. He could delete records, but the neighbors all knew and would remember him.

He sat down in the kitchen, deep in thought as he continued to trawl through the extranet. He found dozens of articles about professor Henell, written in the last three decades. She was a larger than life figure in her circles, but her tendency to drop off the map and join expeditions to remote planets for Prothean digs made her something of a distant figure.

So far, no one seemed to really have noticed her disappearance—or failure to return, rather. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying went.

Sighing, he changed subject, looking into the effects of the recent bill. Serrice's police were continuing in their investigation over the black out he had caused, though in a public statement it had been ruled out as being caused by malicious intent and the case would be handed off to cyber-specialists to investigate. So far, the running theory seemed to be a bug that caused a logic virus that corrupted certain nearby computers due to the Citadel firmware update.

He wasn't sure whether to consider it a good thing that it had taken him so long to handle the signal, but since having spread so wide, no one had yet seemed to cast a suspicious gaze at him. There were a hundred thousand asari living in this part of Serrice and while most had been off at work leaving only stationary computers affected, it still represented a humongous number of people to investigate.

The question was whether his cover could handle any level of inspection at all. If Serrice police created a file on him, could the Special Tasks Group get a hold of it automatically? Could he alter the pictures they took of him, without alerting the Serrice Police to his duplicity? If Miranda had been able to find him, so too must many other agencies if they put their minds to it, thus leaving it alone would not be acceptable either.

But avoiding the Serrice Police if they came to question him would not work, either. Everything he did would only raise concerns and curiosity right now.

"And with Henell a no show, is there any reason for me to stay here?" He asked himself.

With his current abilities, blending in was the most important. As long as he had a good cover, he could continue to act in near-perpetuity. But at the same time, the better connected he was, the more he was able to do, since outside of his informational capacity he was still bound to the planet he was on. _Then again, if I leave I can set aside_ that _disguise._

Which was an undeniable plus.

But did this mean he had to give up on trying to learn about the Protheans?

Stumbling on a more recent article, he paused in his thoughts.

' **Citadel Council announces successful anti-AI campaign result!** _'_

He blinked at that, opening up the article to take a closer look.

' _As a result of the new cyber-security metadata gathering bill, C-Sec has announced having successfully finding and catching three different rampant Artificial Intelligences that had been active on the Citadel. According to a Council spokesperson, the bill has been proving just as effective as intended in curbing out the malicious hackers who had long been suspected of being AI. "The dangers of Artificial Intelligences have long been known, and thus the best minds of the Citadel races have come together to prepare suitable measures for combating such entities, now and in the future." At least three instances have so far been confirmed, but given the number of disturbances all over Citadel Space, there is little doubt that many more other cases are going to be brought up soon._

_The Asari Republics, the Salarian Union and Turian Hierarchy—along with many of their client races—have all agreed to abide by the ruling, but controversially the Systems Alliance has refused to take part in these new measures. Citing many earlier critics of the bill, the humanity's Ambassador Donnel Udina has gone so far as to threaten leaving the Citadel, if the Council does not cease pushing for enacting the surveillance bill in Systems Alliance territories.'_

Emiya blinked, stopping as he eyed the article for a moment, trying to process that. "What the hell?"

Looking around, he found many other articles decrying the heavy-handed surveillance measures currently being put in place while just as many were in support of it. It seemed like nearly all of the galaxy was up in arms about cyber-security.

 _...Did I cause this?_ He sighed, closing the articles as he rubbed his brow.

Certainly, he had been rather indiscriminate in terms of who he had targeted, but he had only been exposing things that really should have been brought to the light of day. If it didn't affect people's lives, like a mere small-time white-collar crime, he had ignored it for the most part, since as expected going around and exposing every little thing would affect the companies themselves more than it would to simply ignore it. It was no good to lose sight of the forest for the trees, and in punishing one individual hurt a hundred more.

He tried to carefully consider who it would affect, when he decided to act; a sword once drawn could not be easily sheathed, after all. And even now, he still considered his actions to have been a net positive on the galaxy. But hadn't ever thought it would snowball into something like this. _Damn it, this is why I stuck with acting in the real world back when I was alive. Did he have these kinds of problems back then?_

He tried to remember, thinking back to the various topics his old partner had complained about, but he couldn't think of anything specific. Sighing, he moved on as he read the next headline.

' **Mysterious computer black out in Serrice! Experts at a loss, blame new surveillance bill!** '

But there was no new information beyond what he already knew in the article. Though as it seemed, the police were blaming a rampant AI for now, following the Citadel's lead.

Emiya shook his head, closing all of the articles and focusing on the real world again. This seemed like another case example of Blue Team-mentality at work. For years now he had been able to remain hidden, leaving little to no evidence of his work beyond what he had decided. Hiding in the crowds, avoiding detection and doing good where he could. He was thinking like he was still a part of the Red Team, and while he technically was, his actions weren't on such a small scale anymore.

Back when he had been alive, his actions had at most been a blip on the general news' radar. He could fight for a month straight through and it would never reach a headline on any newspaper. But now it seemed like his actions had wide-ranging implications and effects beyond what he had ever considered.

An alarm beeped and Emiya was shaken out of his reverie. He looked at the note and frowned. "Right, biotiball... I guess that was a thing."

He got up and changed clothes, bringing along another set and a towel.

Maybe some exercise would help clear his mind.

* * *

;

* * *

**Codex:**

**[ Asari Culture & Element Zero ]**

* * *

Due to the overwhelming prevalence of element zero on Thessia, most if not all of asari culture has been heavily affected by its presence. From having no need for a great many tools that most other races develop to cope with specific needs, to hobbies and unique crafting methods and products—the presence of eezo can be seen everywhere.

One famous example is _biotic cooking_. Ingredients are handled by a skilled biotic chef, who can not only handle half a dozen items at once but can also use the intrinsic properties of mass effect fields to alter the way food is fundamentally cooked. By altering the heat capacity by changing mass, the speed with which a food can be cooked can be radically shortened, or by gradually cooking certain spots of the food with certain fields, the taste and consistency can be greatly enhanced.

Another interesting facet of Thessia is that compared to many planets such as Earth, it has a very dense and vigorously moving molten core. Being smaller yet heavier than Earth, it is estimated that the total amount of iron in Thessia might well exceed forty percent. Detailed analysis has noted fluctuations, which has been speculated to be caused by the vast amounts of eezo on Thessia's surface, though no one has conclusively been able to prove such theories yet. The molten core is also noted to be moving very rapidly, giving the planet a very strong magnetic field.

As a result, a great many applications using element zero and simple circuits exist in asari culture. Ranging from i'usu to biotiball, by using simple movement it is possible to cause weak mass effect fields to be generated. Simply put, by following what is often called the "right hand rule" of electromagnetism—specifically in regards to Lorentz force—it is possible to create an electric current without any batteries or generators.

This effect can also be observed in starships and hovercraft passing through magnetic fields, or by attaching a looped wire to a voltage meter and moving the loop back and forth, though outside of small scale biotics it has not been found useful enough to warrant use, though several asari have noted that it might be possible to create a giant wire to spin around the planet's orbit to generate massive amounts of electricity. But after reviewing data from an attempt by humans on Earth over a hundred years ago, most have deemed the plan unfeasible.

For small scale biotics, it has however seen much use. Take the simplest eezo core design, featuring a simple lump of element zero. This core contains a homogeneous grain, with all of the element zero pointing in the same direction in terms of mass altering field effect output. Thus, when a current passes through this core, depending on the direction, it will create a mass effect field that will either increase or decrease mass, nothing more.

Attaching this core to a simple circuit—a length of wire that is attached to either end of the core, such that it form a single whole loop—is enough to allow the element zero to generate a mass effect field. As the circuit moves through the uneven magnetic field, it will cause electrons to move within the wire, creating a current which allows the eezo to power a mass effect field. Depending on which way it faces as it is moved, the current will either be positive or negative for the eezo core, affecting what kind of field will be created.

Inside of a biotiball a more complex system is set up, such that merely throwing the ball will not cause it to function, requiring a spin for the circuit to form and for a current to begin flowing. Thus, depending on how the ball is thrown it will behave very differently. Of course, even with the unusually strong magnetic field of Thessia, this current is minimal; only enough to affect the ball's mass. Traditionally, this field does not even stretch out to match the size of the whole biotiball, such that if the internal weight is locked in one of the side-chambers, the far side of the ball will have a greater mass, allowing the ball to behave even more unpredictably.

Fans of the sport claim that it is this feature which gives the sport its unmatched depth and complexity, as even a hundred years of practice is not enough for someone to master all of the known plays and techniques.

Another cultural icon of this simple technology, that has existed on Thessia for tens of thousands of years, are the at-one-time nearly ubiquitous asari swords _—_ the _i'usushij_.

By using biotics to laminate and twist steel with element zero, it was possible to create swords similar to biotiballs in function. With flowing water patterns of eezo running through the steel, these artifacts are cultural icons of an age so far gone that not even the long-lived asari remember it any more. According to the oldest tales, such blades could not only enhance the wielder's power, but also perform some of the most complex biotic feats known to asari even today, and in conjunction with their wielder could perform unbelievable feats that beggar belief _._ The most well known of legends tell of warriors who could halt entire armies with but their blade and biotics, and of Justicars who could condemn entire nations with their executioner's edge.

Tales of such heroes and villains are popular to the point of overflowing in various forms of media. From classical theater to simulstim movies and MMO extranet games, the biotic warriors—sword saints and blade mistresses alike—of legend are asari cultural icons.

Many an Asari Maiden has dreamed of being princess T'rilya the Sword Maiden of the Ur-Serrice Cycle, for example. The legend having been told and re-told already in over a hundred different forms over recorded asari history, it's sociological effects on immeasurable. As such, some thousand years ago there was an effort to recreate the art in the form of " _i'usu"_ , a word taken from an old asari dialect, meaning '[of the] _blade art_ '. Often times called 'asari kendo' by humans, it is a form of competitive swordsmanship that combines both biotics and physical swordplay, and it has according to the most recent estimates well over a half a million active practitioners on Thessia today.

However, even with modern technology and knowledge of mass effect theory, it has only been possible to create blades that can perform simple biotic powers such as ' _pull_ ', ' _throw_ ' or ' _barrier_ '. Efforts to create multipurpose blades have so far failed, since to activate the blade it is necessary to swing it in a certain way to activate the circuit, limiting the internal construction of such blades. Additionally, the amount of eezo a steel alloy can contain is highly limited and all of it is usually necessary for the execution of the single biotic power.

Even then, due to being powered by Thessia's magnetic field, the power is quite weak when compared to a capable biotic attempting the same maneuver. This does make them lend well for the _i'usu_ sport, as the danger of injuries are thus minimized. Of course, rumors and legends persist of blades capable of more, though often such are little more than urban legends or fangirl-ism by the part of some Maiden asari.

Additionally, due to the stresses involved, such swords tend to degrade and suffer internal stresses that weaken and eventually destroy the blades. Most authentic antique _i'usushij_ are similarly usually non-functional, as the delicate eezo configuration or internal circuit have been long since broken. However, even non-functional antiques are known to sell for millions of credits in auctions, though such events are rare as authentic _i'usushij_ have been declared cultural artifacts on Thessia and are prohibited items to traffic or sell.

These examples are of course but scratching the surface of asari culture, being but the most notable and easily explainable to outsiders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to PseudoSteak for proofreading and feedback, he's the best. Also thanks to Tactical Tunic.
> 
> Sorry for the delay, but I had to bounce around ideas and see what I wanted to do next(since while I have an ending in mind, the middle parts are still a bit hazy in some respect.) I have been getting A LOT OF feeback about the idea of nerfing Emiya, which frankly was never _really_ on the table. Rather, I was struggling with handling the effects of what I had made and how to handle it to keep the plot on rails while still being interesting. The solution I've settled on, was the "change the resolution of the scale of conflict" as I fancily call it. It will become more apparent what I mean by this as I go on, but if you have problems with where you think I'm going, drop a review to let me ponder on, I appreciate _all_ feedback.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone and have a good one.


	18. Turbulence in Thessia

Emiya exhaled, raising his bottle of water and nearly emptying it to sate his thirst. His heart was still beating quite rapidly, the constant need for burst speed combined with running all over making for a rather taxing game of biotiball.

"Good game!"

"You sure can _run!_ "

He looked up, nodding at the asari around him as they grinned at him. He hadn't done much better than last time for the most part, but at least he had had fun. _As expected, it's difficult to catch the ball without biotics. And they're just Maidens... At least this is good practice for getting a read for their body language._

"Thanks for letting me join again." He said, standing up straight and looking at the team's captain who had snuck up behind him.

"No prob, no prob." Tyra grinned.

"Yeah, you were on fire! I've never seen anyone kick the ball before!"

"Didn't play anywhere I wanted it to, though. No way to control the spin." He shrugged, tossing over the bottle he had been drinking from to the asari who grinned and grabbed it out of the air. She poured it over herself, letting the water roll down her head and shoulders.

"That kicking thing really works! I looked it up, you really weren't pulling my leg!" Tyra began talking excitedly at him, snickering at her pun before continuing. "I couldn't find any footage on the local hubs, though... I had to put in an order for footage to be sent in through the relays, but if they're as good as you are then I think I've hit jackpot!"

He nodded. "I'm not really all that good at football, but if you can find footage, there should be some real artists on Earth. You can probably find good reference material there."

"Heh, oh hey! Show me how you did that thing you did yesterday! With kicking up the ball. I tried it, but couldn't get it to work at all."

He blinked, before realizing what she meant.

Looking around, he found the biotiball on the ground a few meters away. "Right, so you put your foot on top of the ball like this."

"Yeah?"

"And then you roll it back towards yourself, stick your toes underneath it and just kick it up like _this_." He explained, catching the ball with his hand.

"Oh, neat. I had to cheat with biotics to get it to work. You got any other tricks?"

He huffed, dropping the ball and catching it with his knee. He bounced it once, twice, getting it high enough that he could use his head and sprung up beneath the ball to make it really fly up. Judging the distance behind him to the scoring zone, he threw himself backwards and pulled a bicycle kick, hitting ball perfectly and then fell down in his half-backflip.

"Saiga?!" Tyra shouted as he landed on his back, his arms spreading out the area of impact and his chin tucked to his chest to keep himself from getting hurt.

Rolling over his back, he got up and looked at the biotiball. "Eh, I _missed_."

It had flown off a bit wide, no doubt due to the spin again.

"What was _that_!?" She asked running over to him as he dusted off his shoulders.

"You trying to break your neck, Saiga?" One of Tyra's teammates asked, shouting at him from the side of the playing field.

"Just something I'd seen in football games. Never done it before, thought I'd give it a try." He shrugged, turning to go and fetch the ball back. "Don't know how useful it would be in a biotiball match, however. Your mobility is much higher and it takes too long to set up. In the time it takes the ball to fall, someone would have grabbed it already with their biotics."

"Well... Yeah, maybe." Tyra said, following after him. She looked up after a few seconds with a wide grin on her face. "Though I'd love to do that as the game winning goal. It would look _awesome_ on the replays."

"Hey captain, pull one of those off and I'll buy you drinks for the whole season!"

Tyra grinned at the teammate who shouted that. "I'll hold you to that!"

Walking back, he remembered something.

"Everything turn out okay with your roommate?"

"Huh?" Tyra looked at him, before turning sullen. "Yeah, more or less."

"...I remember she said something about Dretirop. Was she on the excavation to the Prothean ruins, the one that left several years ago?" He asked.

"Uh...? Yeah, that's the one. How'd you know about that?"

"I was hoping to apply for a course by one of the professors returning from that expedition. But she hasn't returned yet. You mind if I come over and ask your roommate about it?" He asked.

She grimaced, finally shrugging. "She's been holed up in her room since, finishing up her thesis or whatever. But yeah, I guess it's fine. We never did get anything to eat, huh?"

"Hmm? You want me to grab something along the way to cook?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Huh? You _cook_? Like, actual food? Not just the pre-made stuff?" She looked at him askance, tilting her head back.

He scrunched his nose at that, not even deigning the suggestion of eating the stuff sold in asari stores as 'ready meals' with a reply. The divide he had found between asari high culture and the average consumer goods was somewhat baffling to him at times in ways like that.

"I'll take a round trip and swing by the store. I'll see you back at your place?"

"Sure!" She grinned, giving him a thumbs up as she hastened to get her stuff packed up.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya looked around the kitchen, setting aside the pot and putting the finishing touches to the food he had prepared.

He had noted how sparsely equipped it was the first time he had been here, yesterday. But he had come prepared, buying only simple ingredients and relying only on what little he had available. Then again as a rule, a lot of the tools that humanity used for cooking, asari simply had never developed. Or had been seemingly entirely forgotten in the current age, with how ubiquitous biotics were. Asari without any talent were rare, since amps had been developed hundreds of years ago that allowed most if not all of the Thessian population to use their powers freely.

Putting aside the packaging materials, he looked at what he had made.

It was something like a poached egg salad garnished with fish roe. Though since the local wildlife was so vastly different from Earth, the only thing about that description that was accurate was that it was a salad. One of the things he had to pay attention to in cooking, was the ever-present— _though minute_ —amounts of eezo in everything.

It could change the way ingredients tasted rather unpredictably at times, being a field of cooking all of its own.

"Whoa... I guess you really _can_ cook." Tyra noted, staring at him like he had grown another head.

"Is it that surprising?"

"Well... Yeah!" She nodded emphatically.

He blinked at that, not knowing what to say so he looked away as he grabbed the trays. Changing subject, he looked at her. "So what did she say?"

Tyra's expression soured. "She told me she was too busy with her thesis. She's had that thing ready for almost a decade already, but she keeps re-working it. I mean, they already accepted the first draft _unofficially—_ from what I heard, anyhow—but she thinks she should still re-write it _again_ before she graduates, or _something_."

He frowned, not quite getting it.

She shrugged. "Well, I'll go ask her one more time. Or do you want to try?"

Thinking about it for a second, he nodded. "Well, I'm the one who wants to talk to her."

Walking over, he knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence and then he heard the shuffle of feet on floor.

The door opened, revealing Liara. "What is it, Tyra? I already—Oh! Ah, umm..."

"Sorry, we weren't introduced the last time we met. Saiga Fujimura." He said, smiling using asari body language for her benefit. It was nowhere near the level of asari imitating humans, but it was passable.

"Liara T'Soni." She answered, more as a reaction than anything else, her mouth closing shut with a click of her teeth.

"I was wondering if we could talk. I'd like to apologize for yesterday, we didn't meet on the best of terms. I made some _drejh_ _sur,_ I thought we might be able to talk over lunch."

"Oh, that is... I really couldn't. I must really be working on my thesis, you see, it's..."

"About Protheans, right? I was hoping to ask you about that, in fact. I had been hoping to take a course with professor Henell, but..." He trailed off, probing for her to continue, hoping that she might know something.

Liara blinked, surprise apparent.

"You are interested in the Protheans?"

"Yes, I was hoping to learn more about them, you see." He tried again, noting that she did not seem to have reacted at all at the mention of Nirida Henell.

"Oh, well..." Liara considered, before sighing. "I suppose I have time enough for lunch. Let me put away some of my things and... I will be right there."

He nodded and she closed the door.

She arrived at the dinner table a minute later and they dug in without any further ceremony. Though initially the mood had been the very definition of awkward, the moment they dug in, the two sitting opposite of him simply seemed to forget any of their previous issues.

Emiya grinned, taking a bite of his own food.

"This is really good!" Tyra enthusiastically professed.

"I must concur, it is exquisite. I have not eaten _drejh_ _sur_ this good in decades. Where did you learn to cook? I know asari chefs to be jealously possessive of their recipes." Liara agreed without hesitation.

"It's just a matter of breaking down the ingredients into their base properties, nothing more." He said, nodding at them as he ate.

Whether or not they believed him they did not say, as all simply ate for the next ten minutes while discussing relatively mundane topics. The most interesting thing about the whole affair Emiya noted was, that Liara seemed to be paying unconscious attention to Tyra the whole time as they talked.

Slowly but surely, the taciturn asari seemed to pick up on more of human body language. A raise of the brow to mimic a human showing interest here, a demure smile— _still with no teeth_ , he noted—to show slight amusement there.

It was actually rather fascinating to follow along, he thought.

Finally, when the last plate had been polished off, did Emiya ask the question he had been nursing for a while now. "So you were with Professor Henell on Dretirop?"

"Oh, yes. I was lucky enough to be sponsored by the University to be able to join the expedition. It was a wonderful opportunity to take a hands on look at a Prothean site dating back all the way to the second age; their earliest days of expansion into space!" She explained, managing already to signal both her interest in human and asari body language already.

_I wonder if it is a purely subconscious ability. Like a parent simply knows how to talk just a fraction above the competence level of a child, to keep them learning new things._ He mused as he listened.

"In fact, I believe Professor Henell has planned to bring up those findings as the basis for her most recent course in the University of Serrice. It is quite exciting; I had a chance to leaf through most of her notes and she had made several breakthroughs in the recent years."

Emiya perked up at that.

"You mean, you haven't heard?"

She tilted her head at that. "Have not heard what?"

"The class has been canceled, since Professor Henell hasn't returned from Dretirop yet."

She blinked at that, looking at him oddly for several seconds before realizing that he was serious.

"Oh...! But... That is certainly most unusual." Liara said, frowning. "Professor Henell did choose to stay behind for the last starship to leave, wishing to make certain that nothing was left behind. But for her to not have returned yet is peculiar. She was most excited to return to Serrice, as I remember it."

"When did you leave Dretirop?" He asked.

"On the second ship. It should not have been more than six hours before the last ship left. We all wished to return to Thessia with utmost haste. There was so much to do, afterwards; everyone was excited to return and get to work. I have not spoken to anyone of the expedition crew since arriving on Thessia, since I have been far too busy incorporating so many of the new things we have learned from those dig sites into my thesis. Originally, I had thought my subject of first encounter protocols to be a very hypothetical subject, but much of the crew could extrapolate so much from the findings that—" She was beginning to ramble, he realized.

To the side, he could see Tyra was obviously showing zero interest in the topic, leaning her face onto a hand with her elbow on the table.

"So no one has seen Professor Henell since they left Dretirop? Have you talked to anyone else who should have gone on the last ship? Or the second to last ship to leave?" Emiya cut in, causing her to fluster at his interruption.

"Oh, no... As I said, I have not talked to anyone since then." She admitted readily that it was strange, but did not seem at all perturbed.

He inhaled, frowning as he stared at her. "Isn't that weird?"

"Well, it is unusual... But if there was trouble, the distress signal beacon is still there." Liara said, not at all sharing his concerns.

"Distress signal?"

"Yes. The dig sites are quite remote, after all. Many things can go wrong and often do; dangerous local fauna, pirates and looters, technical difficulties... There are always unforeseen dangers on such distant planets." She listed things offhandedly, her eyes wandering as if she was re-living events by memory. "All dig sites have multiple beacons and signal carriers that can be triggered in case of an emergency, informing Thessia of their distress."

Emiya nodded as she explained.

"But those are for exceptional cases. The expedition crews are highly talented individuals; many of the doctors were former huntresses, and everyone who stayed behind was armed and an expert biotic. I believe Professor Henell must have been delayed or otherwise distracted, nothing more. While it is unfortunate that the course was canceled, I do not believe there is cause for worry." She smiled reassuringly.

"Hmm..." Emiya mused.

"I'm afraid you will simply have to wait until the next course. It won't be long; Professor Henell will be most excited to begin sharing her findings, of that you can be sure. She will be back soon enough." Liara tried to comfort him.

The only problem was, that there was no telling how many years it would take for that next course to begin. The next semester wouldn't even have a slot for it, meaning he was looking at a minimum of three years of more waiting.

He sighed, considering things.

"Liara..." Tyra whispered at her, causing the two asari to share a moment as they stared at each other.

Liara blinked, before realizing what Tyra was trying to gesture at. "Oh! I am sorry, I did not realize—Well, that does put you in a rather awkward position."

Emiya grunted, causing the two asari to blink. _Huh, not a part of the body language they understand and too simplistic for the translators to pick up as a human mannerism. Been speaking Thessian Common, anyhow..._

"Well, there should be other courses, though I am afraid they are nowhere near as comprehensive. Professor T'renia of Usaru is quite good, for example. Or perhaps Doctor Joshawn, if she decides to reapply for a professorate..." Liara immediately suggested.

"Well, I'll have to think about it." That did bear consideration. It was probably better than nothing, at least. But for now, there was something that she had said that had caught his attention. "You said you were writing your thesis about Prothean first contact protocols?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes! It is a rather challenging subject, requiring that I collect and organize a vast number of sources to extrapolate how the Protheans approached other races when they made first contact."

Emiya nodded.

That sounded exactly like what he was trying to do; gathering pieces of information to understand a whole. It was like a puzzle, where the point was not to just complete the connecting of each individual piece until it was whole once more, but to try and understand what the picture it showed meant.

Given how he had been struggling with this subject for five years now, waiting for Professor Henell to return to Thessia and having in essence given up on independent study... Perhaps it would not be remiss to ask Liara about it?

"How do you go about something like that? It should be very difficult, right?"

She nodded, obviously pleased that he understood just how challenging such a subject could be. Though, he doubted she knew just _how well_ he understood the difficulty.

"Yes, of course. For centuries now among the exo-archeologist community, the hope had been that sooner or later an intact data cache would be discovered and that it might contain their protocols. It might seem like a rather obscure piece of Prothean culture to obsess over, but the reality is that understanding _how_ they approached other races would allow us to build a much more complete picture of their civilization. Since we know they ran into countless other races during their expansion from the second age onward, spreading their knowledge and technology without reserve. With that knowledge, puzzling together how events transpired and building a timeline of their growth, from the second to fourth ages would be much, _much_ simpler." She spoke, more than happy to explain in depth about the subject.

It seemed to him almost like she was starved for attention.

"Right. If you understand _why_ , then filling in the gaps where information is lacking is much easier." He said, nodding and filing away something she had said as rather peculiar. _Something to ask about in a moment._

" _Exactly!_ " She excitedly concurred.

Off to the side, Tyra seemed to looking at the two, her head bouncing back and forth between the two as it was clear she did not quite understand what they were talking about again.

"But, if you don't have any direct records or data caches that spell it out, how are you doing it? What is your angle, if you're trying to do something more than just pure speculation and guesswork?" Emiya asked, pointing out the obvious problem; the very one he had been wrestling with.

Without a very large source that showed their everyday life, it was very difficult to build up a proper understanding of the beliefs and goals that guided an individual, much less an entire civilization.

"I am glad that you asked, since I have been working very hard on just that; making something more than mere supposition out of the subject." Liara answered, smiling confidently as she nodded. "On numerous planets—Dretirop included—we have been able to find remains of the other races that the Protheans came into contact with. The most recent example are the zeioph, on the planet Armeni, found mere years ago."

"The gravesites that the Council forbade anyone from investigating due to grave-site sanctity laws?"

"The very one. Well, it is doubtful that we will able to find much more information on them, but the timeline seems to match with the Prothean expansion of the fourth age." Liara nodded before she continued explaining. "Well, of those races, a lot of their artwork and relics depicting the Protheans remain, than of the Prothean culture depicting itself."

Emiya nodded, furrowing his brows. "So you're using them as a form of mirror, seeing how they viewed the Protheans."

"Yes, exactly right." Liara agreed, clearly over the moon that he understood what she was talking about. "It has been a rather formidable task, requiring me to compile and look through countless sources and archives, but I believe I have been able to get a rather coherent picture."

He nodded. "And what have you found, if you don't mind my asking?"

"No, I do not mind at all. This is the work of two decades, I am more than happy to discuss it. What I have found is an overwhelming amount of evidence for lavish adoration— _bordering on worship, even!_ —from nearly all of the races of whom artwork still remains. Arguably, the best example of this can be found among the hanar, who still to this day consider the Protheans—the _Enkindlers_ , as they call them—as gods who traveled from system to system."

Emiya frowned as Liara continued talking.

"The Mass Relay system which makes it possible for us to have our galactic civilization; the Citadel; the countless races they uplifted and taught all they knew to. Their legacy still affects the galaxy to _this_ day." As she spoke, to Emiya it almost seemed like her excitement was bordering a mania. "It really is enthralling to be able to work in uncovering the steps of such a noble and wise race."

Emiya glanced at Tyra, noting that she did not seem to find anything odd with Liara's behavior at that moment. Somehow, he found himself feeling queasy.

"I think you're idolizing the Protheans a little bit too much."

Liara blinked, looking at him as if she had suddenly been slapped. Confusion was apparent on her features, as she furrowed her 'brows' at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I've looked into some of those artworks myself; the most famous examples, anyhow. And to me it doesn't seem all that obvious that the Protheans were such a wise and kind race, _at all_." He said, leaning back in his chair.

For a moment, both of the asari simply stared at him. The silence stretched on and Emiya sighed, continuing with his point.

"I mean, from what I've been able to piece together, it doesn't make much sense to think that they were uplifting and educating other races. Their rate of expansion is much too quick after the third age. I mean, compare it to the early asari space exploration. Even with your overwhelming stores of eezo, it took you much longer to spread out. And you have to consider that they should have lacked the mass relay system, too." Emiya shrugged then. "Now, it could just be a matter of difference in culture or technology, but I still don't see much evidence for the belief that the Protheans were very altruistic and kind."

Liara stared at him, growing incredulity apparent on her face. "Then what _do_ you think they were?"

"Well, the closest model to their rate of expansion would be the rachni and krogan, back when they were spreading at their most aggressive—"

"I can't believe you! To even suggest that...that!" Liara interrupted him, standing up abruptly.

"—which I would take to mean that the Protheans were expanding their territories as quickly as they could, and hoarding resources and work force to fuel that expansion." Emiya finished, not at all bothered by Liara's outburst.

"You are—you are making them sound like some, _some_ —"

"Imperialistic expansionists, yes." He shrugged. "The artwork looks more like lavish praise and adoration by a cowering and subservient race, desperately trying to appease their capricious masters, than anything else. Really, I think that the zeioph or Armani are the perfect example. It doesn't look like a graveyard formed over the centuries and millennia it would take to create such a site."

Liara's eyes widened as she took a step back from the table. "You're suggesting—"

"That it's a mass grave by a race the Protheans genocided, yes. But Council having decreed it off-limits, I haven't bothered to look into it, yet." He nodded, having seen quite a few mass graves in his time.

Though the Citadel Council had forbidden excavation attempts, a few probes had still been made, using non-invasive scans. The results were uniform, everywhere, both in contents and in the estimated dates of creation. Each tomb was elaborate, yet due to the shallowness of each and the thin atmosphere, all of the bodies would decomposed in a matter of years. If the zeioph wanted to preserve their dead, it would only make sense to bury their dead deeper into the ground.

Perhaps he was simply mistaken in assuming that the zeioph had wished to preserve their dead...

But something about the site simply did not seem right, given how well preserved it was while nothing else of their culture seemed to remain. It was as if their lives were meaningless, but as if their deaths were being made an eternal monument.

That was simply the impression he had gotten, overall.

It was one of the main reasons he wanted to talk with Henell; to be able to freely discuss his thoughts with someone who could cut the bullshit at the stem. For all he knew, he had been looking in all the wrong places and his conclusions were completely off.

"The timeline of their meeting in the fourth age is too abrupt, otherwise. I suspect the zeioph resisted the Protheans and were simply made an example out of for other races."

Liara sniffed, glaring at him now.

She inhaled slowly as she swallowed her indignation, before turning around. "Thank you for the meal, it was quite good. But, I really must get back to my work now."

And with that, she walked away.

Emiya blinked, slightly nonplussed by her reaction. He glanced at Tyra who merely shrugged, as if saying 'what can you do?'. Frowning and with a shake of his head, he got up as well and began to clear away the plates and utensils while Tyra sat by, watching him in silence.

It wasn't like he was a hundred percent certain over his theory, but so far he simply felt that a lot of the asari were too idealistic and idolizing of the Protheans. Perhaps it had been his visit to the Mars Ruins lower levels that had colored his perceptions so, or perhaps it was simply his own experiences in seeing so much carnage and death that made it the only conclusion he could draw.

That was partly the reason he needed an expert's help to understand the Protheans; his own experiences still clouded his judgment so heavily, even as he tried to be objective.

"So what are you going to do?" She finally asked as he finished clearing the table.

Unfortunately, lacking running water, he would have to leave the washing to Tyra and Liara, a fact which made him feel somewhat uneasy. Washing the dishes in a sense was a part of preparing a meal, thus leaving it out made him feel strange and almost unfulfilled, somehow.

"I'll have to wait and see. Maybe check out Usaru, like she suggested." He said. "Might have to think about leaving Thessia, to be honest."

"Oh..." She nodded, looking away.

"But, I should be going now, anyhow. Thank you for having me over." Emiya said, getting up and with no more than a nod and wave, left the apartment. He didn't notice Tyra staring at his back, or Liara glancing his way as he walked past her room's window, too focused on his own thoughts already.

_I need to look into those distress beacons, huh_.

* * *

;

* * *

…

_Start of transmission

[ Report #51-a (AIA Deep Cover Field Operative DCFP-A341CJS) ]

SSV Tokyo assigned to a pursuit & investigation run near octant six of the operative theater. Mission headed by Captain David Edward Anderson [POI#14] and Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard[POI#0]. Crew excited for possibility of combat, morale is high. Rapport between Commanding, Executive Officer and other supporting staff remain outstanding. Primary objectives remain aligned with cover role, no expected or outstanding problems detected. Secondary objectives under way, no expected or outstanding problems detected. Successfully bugged all omnitools and computers of operative crew on SSV Tokyo; will continue monitoring and logging activity; no expected or outstanding problems detected.

End of transmission_

…

* * *

;

* * *

The skycar continued flying over the Serrinan sea as he continued heading back to Serrice.

Emiya sighed, closing the tabs he had been eyeing through while flying. He had been looking into asari communications technology in space as he had been flying. Mass Relay buoys. Tightbeam communications. Wide-spectrum signal carriers. A lot of it was related to the distress signals. Technically, the technology was military spec, since it was used to call in the asari military in times of need.

However, it was very old. A _half-millennia_ old.

Which meant that there were nuggets of information that could be found and pieced together from various sources until finally they painted a whole that was coherent enough to be called a basic dossier on the system. Really, it wasn't even difficult. For a race as powerful and strong as the asari, he was beginning to find it strange how patchy their society seemed.

When it came to specialization, they were the best. Simply by virtue of their age and wide knowledge base, it was only a matter of course for a variety of experts and specialists to appear with time.

But between those clear forerunners, it really seemed like nothing but a gaping void existed. Like a tree that branched out only at specific instances; unnaturally and sparsely.

The military mastermind and matriarch behind the distress beacon system had lived and died several hundred years ago and since then, no one on her level had appeared. She had been a veteran of the Krogan Rebellions, from a generation that had been taught by the survivors of the Rachni Wars, with experience and a mindset for conflict that simply did not exist in the galaxy of today. The hole created by her passing had yet to be filled, and for all intents and purposes, it seemed like it might never be filled again unless a major war occurred.

Asari military focused on small teams of highly talented individuals, commonly referred to as either _commandos_ or _huntresses_ , rather than a proper organized and structured military. They were bands of volunteer warriors, rather than soldiers. In small scale conflicts—such as the many battles between city states and small republics, that had shaped Thessia over the dozens of millennia—they were some of the best in the galaxy.

But when it came to maintaining and patrolling territory they nominally controlled, they had none of the necessary infrastructure. And it showed, both in the ideology behind the distress beacon system and in how the security on the Dretirop expedition had been handled by former huntresses who were a part of the expedition crew themselves. Their navy certainly had the largest and most powerful dreadnoughts thanks to their abundant supply of element zero, but they did not have the sheer numbers of, for example, the turian navy.

It was at times like this that Emiya understood how the Citadel Council could function. And also perhaps why humanity seemed to come into such conflict with the Council at every turn. The turians, salarians and asari all could do a few things and do them well, leaving gaps here and there in the other areas where they simply did not excel in the same way, which allowed them to nearly seamlessly fit into one whole as a society. Humanity on the other hand tried to do everything, managing somewhat well in all it did, compensating for sheer competence and specialization with vigor, enthusiasm and numbers.

That toes would be stepped on and lines would be crossed seemed rather inevitable, when looked from that angle.

But none of that had anything to do with his findings.

Simply put, he had figured out how to subvert the asari distress beacon technology with a mere half-hour of investigation on the extranet. And if _he_ could do it with his jack-of-all-trades approach to technology, then he was certain that anyone else who actually specialized in the field could do it as well. He checked again, for the third time in the last hour, but he could not find any updates on the Henell situation.

The more he looked into the whole matter, the more he felt like everyone was ignoring it. With the dearth of information, it really seemed like the only option that remained was...

"Flying to Dretirop myself, huh."

He looked at his schedule, finding it rather empty.

Even trying to find a substitute course for the one that had been canceled, he would not have anything of real interest for a good two weeks. Even then, it would just be a continuation of a course on asari philosophy in relation to religion, which he could just as well learn from a book.

He had been looking into Siari for a few months now, finding it somewhat interesting even if it did not matter, really.

Emiya exhaled, pulling to a stop.

Setting the skycar on air-park, leaving it to hover in place above the sea, he unstrapped himself and reached over to the backseat. Pulling out a case, he took out the environment suit he had stored there. He would have to put it on, since he had a destination out of atmosphere in mind. The skycar was one with roughly similar specs as the one he had flown on Mars, if a bit slower and smaller.

Which meant that it could not fly to Dretirop, by any stretch of the imagination. But it could get off of _Thessia_ just fine.

Finding the insides of the skycar too tight, he grabbed the case as he opened the side doors. Reaching out, he grabbed the hood and swung out to stand on top of the hovering skycar. The view was actually rather nice up here on the roof, he noted.

The golden sun above in the clear blue sky, the sparkling emerald sea below. He could see out for nearly a hundred kilometers in all directions, with how far up he was. The air was a touch thin, but it gave it a refreshing edge.

Putting on the environment suit, he looked out at the sea below as he noticed motion. He could see fish and other oceanic creatures, swimming just below the surface. Suddenly, he felt like going fishing. _If I attach a reel to my bow, I could go bowfishing. Catch a giant squid, or something. Hmm, might have to look into how legal it is, first._

It could be interesting to try his hand at cooking a giant sea monster if he could find one, he figured.

Getting the suit on top of his clothes and sealing it, he jumped back into the skycar and closed the door. Checking his coordinates and running a trace, he punched in new coordinates. The skycar began to tilt upwards and change course. _Should probably call first..._

The comm-line went through and the other end picking up immediately.

" _Hosin'Reegar's Orbital Hangar Stop, how may I help you?_ "

"Hey, it's Saiga. I'm coming by, you mind?"

" _No, man, come on over! You looking to buy some scrap again?_ "

"Sure, but let's talk when I'm there." He said and after the confirmation from the other end, closed the comm-line.

As he continued to ascend, flying at a sixty degree angle, the blue skies above began to disappear as the atmosphere thinned out. Finally, all that was left was the clear darkness of the ocean of stars beyond, as he approached low Thessia orbit.

Thessia was a rather unique planet in the galaxy, in that its orbit was nearly completely clean of dangerous debris. Due to the high amount of element zero on the planet itself along with the asari's rapid development of advanced hovercraft technology, they had not had to struggle with conventional non-eezo rockets to get off of Thessia. Humanity was a rather extreme example of the opposite direction, in that they had been 'littering' their orbits rather vigorously in their attempts to explore space.

As a result, there were many orbital stations in stable orbit around Thessia, with tens of thousands of asari living off-world permanently. One such station was KX-0331, colloquially known as 'Hosin's Hangar'.

The place he had contacted and was approaching right now, slowing down as he let the VI-pilot handle the docking protocols.

Shaped like a sphere with a radius of fifty meters, it was one of the mid-sized orbital stations flying around Thessia, housing anywhere between sixty and a hundred at any one time. Dating back five-hundred years from when it was first put into orbit, it had been one of the service stations used for a long time, retro-fitted time and time again until it had fallen into Hosin's possession.

It was one among thousands of others, constantly falling around Thessia. The planet itself had a population of 5.5 billion living on the planet itself, but since it _was_ the economic heart of the galaxy, many sought to live there. But due to the strict immigration policies—which he had hacked right through, when he had first arrived here—few were ever allowed to step foot on Thessia's soil, much less be granted permanent residency.

Which lead to the 33,000 people living on orbital stations around Thessia. It was one of those legal loopholes that had never been addressed, as it did allow for many profitable ventures to be realized without actually letting anyone set foot on Thessia. Most of those people were asari, but there were still many like Hosin.

At a distance, it looked like a shining pearl of steel and glass, but as you approached it you could see how it was a patchwork of countless pieces of material. Almost none of the original 'KX-0331' remained beyond the core and some of the solid frame, as pieces had to be constantly replaced and repaired.

It was nothing compared to some of the massive behemoths that existed around the galaxy, such as around Sur'Kesh or Palaven, but it was an impressive structure nonetheless.

A pearl in space, gleaming and sparkling as it slowly spun around itself.

As his skycar began to near, a hangar door began to open, sliding sideways to let him inside. There were two hangars, taking up most of the internal space on the space station, set on opposite sides of the sphere. There was the commercial hangar hall, where customers with starships could fly right in, and then there was the smaller hangar that he was approaching right now. Inside, he could see several starships in various states of disrepair.

This was where all the things that Hosin hadn't managed to get flying yet was put, out of the customer's eyes. _Most customers_ , anyhow. The crafty machinist had long since figured out that Emiya was always more interested in buying broken things than something that already worked without issues.

The large towing ship was currently out, leading Emiya to believe that there must have been a call just now. Hosin'Reegar was not an asari, but rather someone who had at one point or another settled in Thessia's orbit and now owned this space station.

Simply put, it was a repair shop and ship rental.

Or if you wanted to be honest; a chop shop.

If you had problems with your starship, you could comm Hosin and hire his services. He could send in one of his engineers on a smaller starship, or he could send out his towing ship and have the entire starship brought back into the commercial hangar for repairs, depending on the depth of your need and credit chit.

Of course, as much as Hosin insisted he was a legitimate repairman, Emiya knew most of the man's money came from 'salvage operations' and repairing of wrecked vessels to sell again. He filled a niche of cheap starships, that was very difficult to fill normally on a planet that had such a strong economy, due to most simply buying everything new. The various starships Emiya could see now, all around him as the skycar began to land down, were abandoned vessels that Hosin had hauled in or bought off of someone.

But there always existed those who did not have all that much fluid credits to spend, even when they had a need for a starship. Thus, this market had been cornered by a craft quarian who knew how to keep costs down, remaining competitive even in the face of megacorps and massive interplanetary companies.

As long as it could be made to fly again and could pass the safety inspections, Hosin could rake in a tidy profit for the vessels. It was how the quarian had managed to get his hands on his space station in the first place, too.

Emiya jumped out of his skycar, noting that the magnetic seals now held it in place. With the artificial gravity, it wasn't strictly necessary, but it was good practice nonetheless. Especially in a workshop so filled to the brim with starships.

"Saiga, my man. How are you?!" A slightly _off-_ sounding voice shouted out and Emiya turned to face Hosin.

Taking off his environment suit's helmet, he grinned at the quarian who appeared from between a mountain of metal rubble and a mark fourteen turian speedster with its engine missing.

"Not too bad. Haven't crashed and burned yet, anyhow." Emiya shot back, patting his skycar's roof with one hand.

"I'm actually more surprised about that than you are, still! I sold you that piece of junk for pittance, since the drive core was just about to burn out!"

Emiya huffed. "I remember you just saying that it was a ' _bit worn out, nothing more_ '."

"Which wasn't _untrue_ , per se. I thought that you'd be coming back for my hide once you figured out how much it'd cost to replace that thing. I even had my lawyer ready in the back, when you said you were coming for a visit the next day! I almost had a heart attack when you flew the thing right back, I haven't heard an engine purr like that in _years!"_ Hosin laughed, the shaded dome of his helmet visor still showing the mirth on his face.

Quarians were a rather strange race, Emiya had found.

With an affinity for technology that put most others to shame, they were still often forced to live in squalor and poverty due to a disastrous war that cost them everything in the distant past. Additionally, though they breathed air just like the humans and asari did, they were forced to wear protective suits at all times to seal themselves off from others, due to their unique physiology and immune system.

"It was just a bit of _spit_ and _polish_ to fix—I don't get what people pay you for even." Emiya snarked and the quarian shook his head. "And what do you mean you had your lawyer ready in the back? With how often you get sued, she's _always_ in the back. As I recall, you went and _married her_ because you were spending so much time fleecing people together already. _"_

"Hahah, can't deny that. And keep talking like that and the missus might come and have a _word_ with you again; we run an honorable business here, it's all in the print!" Hosin grinned. "But you know, with how you keep taking trash off of my hands and selling it back in working order, one of these days I might just have to believe you, when you say you can fix anything. Almost makes a man worried for his job."

"Oh, don't be. I could never have your keen sense for business, nor could I compete with your complete lack of scruples or morals. You'd have me out of business in a day."

The quarian barked a laugh. "Flattery will get you everywhere. Come on in, come on in. I've got some good distillation going. The last batch of hooch turned out real nice when I followed your advice; you really have a sense for good industrial strength _gut-burner_ , Saiga."

Emiya shook his head at that; he didn't have the time right now to sit down with the machinist. He was certain to start complaining about the flotilla and the quarian race's choices, past and present, or about how much better things could have been had the events on Rannoch 300 years ago gone a just little differently, once a few shots had been downed with the fellow non-asari.

_Maybe another time_ , he thought.

"Sure, sure. I'm certain it tastes amazing to _you_ , but for _me_ it's like drinking battery acid and vinegar. Plus the hangover made me want to drown myself; the once was more than enough."

Hosin looked thoughtful hearing that. "Vinegar, eh? I'll have to check if I can digest that, since it sounds delicious, the way you put it."

Emiya had to shake his head with a grin at that, making Hosin laugh again.

They walked out from the hangar and arrived at a slightly neater office-like area, where he motioned for Emiya to sit down by a recliner. Near the other hangar, where ships were towed in, the reception was much neater and cleaner. But between friends, a certain level of casual laziness was a sign of closeness, thus neither bothered to walk all the way over there.

In between the two hangars and around the sphere where free space remained, Hosin had built his living quarters, since he had never been given permission to settle on Thessia. It was the result of his race, the quarians, being kicked out of the Citadel following the Geth War; even with his filling all the legal conditions for immigration, lacking an Embassy on the Citadel, he could not petition properly for a right to settle on the surface.

Though the man was rather closed about his past, Emiya had been able to piece together bits from conversation over the years. A young quarian on his pilgrimage had set out to try his luck on Thessia, only to be stopped by immigration control on suspicions of eezo smuggling. Having spent all of his credits, he was forced to work as a shop hand on various orbital repair shops for a pittance. After a year of exhausting work and attempts to either immigrate to Thessia proper or leave the system altogether, he had finally had enough and decided to play hardball.

Years later, the quarian had managed to buy his own, _bigger,_ space station and was living in relative luxury. But somewhere along the way, he had lost all interest in returning to the rest of his people, simply deciding to stay and live his life here.

Not that Emiya could blame him; it was doubtful that his wife would wish to move to the flotilla, all things considered.

"So, what brings you here?" Hosin asked, sitting down on his own recliner, kicking away some papers on the table between him and propping up his feet. At the same time, he manipulated his omnitool with one hand and a drone appeared around the corner. "You want something to drink? I got some good chilled _giur_ if you want?"

"Sure, why not." Emiya nodded and the drone ejected a can of the carbonated drink, levitating it onto the table in front of Emiya. A thin manipulator extended, opening the can for him, too. Checking that it _was_ levo, he took a sip. "Thanks. I was actually hoping to make a larger transaction this time."

At that, Hosin sat up a little bit straighter.

The fact of the matter was, that despite having several million credits, it was not like Emiya could use it directly. The problem was, that essentially all credits could be traced. There was no such thing as 'non-sequential bills' as old movies from his time had touted, when a robber or hostage taker demanded money.

_All_ credit transactions were logged and could be checked and traced to an extent.

Which meant that to use it, he needed to launder it first. To run it through some other parties who did not particularly care about where he had gotten his money and who had no interest in ratting him out while at the same time muddying his tracks enough that a passive trace could not be followed back to him.

And in that effort, the quarians were supremely helpful.

For a fixed rate, he could exchange money that would be going to the flotilla. He would give them a thousand dirty credits and in return he would get somewhere between eight and nine hundred clean credits back. Certainly, the Citadel might give them trouble for over using dirty money, but they were treated like garbage _anyhow_. In fact, a lot of the time, the quarians seemed to derive some pleasure out of screwing others over, just as they so often were.

So it had worked out quite nicely as far as arrangements went; everyone profited.

Of course, that property of being dirty had also been rather useful over the years. If he wanted to sic the Special Tasks Group onto something, he could simply send them some money in a way that implicated the target. He had been slowly paying that one million he had figured he owed, doing just that. Though he doubted doctor Solus saw much of the money or appreciated his efforts, it was the thought the counted, no?

"I need to get to a planet called Dretirop. Have you heard of it?"

Hosin shook his head, crossing his arms on his lap as he frowned. "Not any place I remember hearing about. Don't remember seeing it on any starlogs either, must be a backwater."

Emiya nodded. "Pretty much. It was the site of a Prothean dig sponsored by a bunch of Thessian universities. It's on the edges of the Terminus systems."

Hosin raised his eyebrows, nodding slowly. Among the myriad aliens, it was actually the quarians that Emiya found the most human-like in behavior, strangely enough. As long as you saw past the shaded visors they preferred, reading them was quite easy.

"That is pretty much the definition of a backwater. I don't think any commercial liners would be going that far out. Hell, even getting a merchant vessel to go that way would be a hassle." The quarian nodded again. "Right, so you need a starship, then. Buying or renting?"

"Renting." Emiya answered immediately and Hosin made a sound of annoyance. _He would try to sell me a piece of junk that would take days to repair if I wanted to buy one. Better to rent something he knows I have to fly back, if he doesn't want to lose on the costs._

"You sure? You've done real good with the skycar, I could get you a starship for real cheap if you wanted to buy one right now."

"Maybe another time." Emiya answered. "Don't have the time for a complete job right now."

Hosin smiled, realizing they had been thinking the exact same thing. "Alright, I've got a re-purposed volus corvette. It's fast and sleek. Cheapest I got."

"And I'll have to crawl inside of it, right? Have you even re-worked the life support systems yet, or will I have to wear an environment suit the whole trip?" Emiya asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hosin pretended to not hear that, moving on as if nothing had happened. "Something bigger, then? That'll cost more, of course."

"Of course." Emiya rolled his eyes, though he couldn't fault him. The game of negotiation was one that grew addicting quickly, once you grew good at it. He himself was no exception; bartering and haggling alike was simply _fun,_ like that.

"How about an asari Tristar? It's really a shuttle, but the engine was specialized for interplanetary hauling. It'll be able to make that journey just fine in terms of fuel capacity." Hosin suggested, pulling up a display.

"How fast is it? Those things aren't usually meant to used for long distances."

"It's been stripped down, so it's much lighter and a lot more nimble. I've had it fitted with a larger drive core already, so it's kind of muscled up. Was a real cheap job, really, just material costs."

"Which still means _someone_ will have to calibrate the mass effect fields, if it's to be worth anything." Emiya concluded.

Hosin grinned, shrugging. "Heey, I _just_ remembered... You were really good at that sort of thing, right? It'd be a real _cinch_ for you, eh?"

"How much?"

"Eighty grand for three months; standard quarter-year lease." Hosin shot back immediately.

"Three grand, and I'll bring it back by the end of the month." Emiya answered without pause.

"Ahhh, but you know that the minimum contract is a quarter-year for a rental. The asari and their long age, you know. They don't even have overdue charges at libraries, since it's a given everyone will miss it by a _year or two,_ anyhow. Seventy."

"So make it a pre-purchase test drive contract. I'm just taking it out for a spin, to see if I want to buy it, _really_. Your wife should be able to handle that much bureaucratic bending. Three." Emiya didn't budge.

"You're killing me here, I can't do something like that, not even for a friend. See, I have to _live with her_ and she gets cranky when I make her do extra work. The lowest I can go is fifty, by the way." Hosin shook his head.

"I'll talk to her about it for you; she'll see my way. You don't have the facilities for a free-form calibration of a mass effect field here, anyhow. Something like the Tristars wouldn't be popular on the customization scene; I bet no one's even bothered to try and get something working, meaning you have no blueprints to work off of. You'd have to start from scratch to get it running, which is why you're trying to push it on me to get it done." Emiya crossed his arms. "Three grand. Take it or leave it."

"...Ten, fuel and power cell charge included."

Emiya smirked, extending a hand. "Deal."

They shook hands, both satisfied with the outcome. Before signing any paperwork, he had to convince Hosin's wife, though.

The quarian led him away, going through several sections without artificial eezo-generated gravity, as they made it to the other side of the space station sphere. Hosin's wife was currently working, being the busy lawyer she was. Nonetheless, she always had time for a negotiation with a client in person, as electronic work could always wait compared to a customer who had flown in.

It only took five minutes of negotiation from Emiya to get her go-ahead, during which time Hosin was absent. He had gone off to prepare the ship for Emiya's inspection, thinking that it would take at least an hour on Emiya's part to get a deal hammered out. Returning to inform Emiya that the Tristar was ready for a look-see, Hosin's eyes actually boggled upon seeing them shaking hands already.

"How'd you do _that_? I can't get her to decide where we should have lunch in _five minutes!_ " Hosin exclaimed, only to cringe away at the glare his asari wife sent him.

"Ah, well. Trade secret." Emiya shrugged.

Really, all he had done was explain how his _pagoda_ worked and she had jumped in immediately. Given how busy she was, the prospect of nearly instant 'biotic cooking' was just not something she could pass up on.

In actuality, the four minutes that followed his explanation were just her hammering out a contract for maintenance and for him to make a comprehensive list of what could be cooked and prepared using the _pagoda's_ various programs, as she realized the sheer potential of what he was offering.

As a busy careerwoman, there was nothing she appreciated more than efficiency and precision, after all. "I expect delivery within thirty-six hours, along with the agreed upon instructions in writing."

Emiya nodded at her serious tone. "Of course."

She smiled lightly, then, before giving her husband a go-ahead with her eyes.

Hosin and Emiya left her office, moving out along to the public side of the space station. They passed by dozens of asari and even a few quarians, all working for Hosin on various parts of the orbital station. Arriving at the public hanger, on the opposite side to where he had arrived in his skycar, Emiya laid eyes on the Tristar.

"Well. That sure is one _ugly_ ship."

Hosin nodded. "You wanted _cheap_."

It was practically just a shipping container with an engine strapped onto it, a window on one side and a set of mechanical claws with which containers and crates could be grabbed with. It was just something designed to pick standard industrial containers up and fly them relatively short distances, lacking advanced life support systems that were usually necessary for long-distance voyages. That meant it had air and gravity, but the oxygen supply had to be periodically changed. That meant it _didn't_ have a toilet or washing facilities, _or_ a sleeping pod. It didn't even have a water tank.

But it was cheap and there were literally thousands of them on the market. With the powerful engine, large fuel cell capacity and effective radiator panels on all sides, it was a rather interesting starship.

On paper, anyhow.

Usually when people bought used starships for personal use, they wanted something a little bit more... _visually pleasing,_ and comfortable. The re-fitting and customization scene for used starships was a rather big business, and most models had some kind of forum for it on the extranet. But the Tristar was all utility and economic design for production and transportation.

Plus, it handled about as well as you would expect a flying brick to. In effect, _no one_ wanted one, unless they were looking for something really cheap and were out of alternatives due to budgetary reasons.

"Does it fly?" Emiya asked, turning to look at Hosin.

"Sure, but slow as hell right now, since I just had the bigger drive core installed. No mass effect field calibration done yet."

"Right. Let me borrow your tools for half an hour and I'll get it out of here."

Hosin's eyes sharpened at that. "You think you can get it done in _half an hour_?"

Emiya shook his head. "Of course not. But I'll check that I can fly it down to Thessia first, especially since you haven't even tried to fly this hunk of junk yet. I want to know it won't blow up in re-entry to atmosphere. I'll handle the rest on my own there, where I have my own tools and work space."

"Right. Sure, makes sense. I'll have Serri come with a toolkit. She's not good for much other than running errands yet." Hosin nodded. "Right, before I forget. _Here._ "

Emiya turned to look at the proffered credit chit.

He accepted it with a nod, pocketing it as he mentally checked his credit accounts and wired another private transfer to Hosin. With how the quarian flotilla did business everywhere and nowhere, it would effectively disperse his trail.

That Hosin knew he had dirty money wasn't that big of a problem, since Emiya knew Hosin had an eezo smuggling deal going on with some asari on Thessia. It was what allowed him to upgrade ships and refit them at a profitable cost. If Emiya was burned, then Hosin and his whole family was burned, it was that simple.

"I'll send another fifty grand tomorrow, you can take your credits from that."

The quarian grinned. "I'll have the rest of your money ready by the time you come back. The flotilla appreciates your business."

Emiya nodded at that. Though the rate at which they exchanged him money was fairly steep, it was also quick and practically untraceable due to who and what the quarians were. That, and they needed all the credits they could get.

If he wanted to, he could simply find some criminal operations that laundered money and insert his own currency there, fudging the numbers and the subtracting his own money at the end. Or he could simply take from those he deemed to be criminals. But he hadn't even been much of a Robin Hood, thus he didn't bother.

Really, the advantages of forging connections to the flotilla like this, and helping them out without pitying or humiliating them was more than enough for him to accept the cost of Hosin's laundering service.

Emiya inhaled, looking at the quarian. "You're not planning to ever go back to the flotilla, are you?"

The other paused, a scowl appearing on his face a second later, barely visible through the visor.

"If those _bosh'teti_ won't do things the smart way, then let them rot on those ships they love so much."

Emiya said nothing, noting that it was still a rather sensitive subject for the quarian. From all the Emiya had gathered, Hosin had long since decided to part ways with the flotilla as a whole, only working together with individuals whom he deemed agreeable and far removed from the admiralty enough.

"Well, nothing to it but getting my hands dirty, then." Emiya said, changing subject as he began to take off his environment suit and rolling up his sleeves.

"Good attitude. I'll have Serri right along, need to be getting back to business myself." Hosin grinned and they parted.

_Well, time to see if I can make something out of this flying coffin._

* * *

;

* * *

_Well it seems to be mostly functional. I could fly with it to Dretirop already, but it would take several weeks as is._ Emiya noted, finishing with a set of diagnostics on the PLC node governing the interior artificial gravity.

He was lying on the floor, having removed a panel by the wall and half-crawled inside of it. Only his legs were visible on the outside.

Stretching out a hand, he called out "Hand me the D-pliers."

"Ah, uh... I don't think there are any here..." A voice answered, and he pulled his head out of the circuitry panel to look at the young asari who had come to assist him.

_How do you forget a_ D-plier _?_ He thought with exasperation.

She flushed at his gaze, turning purple as she stood up.

"I-I, I'll go and get it right now!" She shouted and turned to run out.

He frowned, wondering how long the obviously young asari had been working here, this wasn't the first mistake she had made either. Shaking his head, he returned into the guts of the opened node.

The basic theory for mass effect fields was, that as long as you had some element zero, a circuit board and a power source, you could make a hovercraft.

Technically, that applied to starships as well. But in practice it was always a matter of details. Simply put, if you just ran a current through a lump of element zero, there was no telling what shape the mass effect field would have. Eddy currents within the eezo, heat warp from flow of electrons, variable density of grain and many, _many_ other things all came together to affect the way the field was generated.

It was similar to how 'down' on a planet was not always towards the center of the planet, as it changed depending on where you stood. Pockets of massive rock at different depths, water, mountains, the moving molten insides... all affected the center of gravity such that it was not always the same as the geometrical center of a planet. Assume that you had a perfectly spherical planet, with no wind and which did not rotate. Its insides, much like all planets, are not perfectly uniform in density, but it has pockets of denser volume and a molten core that moves inside of it. Suppose you added a layer of water on top of that perfectly spherical planet; a mere single meter uniformly around it.

That liquid would _not_ be perfectly spherical in turn. In fact, near very large dense volumes of the planet, the water might even be pulled back so far away as to reveal the spherical solid surface beneath it. When one factors in the rotation of a planet to this shape the water would take, one is given the 'geoid' of that planet.

For mass effect fields, it was no different. In fact, early tests in trying to determine the shape of a mass effect field from a specific core used to use a ball of suspended water that filled the whole volume of the field.

That was the reason why highly processed eezo with a uniform grain was such a valuable commodity. A poor eezo core would be noticeably less efficient than a uniform and even one, due to its geoidic field variance. But since it was rather expensive to work and manufacture high quality eezo cores, often times starships simply ran with a poorer core to save money. Compared to the cost of simply having a more powerful generator to increase the size of the field, it simply did not make economical sense to try and fit every craft with the best possible eezo core.

That did not mean that it was not possible to modify the mass effect fields without modifying the shape of the eezo core. Quite to the contrary, it could be argued, that nearly the entire field of eezo engineering was all about how to modify the shape and properties of the mass effect field without physically changing the shape of the eezo core.

So, while you _could_ stick a high quality core in and measure just how much electricity was necessary to make a large enough field, and pay through the nose for that excess power consumption. You _could_ also stick in a poorer core and throw in a programmable logic controller that controlled the current, voltage and even frequency of the electricity, allowing you to shape the actual mass effect field to a degree.

_S'raran's First Law_ ; the physical shape of the eezo core decrees its basic shape. _S'raran's Second Law_ ; the properties of the current can be used to diverge from the shape decreed by the _First Law_. Or, amusingly enough, as humans put it; _Tokuyasu's Second_ and _First Laws_. As humanity first found only highly processed and uniform eezo cores on Mars, their first experience was that it was electricity that affected the field, rather than the physical shape, leaving them with a reversed order on those laws. The salarians were similar in that regard, making them two outliers in how the laws regarding eezo's properties were formulated into laws, strangely enough.

Generally for this kind of work, you first had to run the core at a uniform current to measure what kind of field it naturally generated and then work from there. Special and expensive equipment, that could precisely sense and chart out mass effect fields was also necessary. Of course, one could also walk around with a scale and try to work it out manually, which was _essentially_ what Hosin would have had to do, if he wished to calibrate the field.

But that could take weeks, even for a craft this small.

For Emiya it wasn't quite that difficult. The same sense of _the veil_ around him, which had allowed him to sense bounded fields that warped the fabric of the world as a youth, now also allowed him to sense mass effect fields. Simply put, he could simply close his eyes and get a feel for the field, where others needed expensive equipment, or days of time for manual testing.

That and Structural Analysis, which simply let him read out and even correct the internal grain and structure of the eezo core. As usual, he cheated and he cheated _hard_ , to get the results he wanted.

The Tristars current mass effect field was essentially in the rough shape of an egg, where it extended below itself to where the claws would grab onto a container. After all, what was the point of creating a lighter starship if the container it was trying to get off the ground still weighed the same? Thus, the field had to affect both to be able to fly.

But that meant that for simply traveling with the Tristar, it was a highly inefficient shape for the mass effect field. Even the economy travel mode simply turned the egg-shaped mass effect field around by rotating the core and minimizing the field size. Optimally, the field would be the exact shape of the starship, but since one had to include the debris-repelling kinetic barriers as well, it was not always that easy.

_It shouldn't take me more than a day to get it up and running up to par, after which I could leave,_ Emiya noted. He blinked, hearing approaching footsteps again.

"Did you find it?"

Extending a hand outwards, he felt a D-plier set into his palm. Thanking her, he set about in getting the last bits fixed before he looked at the pliers in his hand.

He blinked, noting that they were actually very small. The nozzle bit was self-adjusting to the standard sizes, which meant it wasn't really a problem. But the handle was still very _small_. He felt like he was holding a teaspoon when he had asked for a ladle.

Also the handle wrapping was pink.

Pushing himself out again, he blinked as he looked at the young asari standing there and looking at him with wide, unblinking blue eyes. Serri was fairly short, but this asari would have barely come up to his waist. _And who's this?_

Mentally shrugging, he didn't bother to get worked up about it. "Thanks. Hand me the bolt-driver and I can close up this panel."

The little asari, who could not have been more than a meter tall, nodded back at him as she handed him the panel-driver, while she continued to stare at him lying down on the floor.

Closing up the panel, he dusted his hands and sat up. Even sitting down, cross-legged, she was barely taller than him.

"Hmm. I suppose you're the new head machinist, then."

The little asari blinked at him, tilting her head. Then, with a sly smile, she nodded imperiously. Pointing at the next node block, she sniffed with narrowed eyes.

He chuckled. "Yes, ma'am, I'll get right to it, ma'am."

Scooting over, he checked it over. A minute later his 'assistant' Serri showed up, having finally found the D-pliers.

"Mister Fujimura, sir, I found the—Oh, Hoana!"

Looking out from where he had jammed himself into, he could see Serri standing over by the doorway blinking at the little asari sitting by the dashboard above him, swinging her legs while quietly watching by.

"Hello." She finally spoke, waving at the older asari.

"Did your online lessons already end? Are you here alone?" Serri asked, frowning as she looked around for something. Or someone.

The asari child nodded as she continued humming and sitting on the dashboard. Emiya looked up at the little asari, blinking once before shrugging again and going back to getting everything in running order.

The young assistant, Serri, turned to face him. "I'm so sorry, mister Fujimura, sir, I'll..."

"It's fine. She's pretty handy. T-clip." Emiya cut her off. There was a flare of biotics as a small bundle of plastic bands floated into Emiya's outstretched hand. "Thank you."

"Ah, well... Then..." Serri hesitated, not certain how to deal with this situation. Emiya had already figured out that Hoana was probably Hosin's offspring, given that he and his wife were the only ones living here on a permanent basis.

The asari child was no doubt curious about everyone who visited, but a human was doubly noteworthy—especially since they hadn't ever met before, even with how he visited relatively often. He knew that like many things on Thessia, public education was to a large degree possible to achieve through online courses on the extranet. He wasn't sure quite how necessary it was to get a young asari child used to socialization—compared to human children for whom it was vital, anyhow—but to him she seemed somewhat bored and lonely.

Then again, she might have spent most of her time on Thessia, actually.

"Just about done here. You might as well go fetch me the access card." Emiya said, pulling himself out again and setting the panel back in place. Extending his hand, the driver was automatically there.

Dusting off his gloves, he looked around. There were tools spread out here and there, but it wouldn't take long to clean up.

"Ah, yes of course. Shall I get Hosin as well?" Serri asked.

"No need, I'm leaving anyhow." Emiya said, picking up and packing away the tools. He looked up at Hoana, raising an eyebrow. "You still have them?"

She nodded, raising a clear plastic bag filled with small electronic pieces he had picked up while doing his check up.

"Good. Be sure to give them to your father for me." He grinned.

No need to leave Hosin's cameras behind, even if the quarian was curious about his methods. Taking off the gloves he had been using, he took some hand sanitizer and wiped his hands clean and then dried them with a clean towel.

"Thanks for the help." Turning to look at the little asari who hopped down from the dashboard, he gave her a half-smile as he patted her on the head, causing her to look at him curiously. _Ah, maybe that's a little bit much._

He removed the hand from her head, the large blue eyes following it with unblinking focus. _Then again, it doesn't seem like she minded. Oh well_.

Walking out of the Tristar, Hosin was there to greet him. Emiya nodded at the quarian, as Hoana came walking out behind him.

"Oh, there you are, papa was looking for you." Hosin said, crouching down as the little asari ran up to him. As he was expecting a hug, he seemed utterly nonplussed as she extended her hand to show the clear plastic bag she was holding instead.

Emiya almost barked a laugh at the two blinking dots of light behind that visor; the flabbergasted expression clearly visible even through the visor.

Instead, he simply said. "Oh, I found these bugs and cameras everywhere. Weird thing, that. I took the time to remove them all. Who knows where they came from."

He gave a knowing smirk at the quarian who accepted the bag with one hand, the other wrapping around the waist of the asari child and picking her up as he stood up straight.

"Well, that was quite kind of you." Hosin said, barely able to keep a straight face. "Here is your access card. I assume everything else was in proper order?"

"Yeah. Within the bounds of the _fine print_ , anyhow." Emiya gave an amused huff. He would have to do some maintenance while he was adjusting the Tristar's mass effect fields, but it was minor work really. He was getting this ship for dirt cheap, so he couldn't really complain. He nodded at the little asari in the quarian's arms, "She was a big help, too."

Even through the helmet, Emiya could see Hosin grin at that. "Sure is. Brightest girl I've ever seen. Her mother thinks she will be a lawyer or a doctor... But _we_ know better, don't we?"

Emiya smiled at the two, before inhaling slowly. He had been sticking around long enough already. If he wanted to investigate the disappearance of Professor Henell, then time was of the essence.

"Right, well, if that's all. Then I'll get going now. Mind opening the hangar doors on the other side? I'll have the skycar fly down on autopilot."

Hosin looked up. "You sure? I can keep it there, no problem. You'd have to fly it back up anyhow once you bring back the Tristar. Much easier to just bring back the Tristar and fly back with the skycar when you've returned, yeah?"

Emiya merely raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. On board a space station, space was always at a premium. Even a small skycar would be expensive in the long run to keep around like that. "What are you plotting?"

"Oh, _nothing_." Hosin grinned. "It's just that I can take some _after_ pictures of it for adverts. You know, since it technically _is_ the same skycar, I am legally allowed to use it for ' _before & after'_ comparative shots. Even if I didn't sell it in that condition. Good promotional material."

Emiya chortled at that. "It wasn't really _that_ impressive a job..."

"The fact that you keep saying that never stops making me want to throw you out an airlock. Only the knowledge that you keep giving me the opportunities to make loads of money stay my hand, Saiga."

Emiya shook his head at that. "Fine, _fine_. Keep it, then. I'll just fetch some of my things before I take off."

Hosin gave him a thumbs up; a gesture the quarian had picked up from him a few years earlier. "Thanks for you patronage, come again!"

In his arms, the asari child mimed the gesture, forcing Emiya to smile as he returned the gesture. _Cute kid, I can scarcely believe they're related at all._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled as he walked out of the shower.

He shook his head as he grabbed a towel. Getting all the grime and oil off of him after a day of hard work always felt incredibly refreshing. It was like peeling off a layer of dirt and sweat not only made him feel clean, but it also refreshed the mind and the senses somehow.

Mentally flicking on the newsvids, he went into the kitchen as he got about to making more food. While he had been fixing the Tristar into flying order, he had also been preparing stuff he would need for the flight. While it would not be a very long journey, the starship was still not really equipped for such distances as he had noted before.

Cataloging his needs, he had set about in getting all in order.

He would have to pack everything he would need and keep it with him in the flight cabin, including the dried foods, the water and the various containers he would need. Given that the Tristar did not have any sleeping quarters or washing facilities, he had to himself bring a sleeping bag and a set of towels he could moisten and use as necessary. As it even lacked a toilet, it meant he would have to bring in all of the necessary 'replacements' himself.

He was no stranger to the sealed bucket, though he might simply choose to airlock it and the projected containers if it came down to it. Projection was ridiculously useful when it came to sundries, he had long since noted.

Yes, it didn't feel like he was preparing to go on another harebrained trip in a rickety vessel as he had before. Rather, this felt like a voyage he should have set out on a long time ago already. A small part of him even felt somewhat excited about the prospect of this 'roadtrip', as he had come to mentally call it.

_I'd never thought I would be getting cabin fever from staying on a planet for too long..._ He mused.

Checking the _pagoda,_ he noted that the dried meat that he was making for his last batch of modified pemmican made out of Thessian ingredients, was nearly done. It was local lean meat, thinly sliced and dried out in his _pagoda—_ which allowed him to cut down on the preparation time drastically _—_ after which it would be ground up into an almost powder-like state and spiced up properly, and then mixed up with a 1-to-1 ratio of animal fat that had been heated up into a liquid state. As it cooled down, it would solidify into what had been commonly known as pemmican in his time.

He also included some berries, ground nuts and fruit juice in the mix, to add in some vitamins and other essential nutrients. It would bring down the shelf-life, but he wasn't planning on being away that long. Supposedly the stuff could last well over a decade if stored properly, but he had never had any last him so long.

Rolling up the mixture into small balls, the result was a dense but tasty food that would keep him going, just as it had so long ago back when he had been alive the first time. Making several kilograms of the stuff, his credit chit certainly felt the expenditure from all the meat and fat he had purchased. It almost felt nostalgic, making some survival food again in preparation for an expedition, he noted. It could be boiled, fried or even eaten raw, making for a rather versatile base for rations.

Of course, he did not make all of it from the same mix and spices, rather making sure to make a good variety. While it wasn't a problem for him any more, he had long ago noted that morale was much easier to maintain with proper rations. And well, old habits die hard.

Besides, he had to make good use of the _pagoda_ while he still had it, since he would have to take it to Hosin's wife soon enough. It wasn't that it was unique, but it would take him a few hours to build another one which wasn't possible right now, given his time table. _Maybe I should bring along parts in the Tristar and build another one along the way?_

Putting on pants, he began to finish up the last batch, rolling up the balls with speed and precision that would have betrayed his experience to anyone who had seen him. Really, he considered it to be the same as making rice balls, thus arguably he had been making food like this for as long as he could remember living.

He listened to the news off-hand as he worked, before closing the reel.

The Thessian and Citadel newsreels had a tendency to focus on celebrities, gossip and the other forms of media more than anything that really interested him. Partly it was simply a result of how large the galaxy was, and partly it was simply the result of advertising and viewer interests in the area he lived. Given how peaceful Thessia was, few had any interest in the distant wars and suffering taking place across the galaxy. Usually, only the most dramatic or important of news from other parts of the galaxy trickled along the free channels.

If he wanted to read news from other parts of the galaxy, he had to put in a request for a buoy transfer from those parts over the extranet, just like everyone else.

It wasn't something he could really hack either, since he couldn't go down the line of a comm buoy to force the other end to send the data packet or read it and falsifying a credit transfer was just a bother all around. It wasn't very expensive anyhow, so he simply shelled out the credits and requested for the news the normal way when he felt his curiosity rise. Even if he put in a request for everything that caught his attention, he wouldn't even be touching the tip of the iceberg; the galaxy was simply that massive. Every day, trillions of lives played out, resulting in billions of newsworthy events.

Of those, only a fraction of a fraction ever reached his attention.

Thus, it wasn't unusual for things to completely go by him in human space. On Thessia, few really cared about humanity, after all.

But seeing a familiar name pop up still made him blink. Frowning, he traced down the news' story until he found the original, putting in a request based on solely the title. It seemed like just as he had been getting busy, so too had _she_ been.

' **Hero of the Skyllian Blitz assaulted reporter on camera!** '

Emiya shook his head at the rather unflattering 'mugshot' that article title was being previewed with. She looked just about ready to headbutt a krogan, the silent growl on her face almost animated by the sheer anger she exuded.

While waiting for the related buoy request to be completed, he continued with his preparations as he read other articles. Dretirop was located in the zone between the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems, a lawless place at the best of times. There seemed to always be something happening there, with pirates, smugglers and various unscrupulous companies setting up shop there, away from the long reach of the Citadel.

But it seemed that with the large expedition having settled down in force, most of the usual troublemakers had simply opted to stay away from Dretirop for years now.

A heavily armed troupe of experienced asari simply wasn't worth the effort, most would reason. But if someone _had_ been keeping tabs on them, they might have been tempted by the last remnants of the expedition being left alone. With most of the asari gone, it could have presented a golden opportunity. He mentally listed through various reports and articles as he continued, running almost on autopilot in the real world as he scanned through them.

Noticing that his requested data packet had arrived, Emiya set aside the things he had been working on with a frown.

He eyed through the article, only noting several tidbits about it as worth reading. Attack on Elysium by a large force of unified pirate bands and slavers. Alliance starships massively outnumbered but fought back desperately as the battle raged on the planet's surface below. Shepard was on shore leave, mounting a resistance and catching the mastermind behind the attack after several hours of battle.

She managed to save countless people.

Smiling, he leafed through the pictures. Shepard standing around in civvies with a gun, leading several armed civilians in a heroic photo that someone must have taken without her knowledge. Her standing atop a broken starship, wearing an ill-fitting armor she must have nicked somewhere, pushing forward a bound human while countless cheered her on. Behind her, the city was scarred and smoking, yet still proudly standing.

Looking at the batch of articles, it was clear she had been the media's darling for all of a week before she went and punched a reporter, after which she was vilified and cast as a loose cannon that needed to be muzzled by the whole of the press.

' **Mad Dog Shepard intentionally crashed several dozen pirate vessels into each other above city, caused millions in collateral damages from falling debris!** _'_

She had lead a team into a ship that had landed and lead an attack to board a larger ship, repeating that tactics until she stumbled upon a central coordinator. Hacking that, she had managed to make dozens of ships fly into each other.

_'_ **Hero or War Criminal? Leaked military reports state Shepard threw out fifty pirates through the airlocks during the Skyllian Blitz!** '

Outnumbered and outgunned on several ships, her team had taken to punch through into the life-support systems and then raising internal pressure in the core sections, then opening the airlocks and blowing everyone out as the gravity was turned off.

The lowest incident had been in low atmosphere, but two had been in low orbit. It had literally been raining enemy combatants from the sky in her wake.

' **Should the Systems Alliance really be celebrating the cold-blooded murders of hundreds of aliens on Elysium? A look into the insidious hidden racism in our military.** '

To maintain morale, slogans and propaganda had been employed on the public comm-waves. Given the tension and deaths, the local population and Navy alike had grown rather violent even in the aftermath of the blitz.

This had obviously lead to reprisals and chastisement from Arcturus Station, as those with calmer minds could only see the fury and anger that remained from the unprovoked attack. Shepard, having been a central figure in the counterattack and having apprehended a pirate by the name of Elanos Halliat, the mastermind behind the attack.

"She sure kicked a hornet's nest, didn't she?" Emiya mused, huffing as he read on.

Finally, he found the video interview that had sparked the worst of her villification.

' _Here, live outside of the Royal Monastery of Saint Mary of Pedralbes in Barcelona, channel 14 news reporter Janice Pulberry. We have received breaking news that the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz, Jane Shepard herself, has been spotted. The recent N7—Oh, there she is!_ '

The woman and the cameraman began running towards a somber-looking Shepard, who was in full dress uniform. She was walking out alongside what seemed like a family of locals, most of them dressed in civilian blacks. Behind her an old woman with a sour expression stained by sadness came out slowly, holding a cane and being hovered by Shepard in case she needed help.

' _Lieutenant Shepard! Janice Pulberry, channel 14 news! Please, may we have a moment of your time?_ '

Shepard looked obviously confused, staring at both the camera and at the reporter for several seconds before she began frowning. Emiya could note how she was clenching her teeth and fists, with her pupils growing sharp as she settled to glare at the reporter.

' _This is a funeral, don't you have any respect?_ '

' _Just a word, if you would, please! Can you tell us what you were thinking during the Skyllian Blitz? Are the rumors of your planning to write a biography regarding the events true? Who is going to be the publisher, and are the rumors that you have already signed a simulstim contract with Trinibline Studios true?_ '

Shepard reeled back at the questions, obviously too confused to process a word she was hearing. Behind them, more people were filing out of the church, and Shepard looked distinctly uncomfortable right then as they began to whisper and murmur behind her.

' _You should leave, please contact the public relations of the Systems Alliance Navy for any questions you have, I am not authorized to answer any questions—_ '

The reporter immediately interrupted Shepard, pushing the microphone right in the redhead's face.

' _Is it true that you were lovers with the deceased—_ '

But that was as far as she got. The camera was of high quality, but even with the high frame-per-second capture, it was barely possible to tell what happened next.

Emiya saw the immediate reaction in Shepard's eyes; the fire lighting up; the pure outrage and indignation that flicked the killer switch in her head. Her hand that was hanging by her side, clenched in a characteristic manner that spoke of someone reaching for a firearm on their hip. Finding nothing, her training obviously went into the second phase, as her shoulders set and she leaned forward.

The jab with which she closed the distance was so fast that the camera caught nothing but a blur. The next instant, the reporter's head had been blown back as she was falling over, completely unconscious by the limpness as she fell like a sack of potatoes. Emiya could just make out three chipped teeth flying through the air behind her.

In the next instant, Shepard had reeled around and roundhouse kicked the camera into bits and the footage cut. As the report cut back to the studio panel condemning her actions, Emiya lost interest in the footage and closed the vid.

Rolling through several months worth of articles, he noted how she seemed to have been gone underground after that. Possibly literally, one of the last paparazzi shots had been of her entering a bunker.

Before that, she was well on her way to being propped up as the next great symbol of humanity. He did find some footage of her, some months later where she seemed mostly fine. Though it did appear that she had been pulled out of the public's eye after that incident as her appearances became incidental and scarce.

He shook his head. Though he had been curious about her, it had nothing to do with him; he had long since parted ways with Shepard.

Dismissing the news articles he connected again to the Serrice University intranet through the extranet, looking to see if anything had changed. But as expected, it was all still the same. _No, it's just me that's being impatient. The asari probably won't bother to start asking questions for another week_.

Just as Liara had told him, another course was being scheduled due a month, but that still left him with a sizable hole in his schedule. His mind was already made; he sent in a notice of absence through the extranet, before shutting off the connection.

Emiya looked up, glancing at a terminal. It showed an alarm that he had completely missed, noting that there was practice again today.

"Hmm, biotiball." He mused out aloud, realizing he had forgotten about it entirely. _I guess I did work through the night again..._

Well, it could wait until he returned from Dretirop, since he was just about ready to leave already. Closing the alarm, any thoughts outside of his preparations completely disappeared from his mind.

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda closed the data file from the Cerberus handle on the Citadel.

After meeting Shirou Emiya in Serrice, she had high-tailed it back to the Citadel; there was only so long she could be off-the-grid without raising suspicion, after all. But it had been worth it, she had a solid lead to work with again.

She wanted nothing more than to dig through the Cerberus' dossiers and reports she had recently been granted access to, with her promotion to being an Officer, but for now it would have to wait. With the Council acting out and tracking everything, communication protocols had to be altered to suit the changing times.

With slow, methodical and practiced movements, she assembled her new omnitool. It was a high spec Aldrin Labs one, but she had taken the time to remove all hardware components pertaining to extranet connectivity from it. Cerberus had been aware of the STG's plans for a while now, and had had countermeasures drawn up. Her old omnitool wouldn't have had trouble with the new cyber-bill, but for now it wasn't usable any more. She would not be getting her hands on another for several days, as the infrastructure for delivering the omnitools was still lacking, due Cerberus' ability to act in Citadel space being very limited.

The setbacks from five years ago still held them back considerably.

Until she received another omnitool with a spoofed cover, she would just have to do with a 'dumb computer' for her work. At least she had had the good sense to back everything up before she had made contact with Emiya. It would still cut down her efficiency considerably, but it could not be helped. Her previous one had been completely and utterly totaled in Serrice, in that still unexplained black out.

Well, unexplained by the public, anyhow.

She could understand a warning when it was given; she had threatened someone Emil cared for, even if she hadn't acted out on the threat. _He_ had been watching and _he_ had not been amused, it seemed.

But the scale of his ' _chastisement_ ' left her lost.

It simply was not like him to make such a large move. As she remembered him, there was always a methodical precision to him. He was deliberate, calculating and mysterious. And given that he was ' _RedHax_ ' by Emiya's admission, that meant that _he_ had continued to be that way for years.

So why was this time so different? That attack had been overwhelming, extravagant and overbearing. Like the hammer of a god, smiting down.

Had Emil been that distraught over Shirou Emiya being discovered? The real-time spoofing of all security footage was unreal in scope, she had realized as she had looked into matters more closely. The assets and time that must have gone into that was mind-boggling; she hadn't been able to find any pictures of his face anywhere despite the nominal requirement on every database for such.

Even his various data profiles were blanks.

She had looked into his flying license, where his picture had been noted as a disqualified for being too old. A request for a renewed picture had been sent, that should have disabled his flying license as soon as a grace period ran out, except it had been exempted and put on probation until a matter with his student visa had been sorted out. Which in turn lead to his bank accounts...

As she followed the bureaucratic tangle of nonsense, she had quickly realized that it was all orchestrated so as to confuse and distract anyone. She had considered sending in a request for the physical copies to be sent out, but realized the trap there before she acted on it.

Those were stored in Serrice, not far from where Emiya himself lived.

All of it had been set up so that no one would be able to identify Shirou Emiya, not until they attempted to trace down the physical copies of various documents. But the moment those were called in, he would be notified, _surely_. It was an alarm system or a trap, of a sort, she realized.

At least she knew she had been the first one to find him, a fact which somehow made her feel prouder and more accomplished than she had felt in a long time. Cerberus had been on the look out for him for years, yet they had had no luck so far.

Of course, they had been looking in all the wrong places; not even she would have imagined that he would head for Thessia of all places until her image recognition program had a hit. She had been shocked with how similar in appearance they were, their coloration being the only difference. She had read Burnsfeldt's theories about rapid aging, and now seeing it for herself did she finally begin to believe that perhaps it was possible. _But what does that mean for Emil? His skin was already turning... No, I shouldn't be making guesses._

She shook her head, there was no point in being lost in conjecture. She knew what Cerberus knew, giving her a headstart in everything, knowing all that she did. But they weren't the only ones on his trail, either; the Special Tasks Group had been chasing 'Redhax' for years now, as too was the Shadow Broker. Cerberus suspected that they also knew of the 'Outis' connection, but none so far seemed to have discovered that Shirou Emiya was alive.

_She_ was the _only one_ who had been able to find his trail.

She realized then she had been lucky, in deciding to leave Shirou Emiya be. It had been nothing more than a flash of uncharacteristic sentimentality, in suddenly seeing parallels to her own life, that had made her decide to simply leave him be. _No, that's wrong. I knew from the beginning it would end like this, didn't I? That's why I didn't tell anyone that I came here..._

She wanted to catch _him_ , not through trickery or underhanded means, but through her own abilities and wits. Nothing less would satisfy her, after all these years.

It seemed that the Citadel's cyber-security bill had rattled _him_ quite a bit. Which meant that there was a _chance_ for her. As long as she remained on the Citadel, she was bound to catch him sooner or later.

Looking at the time, she sighed and turned on the terminal. Though communication was limited due to the new bill, it was not impossible. She logged in, listening to the ambient music playing with cool disregard. It was overly bombastic, though given the title screen she supposed it fit.

_Galaxy of Turmoil_ , _huh_...It was a salarian-made MMORPG; something she had never thought worth caring about.

The company behind it did not even have any STG connections that Cerberus could find. A completely average, if rather successful software company that specialized in making games.

Logging in, she skipped all the tutorial and introductory material, immediately heading for the market place. She sold off her starting equipment for a pittance and then let the Cerberus VI begin farming. It was too complicated a method, she felt, but given the current circumstances it couldn't be helped. After ten minutes, she returned to the market place and let the VI sell off everything again. Then, it began to buy and sell, quickly adjusting for the in-game economy until she had enough materials for the outlined communication method.

She looked up the player that had been noted in the data file, sending a friend request. It was accepted immediately and she set up a trade request. As the screen opened up, she began to put in the specific amounts of the cheap trash items she had bought on the player market.

She waited for the other player to hit confirm on the trade and then removed everything from the trade screen. The other player stood by silent for several seconds, until they began to fill in their side of the trade screen. Immediately another random assorted mix of trash items appeared in front of her on the screen, the order and amounts seemingly random.

Miranda's eye narrowed as she deciphered the code, double-checking before she hit confirm on the trade; with the changed items his earlier confirm had been rescinded, thus the trade did not activate yet. The other player emptied their screen and she began to fill out another reply in her own trade screen, waiting for his trade confirmation to clear it again. She had never thought much of games like this, even finding the company's promise of lag-free high speed connection over the extranet—by virtue of its parent company being a service provider, though it was noticeable in the monthly subscription fee of the game—being somewhat pointless.

"What a roundabout method..." She groused, waiting for the next reply. _At least it works. And it won't be for long, anyhow. With the Citadel putting pressure on him, he's likely to make a mistake soon._

And she would be the first on there, gun in hand and a smile to match, to repay him for that day five years ago.

* * *

;

* * *

Liara exhaled, tossing back her head as she palmed her face, covering her eyes with her fingers.

With another groan, she tried to sit up straight again and look at the words written out on the screen before her. She was almost done with her thesis; incorporating thousands of years of research and study, and the countless findings from the most recent excavation into a single coherent paper. It was a masterpiece, simply put. She only needed to finish the newest additions and give it one more layer of polish and she could put it forward with pride.

Except, what if it was _all_ wrong?

However much she tried to focus, her thoughts always turned elsewhere without fail. _He's wrong!_ _He has to be wrong..._ _He has not attended a single course on Protheans, what could he possibly know?_

And yet, her thoughts were turning towards the peculiarities she had noted herself before. During her time writing a comparative paper between Prothean technology and modern asari logic circuits, she had constantly stumbled into similarities in how things had developed.

The more that she looked at the past, the more she saw _today_. She had even made a silent prediction in her head, regarding a new innovation that would appear.

It hadn't been the next one, or even the one after that... But it had showed up, two years later. A method of compressing metals to form an alloy, that she had noted in Prothean ruins. The team of asari who had created the 'new' method hadn't had any contact with any exo-archaeologists that she knew of, either.

She exhaled again, closing her eyes as she rubbed her temples.

Something he had said about the Matriarchs and asari culture had struck her as dangerously odd, mirroring some of her own thoughts from when she had been finding such similarities herself. She had even once brought it up to her mother, having believed it a stupendous find...

But Matriarch Benezia had merely smiled at her, before pointing out how it was only a coincidence, nothing more.

' _Have you not read before, that all is cyclical, little wing? Do not overly concern yourself with such troubles, for it is merely the natural course of history._ '

Yet, the thought that so many of the technological developments of today seemed to be mirroring the ancient Protheans, did not leave her. Everywhere she looked, she could see signs of it. Dretirop had been a historical find, as it had been one of the oldest Prothean planets that had survived all the way to the sixth age, having only been abandoned according to their dating experiments around the time that the whole of the race had disappeared.

This had meant that there was a full spectrum of their culture to be found there, as long as they simply spread out and dug deep enough on the planet. And the more she had looked, the more the parallels had struck at her, how similar the asari were, how they seemed to be walking in the footsteps of a ghost.

She shook her head again. _I need to focus, not... waste time on this frivolous nonsense!_

Of course she had heard of such fringe theories before, but no one took those crackpots seriously. There was a very firm orthodoxy in place for a reason. Her mother had explained it quite aptly to her, proving herself the Matriarch and leader of asari that she truly was.

' _Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future._ ' If she paid heed to every crackpot theory, she felt like the very ground beneath her feet would vanish. As if all of society were nothing more than a useful lie. It was vital to not pay heed to such things, after all, no one _respectable_ did.

Closing her terminal she stood up. She could not work like this.

Walking out of her personal room, she made for the kitchen. She walked to the vacuum box, intending to draw some juice to slake her thirst, only to spot the box containing the rest of last night's dinner. She frowned, exhaling through her nose as she glared at the offending food.

Yet, she reached out for it nonetheless. _It would be a waste to not eat it_.

And it was _quite_ good.

Sitting down with it and her glass of juice, she sighed. Her thoughts had gone right back to that man, and what he had said. She was even sitting on the same spot she had, yesterday. She could almost see him, speaking those words of honeyed poison again. Startled, she stood up, grinding her teeth.

Reaching out, she grabbed her glass and drank of it, hoping to calm down.

_No, he's wrong!_ She knew he was, even if she couldn't quite prove it. It wasn't like he could prove his assertions, _either!_ But it still rankled her that somehow his theory seemed to fit the circumstantial evidence better.

The Protheans _had_ spread extremely quickly in the galaxy. Far more quickly than even the asari had been able to, even with their ability to get along with nearly any race they encountered. Their spread _did_ resemble the krogan expansions, both in pattern and speed.

Slamming down the glass, she stared at the food before her. She had eaten but three bites, but already her appetite was gone. Pushing away the plate, she stood up.

Opening her omnitool, she looked at the various resources and archives she had access to. She _knew_ she could prove him wrong, if only she knew what he was referring to on a case by case basis. Yes, if she had not grown so angry that she had walked away during dinner, she could have surely proved him wrong!

Standing up, she stalked to Tyra's door. Ringing the chime, she waited, crossing her arms as she nodded to herself. Right, she had been in the wrong to simply walk away. Not only had it been cowardly, it had been intellectually rude to simply disregard his notions like that!

"Huh, what? Liara?" Tyra opened the door, looking confused by her sudden appearance.

"Call Saiga, I want to talk to him right now."

Tyra blinked, obviously completely off-balance by the sudden order.

"I uh... I haven't asked for his number or mail, yet..."

Liara blinked, deflating. "O-oh."

They stood there for a silent moment, awkwardly staring at each other.

Tyra licked her lips as Liara tried to re-organize her thoughts. Should she get back to writing her thesis, after all? _Right, this was just a waste of tim—_

"You know, he didn't come to practice today..." Tyra finally said, looking away. "I was getting kind of worried, and I was thinking..."

Liara blinked, realizing that Tyra was having some difficulty asking something. They had never gotten along all too well, merely living in the same apartment not meaning much in terms of them interacting or getting along.

Their worlds were simply too different. Liara could not understand Tyra's values and Tyra thought that she was merely ' _slumming it_ ' here in the student apartments, given her background.

"Yes?"

"Well, I kind of, like... found out where he lives." Tyra admitted, causing Liara to raise an eyebrow. Pretending she didn't see it, Tyra continued. "And you have a shuttle, so we could... like fly over there and see what's up."

Liara stared at Tyra for several seconds.

"Forget it, it was just a—"

"Let us go, then." Liara nodded.

"Eh...?" Tyra blinked.

Liara hesitated then. She didn't usually act like this, but...

She set her shoulders, looking at Tyra. "Well, are we going or not?"

"Uh, yeah, okay? Let me just grab my coat." Tyra responded, turning around.

She _was_ feeling strangely proactive and confrontational, but she felt like if she did not talk this through properly now, then it would would remain a shadow hanging over everything she did from now on.

' _When faced with hardship, there is nothing to it but to face it head on._ ' As her mother often said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks Yanslana & all fictions & Tactical Tunic for helping with proofreading.
> 
> Thanks PseudoSteak for a proper proofread. I'm always humbled by realizing how much I just manage to read over without thinking about it. So many errors ;_;


	19. In the Dretirop Zone

Liara turned off the shuttle, exhaling as she got out.

Serrice had not changed much since she had last been here, but then again she hadn't ever been to this side of the city. Looking around, she noted how near the ocean seemed to be compared to her own apartment. _I can hear the waves..._

"I think it's... right that place there?" Tyra said, following two steps behind.

"You don't know?"

Tyra looked sheepish. "I just asked around on the extranet forums... The Serrice team might have mentioned that he lived here, but they didn't give me his actual _address_ , you know."

Liara sighed, nodding as she began to walk towards the door. Inhaling to steady herself, she lightly rang the chime in the door and then lowered her hand, taking a step back.

They waited.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

"Huh..." Tyra mumbled, looking around.

Liara frowned, turning to look at her roommate. "Are you certain that this is the place?"

"Uh... No?"

Liara sighed, chiming the door again with a frown. Beside her, Tyra walked up to a window and looked inside, causing Liara to start at that. "H-hey, you should not...!"

"Just checking, you know, that it's really his place." Tyra waved her concerns away, peering inside. "Uh, can't really tell. It's so neat. I was hoping that maybe he'd have left a shirt on the floor, or _something._ "

"We can't _all_ be so sloppy." Liara murmured.

"Hey! I heard that." Tyra objected immediately.

"As you well should, I have told you several times by now. The washing room exists for a reason."

"Yeah, whatever." Tyra grunted, walking back to the door.

"Hey, what are you..."

They both froze as the door opened when Tyra touched it. They slowly looked at each other, neither so much as breathing.

"...Huh, guess he must be home, then." Tyra shrugged, walking inside.

"T-Tyra, you cannot simply...! Wait, don't just...!" Liara tried to stop her, only to end up following her inside. Behind them, the door closed with a click that _echoed_ through the empty house.

Liara started at the sound, inhaling as she tried to whisper to Tyra that they should leave. But the other ignored her.

"Hello! Anyone in here? Saiga, you home?"

Liara bit her lip as she followed after Tyra, nervously looking around. It was a rather roomy place, with plenty of open space and windows that let the natural light in. It seemed like it barely had walls, even. As if it was a house built with the intention of 'openness' in mind.

"Huh... I guess he's not home."

"Tyra, we do not even know if this _is_ his house. We should leave..." She tried to turn and leave.

"No, it is his place." Tyra interjected, causing Liara to pause. Walking over to the entrance hall, Tyra picked up a bag with a pair of handles sticking out of it. Pulling open the bag, she pulled out a one-handed sword that curved slightly. "See, his i'usushij are here. Whoa, this thing is heavy! No wonder he's _ripped_."

She swung it a couple of times, only to flinch as suddenly there was a blue spark across the blade's surface, that lit up the patterns of eezo running through the steel. Immediately as a result, where the tip had been pointing there was a flare of dark energy as a chair was knocked over.

Both jump at the sound of it falling against the hard floor, bouncing once. They blinked, looking at each other.

"Whoops."

Liara scowled. "Put that back, _right_ _now_."

Tyra raised a hand in a placating gesture, nodding at Liara to show that she understood, as she put the dull practice blade back into the bag with the other.

Sighing, Liara looked around.

Her earlier hesitations all but forgotten—if he was home, he would have surely showed up already at the sounds they were making—she looked around, as her curiosity overtook her. She walked in, noting the rather spartan and ascetic condition of the house.

"It is quite large for a single person to live in..." She noted, more to herself than to Tyra.

"Yeah." Her roommate agreed nonetheless. "Does he live here alone?"

"I believe so. I have not seen anything that suggests otherwise."

They walked around, looking at every little thing curiously as they continued searching. Finally in finding the bedroom, did they discover a room that looked like it was actually lived in.

There was exercise equipment on the floor in a corner, a datapad by the bed and a potted plant by the window. The sea and horizon beyond could be seen just outside as one blue whole, melting together seamlessly. She blinked as she realized she had been staring out for several seconds. _It's a beautiful view; the light must be refracting just right for the blues to blend just right, or is it the glass...?_

"I guess he's really not home, then..." Tyra muttered, hanging from his pull up bar, with her feet dangling quite far from the ground.

Liara sighed, shaking her head. "Get down from there."

"Why?" Tyra asked, grinning. "He's like, three times my size— _minimum_ —it's not gonna fall cuz of little old me..."

Liara rolled her eyes, inhaling slowly. There were no smells in the whole house, she realized. _How unusual, he must clean very thoroughly. Or the sea breeze through must cover it all..._

Shaking her head, she turned around to leave the bedroom. "Come on, Tyra. Let us ask the neighbors if they have seen him."

"Hmm? Oh, sure. Maybe they have his number or mail address." Tyra nodded, jumping down and with a spring to her step moved to follow after Liara.

They made it to the front entrance, as Tyra sighed. "I hope nothing's happened to him. Was just starting to get along with him, too."

Liara looked at her, saying nothing.

"I think I could incorporate like a kick to my game, too. Like, I hold it like normal and then drop it with a spin and kick it while running. That would minimize the time it's airborne without control and let me keep moving, right? Throw in a well timed _charge_ and it could be killer, you know?"

Blinking, Liara shook her head as she understood nothing of what Tyra was talking about. She had never had any real interest for the sport, beyond one or two games she had been a part of as a child. She never did manage to make friends with those others...

"Well, I suppose..." She began, but stopped as the front door opened just in front of them as they reached the entrance hall. She felt a surge of panic, realizing again that they had entered someone else's house without permission.

Inhaling, she tried to calm herself and managed relatively well, as Tyra reacted immediately.

"Yo, Saiga, we came to play!"

But both froze in their places as the door swung open to reveal a pistol being pointed at them. Liara suddenly felt a cold sweat run down the back of her neck, staring at that weapon and following the arm up to stare at the unfamiliar face.

"Well, _well_... Who do we have here, now?"

* * *

;

* * *

"Alright." Emiya nodded, leaning back.

Sitting in one of the two pilots' chairs, strapped in and wearing his hardsuit save for the helmet, he looked at the various outputs and gauges before him. He exhaled, turning off the VI pilot that he had let handle navigation for a few minutes while he had been changing into his hardsuit. While the Tristar had primary life support, it still felt like a good idea to wear the thing in case of something happening.

He was glad that he hadn't stuffed the suit into the storage compartment with the rest of his gear, but rather kept it near in the work compartment. The Tristar was divided into roughly three parts, where an operator could be inside. The working compartment, with the two pilots' chairs and the controls for handling all of the systems, which took up two thirds of the entire internal space. Secondly, there was the cramped engine room, where he had been working on for the last ten hours to get the Tristar into flying condition. And lastly there was the storage compartment. It was where hardsuits and work clothes were usually stored, but he had simply stuffed all of his luggage there and closed the door to keep stuff from being loose inside of the ship.

Everything was smooth sailing so far; he had left Thessia a while back, having gone up to Hosin's to drop off the _pagoda_ , and then set out for the Mass Relay to begin his journey to Dretirop. By the time he came back, the _trap_ should be set.

Unlike Alliance vessels, the Tristar lacked a window, thus he only had his sensors and screens to work with. But really, that was better.

No silly structural weaknesses to worry about.

This way, the whole starship acted as a sealed environment. Behind him, the Mass Relay from Thessia was disappearing rapidly from the sensor's range of view. He had already completed one jump with the relays, moving hundreds of light-years in the span of less than half an hour altogether. With the optimized mass effect field, even the commercial ion engine was able to show its true potential and output. It almost felt like it was a fish let free in the sea for the first time, with how excitable the controls felt.

"Should have spent some time calibrating those as well, huh..."

He may have managed to get the eezo core into order, but due to that it now behaved like a flying brick with _jet engines_ attached to it. There was no finesse with this thing. In the void between star systems, that wouldn't be a problem. But landing on a planet might be be tricky. _Well, Hosin can worry about that once I bring it back. It'll cost him another pretty penny. Thought I bet he's already foreseen that problem, as well._

Leaving behind the hustle and bustle of Thessia was refreshing, in a way. Though he was a loner only truly by habit, he still felt at ease the most when he was on the move. He always had to be doing something, preparing, training, learning, figuring out new things.

The 'slow life' on Thessia might have been slowly driving him a little mad, he realized. Even has he had been busying himself every day with something, it felt like he had not be truly going anywhere with his efforts.

Also, with millions of kilometers to the closest extranet hub, he could not hear any of that strange signal any more. It was all gone. The Tristar acted almost like a Faraday cage which could seal him in, but not quite enough to be safe in Serrice he reasoned. But this far out, it should still be safe to jump out of his body and try to figure out what to do about the signal. He had been putting it off, since there was just too much that could go wrong on Thessia.

Additionally, he still had full access to the extranet, in the form of the tightbeam communications of the Tristar itself. By turning off the internal extranet connectivity inside the ship, which would have allowed him to use an omnitool, his cybernetics or a datapad through the tightbeam, he could ensure that nothing would leak out. It was like turning off the wifi and only using the cable to connect out, in terms of his original era.

Closing his eyes, he set his body to the meditation routine that allowed it to recover optimally, and he stepped out of his body.

Jumping into the ship's operating system immediately with a dive, he waited with bated breath as he arrived inside that digital sea. _Nothing._ Since nothing was 'pinging' his brain, it was not sending back any kind of response either. He let out a relieved breath. _Alright, that clears the conditions for at least trying to figure this stuff out._

He had run through some plans in his head already.

Creating a mesh that acted as a Faraday cage embedded in his skull, a hood or helmet that did the same, had been his first ideas. But the problem was that it had to be complete enough to prevent _any_ signal from going through, since a mesh would let some of the signals on a wider wavelength pass through, and he could not properly cover the bottom of his head with a hat or helmet. He couldn't very well cut off his brainstem and neck to completely isolate his brain, after all.

The hat or helmet idea had some merits, in that he could take it off once he returned to his body, but it failed to cover his head enough, he feared.

The signals used for communication worked on a wide spectrum, making use of the various properties to ensure coverage everywhere at all times. This meant that it had to be a complete sheet of metal, rather than a mesh or 'cage', per se, since otherwise specific wavelengths would still pass through.

The unstoppable march of consumer luxury electronics that could not be opposed had become his biggest obstacle. If people would pay for the ability to browse the extranet anywhere, then it was obvious that it would be the norm for coverage.

Putting the whole mesh into his skull, either on the inside or outside the bone or even fusing it into the skull, also had some potential. But that would require him to go through a rather difficult and precise operation which he could not do alone. Additionally, it would cut off his current ability to simply reach out into any device capable of extranet connectivity while inside of his body. Thus it would keep him alive, but losing his ability to spoof cameras and ID checks on the fly would mean that he would have to give up on living in any city.

_If I could just figure out what part is responsible for connecting to the extranet and was able to simply flick it off..._ He complained.

But the problem was that the parts inside of his head weren't consumer electronics. They were custom-made parts, fresh from an automated line, made by top-of-the-line experts for a very specific purpose. There were no manuals for him to peruse to gain an understanding, no forums he could ask questions in, no guides or shortcuts through which he could simply figure it out. Of course, he had tried to use Structural Analysis over the years on the parts, but that had not been very helpful either. The way a personal computer and a brain functioned were very different. With the former, everything had a clear and well-defined function; the power supply got everything going, the hard drive stored data for long-term, the Random Access Memory stored less data but was quicker to function while the Central Processing Unit handled all of the calculations, and such like...

It was all very specific and specialized. Modular, even.

But for the human brain, it wasn't that simple. Parts of the brain did specific jobs, but they also did a lot of other things. In his time and even in the current era, it still remained a mysterious organ. Even detailed scans and efforts to reason the function out had failed to crack the mystery known as 'consciousness'. The leading theory, which was also use in AI development, was simply that once a specific threshold was exceeded in the amount of processing capability then a consciousness would 'emerge'. In essence, most had thrown up their hands and concluded that consciousness was something that was greater than the sum of its parts, that simply happened.

Of course, that made sense given his knowledge of Magecraft. The brain was the seat of the soul and mind; it wasn't responsible for thinking, it was more like an antenna to a higher dimension where information was stored in the soul. And anything could develop a soul, more or less— _No, don't try and bring magecraft into this, I've already muddled my head with enough useless factors to consider. Consider it later, once you have a basic idea..._

Focusing back on the material, he excluded his magical understanding of matters for now.

So, to replicate that, the cybernetics were not simply set to do one thing as in a personal computer, but to function like the organic brain. In fact, all of the parts did a little bit of everything at the onset. And then, given the process of making it work by forcing it to learn from the organic brain in a method that was still too complex to be clearly recorded and understood...

Well, _no one_ had any idea what currently did what in his head.

Not even the specialists who had put the cybernetics in there, he feared. Well, perhaps they could point out which part was supposed to connect to the extranet, but given his habit of constantly being connected, it was entirely possible that all of the parts were now doing it. The cybernetics were a black box, that simply was understood to work by its results, not through its functionality being observed and understood to be correct.

They were a formula with more abstract symbols to mark out unknowns than with known quantities.

For all he knew, trying to use Reinforcement to attempt shutting off the signal might just turn off _everything_. And since those cybernetics were currently the only thing keeping his body alive...

It simply was not a risk he was willing to take.

He sighed, focusing on something else for a moment.

It was strange, possessing a starship as he was, right now. And he was truly possessing it; he had not hacked it, nor was he really flying it. He simply had _become_ the starship. The digital ocean he had come to expect had been overlain with new surroundings, as well, completing that sense of being something else. The Tristar's external sensor were something he could directly interpret, giving him a very good ability to process what was going on outside. In effect, he felt like _he_ was flying through space even as he was currently in a full dive.

Offhandedly he handled the communications with a nearby control station, as he marveled at the space all around him. It was as easy as breathing, or moving a limb for him, at that moment. There weren't any sensors that acted like his hearing or sense of touch on any of the surfaces, but the various scans felt like his vision had been expanded to see wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation he had never even considered before.

He was sure there was a lot being said and received in those 'colorful' waves that were being interpreted into understandable data, but to him it was all just a dazzling and ever-changing rainbow. To the naked eye, space had seemed empty and dark, but to the ship's sensors it was awash with strange colors and shapes. Solar wind and waves of _something_ , pulsing stars and distant nebula looked beautiful beyond anything he had seen in his life before.

Still, the controls were awkward as he had noted even before his dive. He huffed; even magic did not pick up the slack for a poor job, it seemed.

He exhaled, turning his attention back to his body. He could not sense it currently, given that the Tristar lacked any internal sensors. Which meant he would have to turn on the extranet signal to connect to himself.

Shutting off the tightbeam communication to isolate the ship— _just to be safe_ —Emiya turned on the internal signal. Immediately he noticed the signal being broadcast by the ship and his brain's cybernetics reacting in turn to signal back. He reached out and opened his body's eyes, suddenly receiving sensory information from both a human and a ship.

Feeling around, he tried to fiddle with his cybernetics, but he couldn't find anything that seemed to change a thing within the bounds he dared to experiment within.

Sighing, he closed off the extranet wireless connectivity and deleted all traces of the unique signal his cybernetics gave off. _I can re-roll the firmware in the ship so that it doesn't send out the signal... but the moment I connect to the extranet it will automatically update, huh. So, in theory if I hack everything,_ everywhere _, I could fix the signal issue..._

"Hah, that's just not happening." He shook his head.

For now, it seemed that his only option was to encase himself in a full-body Faraday cage if he wanted to step out of his body and not worry about being found out. It was a slight bit cumbersome, but given his options it was the best he could come up with.

He huffed to himself, smirking. _I hope they weren't expecting me to be stopped by just this half-measure..._

Eyeing the approaching Mass Relay, Emiya noted that his sense for how overwhelming it was seemed muted inside of a dive. Did that mean that his ability to sense disturbances in the world relied on a sense that the starship had no equivalent for? Or did that mean he was in some dimension that was removed from its effect? Both?

Even after five years or trying everything he could think off and reading all that he could get his hands on, he still understood very little of what element zero truly was.

Approaching the relay, he sent in the necessary data and for a moment, he could feel something _overwhelming_ beyond that connection. But as he shot forward, through millions of kilometers of space in a single instant, that sensation instantly disappeared. He blinked, considering carefully what had just happened, putting a note of it for later consideration, even as he began to approach the end of the relay jump.

Dretirop was a quarter of the galaxy away, but he was already making good time. Chiefly that was due to his burning of fuel to reach high accelerations in burst, since he thought that time was of the essence. Scanning around, he spotted the fuel depot in the distance and began to head for it.

Though Mass Relays made travel between the stars much, _much_ easier, fuel still remained a massive limiter to exploration. Usually, only select star systems could be colonized, due to the practical considerations in traveling that far away. Earth had been rather lucky in that regard, given that in the Sol system there were multiple planets that could function as a source of Helium-3; the premier fuel source of the galaxy.

It made Sol system something of an economic powerhouse, even when the seat of the government had moved to Arcturus Station, so that it could continue to expand its industry endlessly and not have to worry about energy. This meant that it was possible to launch ships from the Sol system without much trouble, allowing for humanity to rapidly expand through the Mass Relay that had been found in Pluto's vicinity.

But this did _not_ mean that all of the star systems within feasible flight distance would be emigrated to.

Simply put, what was the point of going to a system if you could not fly back from there? If another star system lacked a suitable source of fuel, then it would mean that it was necessary to haul massive amounts of fuel there, then. Enough to fly both there and _back,_ at the very least.

For example around the Sol system, within a 15 light-year radius only the Epsilon Indi system had any suitable sources of helium-3, which had directed humanity through the Charon Relay in the decades it had been exploring space so far. Why bother looking in nearby systems, which were known to lack suitable sources of fuel, when just beyond the relay lay Arcturus system with the plentiful Eirene and Themis to draw helium-3 from?

This put a simple limitation on most systems that could be habitated; they had to either have a source of fuel within the system, or a Mass Relay that allowed practical hauling of fuel into a fuel depot. Certain systems that were close enough and had rich enough resources could be exceptions to the rule, but even then the costs of hauling fuel between systems was astronomical and as soon as the flow of credits ceased from such systems, they would inevitably be closed down and be forgotten.

Dretirop was a strange world in that regard; lacking both a Mass Relay and a suitable source of fuel in its system, it had remained unexplored like many other systems and planets, until someone had found traces of Prothean ruins on its surface with a long-range scan when they had been charting out the possible garden world. So far, no efforts had been made to colonize the world, but that might change with time. Experts had hypothesized that at one time, there could have been a relay there, but it could have been frozen over and disappeared. It could have crashed down on a planet and been buried or destroyed, or had drifted out of the system and was somewhere in the darkness beyond.

The presence of extensive Prothean ruins lent credence to this theory, based on the assumption that the Protheans also had similar limitations with conventional star travel. It seemed rather obvious that if the Protheans had once lived there, then they would have constructed a Mass Relay for their needs, after all.

Whatever the case may be, it was far away and distant place, where few ever tread, today. The nearest Mass Relay and fueling station lay some 6 light-years away.

A not insubstantial distance, all things considered.

Which meant that he had to fuel up to the brim by the time he left the last mass relay to ensure that he could fly there and back properly. What was the point of a search-and-slash-or-rescue mission that ended with one needing to be rescued oneself, after all.

As he noted that his fuel tank had been filled, he disengaged from the fuel station and continued on his way to the next Mass Relay. Having calculated a course that allowed him to go at full burn and fuel up as efficiently as possible, he figured he could get to Dretirop in less than ten hours of flight. Of course, he was burning through credits at a rather spectacular rate, but what was money worth if you did not use it?

As he continued onward, he pondered whether he could use Structural Analysis on the starship while he was flying it, inside of the dive. But it seemed like there was a disconnect that did not allow him to get a feel for it, which lent credence to the theory that he was in some adjacent space that was cut off from 'reality' when he was in a dive. _Yet, the projections seem to work and bleed through. A case of them having greater spiritual weight?_

Shrugging, he gave up and turned to the tightbeam communications to the extranet. He might as well see if there was anything else of interest going on at the moment, while he continued flying.

* * *

;

* * *

Huntress Shiawe uncrossed her arms, standing proudly at the helm. _She_ reigned over this bridge, currently. It was a great honor, considering whom this starship belonged to.

She stared down at the various asari working by consoles, all around her. While she was not standing on a raised platform, the others were still seated, giving her the ability to loom over all of them. This was her domain right now and she reveled in it. She deserved to be here; having worked harder than everyone else. She had earned this honor.

She felt someone breathe on the back of her neck and for a moment she could only blink. Turning around, she came face to face with a severe asari in a bright red hardsuit. They stood half a meter apart, easily within a range where the Justicar could have disable or killed her with contemptuous ease.

"Justicar Anatha!" The asari huntress in command of the bridge sharpened up, snapping her feet together as she bowed for the Matriarch who had suddenly appeared behind her.

_How did she sneak up on me?!_ The huntress thought while barely controlling her breathing. The cold purple eyes of the ancient warrior settled on the officer, narrowing only slightly.

" _Sloppy_."

The huntress felt her heart stop for a second, realizing she had been weighed and found utterly wanting just then. "I-I..."

"Set course for Dretirop immediately."

The Justicar waited not a second further after stating that order, turning around to leave without bothering to acknowledge the huntress.

"Yes, Justicar!" She shouted, feeling her heart race. Then, she ground her teeth as she lamented her failure. She still had much to learn, though she was the foremost among her peers, even as mere Maiden among Matrons.

Looking up, she found the pilot looking at her with wide eyes. "Ma'am?"

She nodded in return.

"You heard her, set course for Dretirop. _Full speed ahead!_ "

"Yes, ma'am!" The pilot responded, quickly turning to tap away on the haptic adaptive interface before her.

Looking at the star map to see where exactly this 'Dretirop' was, the huntress frowned. _What could we possibly want in a place as_ that _remote?_

* * *

;

* * *

Dretirop loomed ahead, half a star system away.

Emiya had begun to slow down as he had approached the edge of the system, pushing with the thrusters to reduce his speed. Bleeding off the worst of it, he exhaled. As he had left the nearby system with the Mass Relay for his approach to the system where Dretirop lay, his connection to the extranet through the tightbeam had finally been severed.

With the loss of that avenue of investigation and distraction, he had instead focused on all of the external sensors, sweeping the surroundings as carefully as he possibly could.

Near the edge of system where the Mass Relay nearest to Dretirop was, he had found a distress beacon that would contact the tightbeam buoy near the Mass Relay, orbiting around the star at an extreme distance. It would carry forward the distress signal, if something happened on Dretirop, calling the cavalry from Thessia. In theory, anyhow. The fact that he had been able to find it with just this commercial model starship's sensors, simply by combing through the sensor feed for an electromagnetic anomaly in the darkness, seemed to vindicate his coming this far.

Emiya had taken a closer look at the distress beacon, but had been unable to figure out whether it worked as it should.

As its only purpose was to simply receive a signal and carry it forward, he had no way to tell if something further 'up the line' was broken or not. With the distances involved between the two systems, for a reliable real-time signal to work, he reasoned that there had to be more than one beacon. Set up as a daisy chain, they would carry forward the signal from the far off Dretirop by creating a tunnel through which a Faster than Light tightbeam communication could be sent through.

It was pretty much a miniature mass relay. _If one or more links of the chain were severed... Then maybe..._

He had tried to find more of the beacons, but so far he had not found a single one in the interstellar space between the two systems. Perhaps there had been one, but it had already been brought back by one of the other ships that had returned. Perhaps it had been destroyed. Perhaps it was better hidden. Perhaps it was within the system Dretirop was in. He could not tell, as he continued flying forward.

The other beacon had practically only been visible due to being so far away from the star. Within a star system he doubted he would be able to find another beacon like it as easily.

Still, he took the time to look around for any obvious signs of another. As he had arrived in the system where Dretirop was, he had stopped by the outermost planet, scanning it quickly before moving on. Dretirop was the second of six planets, though there were several smaller celestial objects spinning around the star as well.

As he stopped at the second-outermost planet—a dark ice dwarf of seemingly no consequence—did he finally spot something unusual. He only noticed because he had been scrying for anything that could be the beacon.

Behind him from the darkness of interstellar space, another starship emerged from FTL.

He blinked, turning his focus around as he looked at the starship that had appeared through the various sensors available to him right at that moment. _That's a lot bigger than the Tristar, but the engine output is..._

At this distance with the Tristar's sensors being what they were, he could not get a better look, nor footage of its physical appearance. The strange ship continued drifting into the system, obviously having slowed down from FTL travel to be able to scan around properly. Suddenly, it turned around and acquired a vector that led directly to him, he realized.

He attempted hailing the other vessel, but they ignored him.

Emiya blinked.

_They don't seem like they're here to talk. I have no weapons on this thing, my absolute speed is probably inferior, and with them already in motion I'm probably not going to be able to outrun them. I can't hack them if they won't accept a comm line with me, either..._

And then he frowned. _This is actually pretty bad, isn't it?_

Without waiting another second, he gunned the engines immediately to maximum output as he set a course directly away from the approaching starship. But it was too late, they had a lock on him already.

In space there was no such thing as stealth.

As long as he remained in outer space, he had no way of dealing with his pursuer if they turned out to be hostile. The only option left to him was to run for it. As long as he made it to FTL, they would not be able to track him, as conventional sensors would fail to keep up with his trail then. _Still, if they stay around here, I won't be able to investigate Dretirop. Should I head for the planet and try to hide?_

The second planet of the system slowly approached even as he continued to accelerate. It would make for a rough time, if he actually tried to land at this speed, but he couldn't stop or slow down given that starship behind him was catching up.

Even now, no hailing attempts were made.

Neither of them had yet made it to _Faster than Light_ -travel, allowing Emiya to keep observing his pursuers through the sensors. Even with how light this ship was, it simply could not jump into such speeds instantly.

Luckily, it seemed that neither could his pursuers' ship.

Just because you could not accurately read on a sensor something going in FTL did not mean you could not read other things while you were in FTL. Thus, if they were but a bit faster then he would have surely caught up to him before he managed to enter FTL.

But, they were still gaining on him. For his weight advantage, their ship had a much stronger engine; he could tell that much just from their electromagnetic radiation output.

He noticed a flare of something, frowning in digital space at the reading, before just to be safe veering off to the side at an angle. An instant later in real-time, something was launched out of the pursuing ship as its heat output on the long-distance sensors spiked. Even at the distance involved, the launched projectile caught up quicker than Emiya could have reacted to it, given how slow the Tristar was to react to his controls comparatively.

Even then, his dodge maneuver had been too shallow, the projectile catching up and grazing his kinetic barriers. In his efforts to minimize the size of the mass effect fields and kinetic barriers around the Tristar, in an effort to maximize efficiency, he realized he had made it _too_ small. Even as the shot missed, something still hit him. Alarms went off and a radiator panel had gone off-line even as the shot had strictly speaking missed him. The realization that with the distances involved, the shot had probably already been made several seconds ago also chilled him to the core. _What the hell was that? It couldn't have been a backlash or a pressure wave. An EMP pulse from the shot, or something?_

The starship in pursuit of him suddenly began to catch up more quickly, and Emiya had to tear his attention away from the Tristar's gauges.

_Damn, what do I do?_ He noted as his acceleration was slowing down. With the side radiator off-line, the engine was putting out too much heat, thus the safeties had cut down on power. It had been one of the large side radiator panels as well, meaning it wasn't an immaterial loss in performance.

_I can't outrun them anymore, the ship'll overheat before I get to FTL now if I try to override the safeties._ He cursed, checking the sensors. He could still see the pursuing vessel behind him on the readouts. _That's good, they're not in FTL yet._

Another iron-clad law of space, was that something heavier could almost never outrun something lighter; as the faster you went, the more your mass would hinder you. Simply put, to accelerate something the amount of energy required went up exponentially with mass as you approached the speed of light. In space, a lighter object would always have an easier time accelerating to higher velocities and would also have a higher cap on maximum velocity achievable for a specific amount of energy available.

Even with mass effect technology, this simple rule of thumb meant that lighter objects in practice had so much higher a glass ceiling, that it was extremely difficult to bridge that gap. To overcome such a law, a considerably larger engine comparatively to the ship's mass was necessary. Additionally, the Tristar had been stripped down of all extraneous mass, meaning that for the larger ship to be able to catch up, it must have been similarly stripped down of extraneous mass. It had an extremely optimized mass-to-engine ratio, something that would have made it very fragile in a straight up fight but giving it a huge advantage against un-armed starships that could only run away. _Damn, no commercial starship would need that much speed. It has definitely been optimized for ambush and pursuit, then. A pirate vessel?_

But in the case of a projectile shot at him, it was _definitely_ true. With the technology available in starships, it was the same as with small arms mass accelerators in personal combat. Barring extreme distances, all defensive actions by a reacting person had to practically take place _before_ the shot was made.

_That wouldn't have destroyed the ship, though. A warning shot? No, they didn't expect me to dodge. To disable my kinetic barriers or to demoralize me, then._ Emiya shook his head, keeping his focus needle-sharp. _I need to hide on Dretirop._

That meant he needed to make it to the planet before they caught up with him, and fly to the opposite side where their scanners would not be able to see him properly. With the planet between the two ships, he could maneuver more without worry of being seen. There, he would have to find a place to hide his ship somewhere before they caught up again.

Exhaling, he added a random pattern to his flying to avoid getting hit as he continued to fly towards Dretirop.

Even as the other ship was catching up, he would still make it in time before them, with enough time to hide on the opposite side before they caught up. Though with his less than perfectly-straight-course he was losing his lead rapidly. It was going to be a narrow thing.

Luckily, it seemed that they could not fire very quickly in succession, at least.

As the planet loomed ahead, he inhaled while noting he had barely dodged another projectile.

_This is going to be rough. I'm coming in way too fast._ He had almost hit FTL already, the ship behind him already long gone from his sensors meaning that it _had_. It must have done so already several seconds ago, even. Without his sensors to work off of, Emiya had only been able to dodge the following four shots by predicting when a shot might be made, but essentially it boiled down to luck.

His pursuers had gambled on a second shot hitting and slowing him down, diverting power from their lightening mass effect field to the spinal gun, sacrificing acceleration in the process. Luckily for him, it had been a mistake on their part that bought him several seconds more to work with.

As he began to approach the planet he began to reverse his thrusters and setting his mass effect field to increase his ships mass, to retard his acceleration as much as possible within the limits of his internal inertial dampeners. Simultaneously as his speed fell enough for him to actually be caught by the planet's gravity well, he adjusted his orbit so that he would be caught by it swing around. All of this, he did while taking an approach that would allow him to be caught by the planets gravity well into orbiting around it. _We're both going too fast; I'm barely going slow enough that I don't cause the atmosphere to begin a fusion reaction on entry. They won't be able to slow down in time either, even if their bigger engine and greater mass helps. They're not going to fly into the planet, which means they'll try to stop behind the planet or try to swing by its gravity well, too._

Which meant that he should swing around the planet's back and then land somewhere on the 'front', while the ship was behind the planet, struggling with its massive speed.

"Haven't had to struggle with slipping around this much since I last went _ice-skating_!" He grinned as he began to read through the sensor data that was just arriving, giving him an idea of the planet's geographical make up. "There!"

A cave large enough to fit his Tristar, surrounded by numerous mountains and other caves! A haystack in which to hide the proverbial needle.

As he entered atmosphere, dozens of alarms started beeping and screeching at him. He dismissed all of them, focusing on getting the angle right as he struggled with slowing down.

Distantly, he noted that the pursuing vessel appeared again on his sensors, flying past the planet. If he was coming in at two o'clock, they were flying past it at eight o'clock. _Yes! At this angle I'll be landing on the side opposite to them. They won't be able to see me while they're slowing down to change course._

He glanced at the internal temperature and life-support readouts, sighing at the rising heat. It was still fine, but he was cutting it close. You weren't supposed to be coming in this 'hot' when landing, after all.

A hundred kilometers from the ground. Fifty. Twenty. Five. One.

Emiya grit his teeth as he flew straight for the cavern he saw in the scans. Making it inside, he barely had enough thrust left to stop before he crashed into the far wall. The proximity parking sensor was beeping at him incessantly, noting that he was parked too close to a wall according to regulation. Immediately, he shut off _everything_ and jumped out of the dive and the Tristar.

Landing outside in his spiritualized state, he readied his shield in his mind as he jumped to the entrance of the cave. From the outside, it wasn't possible to see in. And with the slope and the hot sunlight heating up the massive mountain he had flown into, his heat signature should be hidden as well.

But you could never be too cautious.

Looking out, he strained to see if anything was approaching. Focusing on his breathing, he ignored the treacherous prediction in his mind's eye that his ship was about to be bombarded from orbit by the pursuing starship. Against an attack like that, he had no real means of defense.

He waited for fifteen minutes, until he exhaled and relaxed. _Nothing. That must mean they have no trace on me._

Dismissing the ancient greek armament and shaking his head, he turned around to stare at the Tristar. It was smoking; the radiator panels were scorched and warped from the heat of landing into an atmosphere that quickly and the front was charred black. _Fixing this will take several hours, at least. At least I have enough food to fuel my use of magic._

Sighing, he jumped inside of the ship and landed inside of his body without having to re-adjust his jump, having judged his position accurately enough. But he had just had time to see something alarming out of the corner of his eye, an instant before he was inside of himself again.

As he opened his eyes and inhaled the warm air, his hearing only confirmed what he had seen.

He could hear quiet sobbing.

Removing the straps around his torso and hips, he got up and turned around. Finding the source of the noise he inhaled slowly. At the sound of him getting up, Hoana who was sitting in a corner of the ship and crying, looked up.

Their eyes met and she hiccuped once.

Emiya had no idea what to say, realizing that he had fucked up. That he had _really_ fucked up.

He glanced at the normally sealed off section where he had put most of his bags. It looked like she had crawled in there at some point when he had been at Hosin's, he realized with growing horror. _Which means, she's been all alone inside of the ship and I didn't notice at all. It's been_ hours, _since I dived in..._

He could imagine her shock at realizing she was in a starship flying who knew where, trying to wake him up and utterly failing as he had been out of his body. _Hours_ , completely powerless and lost. Alone.

"Hoana, _I_ —" He began, swallowing as he realized he had no idea what to say or do, right then.

She surged forward, wrapping her arms around his hips and bawling her eyes out. He blinked, raising his hands away from the adolescent asari as he completely and utterly froze.

_I've handled kids before, just calm down..._ Exhaling, he got down to one knee, wrapping his arms around the adolescent asari and began to murmur in a soft voice that it was going to be all right. She released his legs, wrapping her hands around his neck, holding as if her life depended on it, wholly unaware of his attempts at calming her down.

She slowly began to regain her breath, hiccuping as she slowly tried to explain.

"You... weren't moving... I tried, tried to—wake up, but...Didn't listen... so _scared_ , you weren't, I'm sorry—I'm sorry..." The torrent of incoherent words in between sobs assaulted him like knives as he exhaled.

As he did his best to calm her down, he continued cursing in his mind. No matter how much he tried to change himself, his failures always ended with someone crying.

That much it seemed would never change.

Placing a hand on her neck, he considered simply stunning her for a second. But then he shook his head; that would only push this issue back. _But I do need to figure out what's going on and how to handle it..._

The cavern was been deep enough that he should be shielded from any direct scans he could think of being used on the whole of the planet. As long as he kept the ship turned off, there would not be any electromagnetic radiation for him to be located through. However, small electronics still probably be fine, given how thick the ceiling of the cavern seemed to be.

It meant he would have to use Reinforcement to fix everything, probably too. Well, it was quicker that way, anyhow.

During his scanning run he had also found what he thought was the Prothean dig-site. It wasn't too far away from here, even on foot. The scans hadn't given him any clues of what had happened on the sites, meaning he would have to go there in person to take a look. _But I'll have to leave her behind, huh._

After fifteen minutes of crying and incoherent words, it seemed that Hoana had exhausted herself and fallen asleep in his arms. He wasn't sure how old exactly she was, but given that Hosin was still alive and quite spry, it meant that she couldn't be very old at all. Less than fifty years, at least.

How mature did that make her?

Asari matured slowly, and in stages that had no equivalent to humans, meaning that he could not simply place a number on her so easily. _But given the asari's complex nervous system and brains, she can't be very mentally developed yet... Probably? She did not seem that young, back when we met earlier..._

He sighed, getting up with her in his arm. Walking to the second pilot seat, he adjusted the back until it was nearly completely leveled back and as flat as possible.

_'—Trace, on'—begin projection,_

The mattress fell on top of the chair, molded to the shape so that it would not fall off and making the top of the mattress to be flat despite the uneven surface of the chair it resting was on. He put Hoana down on the mattress, struggling with individual fingers as she held onto him even in her sleep.

Taking out a blanket, he covered her as he began to open up his packed rations.

He couldn't very well leave, even if he was strained for time. If she woke up alone, it would just be worse. But he needed to fix the Tristar and keep an eye out for the ship that had been pursuing him.

"What a mess."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya put his hand on the radiator panel, closing his eyes.

"—Trace _, on"—begin synchronization,_

Extending his senses through his magical energy, he felt out the damage that had been wrought. _It doesn't seem like it was hit directly, after all. I can probably still fix it._

He nodded, pulling back and opening his eyes.

Behind him, he heard a gasp and ruffle of cloth. Turning around, he glanced Hoana who had just woken up. Her eyes were wide open, the panic obvious as she looked around wildly until she spotted him.

"Good morning."

She blinked, her mouth opening and closing once.

_I have no experience with asari kids. Should I treat her like a human child? They were tough and adaptable usually, but what about the asari? So much for understanding their '_ logos _', huh._

"Umm... morning..." She quietly murmured, getting down from the mattress and staring at the fine red sand beneath her feet on the ground.

She looked around, obviously overwhelmed by her strange new surroundings. Dretirop had a breathable atmosphere and a rather pleasant 0.9 G gravity. Compared to the space station that maintained the normal Thessian 1.1 G, it must have felt like she was light as a feather, as she took her first steps on the red sand.

"Where are we?" She quietly asked, her previous panic all but forgotten.

Emiya looked around at the insides of the cavern they were in. The smooth surface of the red sandstone reminded him rather of Australian deserts and cliffs, the slightly purple sky outside only further fueling the strangeness of their new environment.

The subdued darkness of the cave mixed with the orange brightness flooding in through the entrance made for a rather surreal setting, all things considered.

She had obviously realized that they weren't on Thessia.

"We're in a cave on Dretirop."

"Umm... Dretirop?" She repeated, tilting her head.

"It's a planet quite far away from Thessia, without any cities or people living on it. We went through several Mass Relay jumps." He answered.

Her eyes widened as she suddenly remembered where she had been and what had happened. She bit her lip, looking down as she clenched her small fists.

Emiya inhaled, jumping down from the Tristar's roof, where he had been looking at the radiator panels.

Landing in the orange sand, his feet sunk almost wholly into the ground up to his shins. Pulling himself free with easy steps, he walked over to her. She looked up at his approach, tears forming in her eyes already.

Going down to one knee, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

"Hoana, I'm sorry I didn't notice you before."

She blinked, two tears rolling down her cheeks before she shook her head. She mumbled something, before wiping at her face with her hands as she tried to say it again.

He patiently waited until she could speak.

"Papa... Papa always scolds me..."

Emiya let out a light laugh, causing her to blink and look up. "Yeah, falling asleep on starships and stowing away _is_ a bad habit."

To punctuate his words, he lightly flicked her forehead causing her to flinch and stare at him with wide eyes while covering where he had flicked her with both of her hands.

"Umm... Sorry..."

He chuckled, putting a hand on her head again. "We both made a mistake, let's leave it at that, alright?"

She looked at him strangely again, not quite certain what to make of the gesture but accepting his words nonetheless. _Hmm, it seems she's not that different from a human child, after all. Okay, that gives me some confidence._

Getting up, he walked over to grab the datapad he had brought outside along with the mattress and some of his tools.

"Now, I'd like nothing more than to get you home. But we have a bit of a problem right now." He began, causing her to look bewildered. "In that I can't fly the ship back. Not until I repair the damage the pirates did to the ship, at least."

"P-pirates?" Hoana blinked, utterly taken aback.

He nodded, pulling up footage from the chase on the datapad and handing it to her. It showed the part where he had been shot at and how the radiator panel had been broken, before cutting off.

She looked up at him wide-eyed, mouth hanging wide open.

To forestall any tantrums, he had simply decided to impress the seriousness of the situation on her right from the beginning. Kids were quite good at reading the mood, thus as long as he made the situation clear it would keep her calm. He wasn't actually sure if they _were_ pirates, but it seemed a reasonable enough description for the moment.

"So, I need _your_ help, if we are to get back home."

She swallowed, overwhelmed by his words as she stared at him with wide eyes.

"Can I count on your help?" He asked, extending a single hand to her as he took to one knee again to be closer to her height.

She shook her head lightly, clearly still overwhelmed. _That won't do; I need to take control of the situation in her own mind. Right, impress on her how I could need her help._

"The reason I didn't notice you before, is that I have a medical condition." He continued speaking, tapping at his head. "In the past, I had an accident and I had to have a very serious operation."

She hesitantly nodded, not quite understanding. That was fine, she only needed to believe him enough so his bouts of catatonia would not freak her out.

"When I fall asleep, I fall into a very deep sleep because of it. So deep, that I can't be woken up easily. I might even seem like I'm dead, but it's just because I'm resting."

"O-oh..." She nodded, frowning as she thought back. It seemed to make sense to her, she must have tried to wake him up several times when she had realized he had taken off. Had she fallen asleep somewhere as well? He hadn't dived until he had left the Parnitha system.

Well, it didn't matter anymore.

"So when I'm sleeping, I need you to keep me safe. We'll be inside the spaceship when it happens, but I still need you to watch over me." He continued.

She still hesitated, nodding only slightly.

"And to get off Dretirop, we also need to fix the ship. I could use your help there, too."

"B-but... I don't know..." She looked away from him, then.

He smiled at her. "Hey, aren't you the head machinist at Hosin's?"

"Umm... But..." She shook her head, not sure what to say.

"See, look what I found..." He put his hand behind his back, projecting something into his hand surreptitiously before pulling it out.

Her eyes went wide at the sight of the small D-plier with a pink handle. He extended his hand forward, and she hesitantly accepted the proffered tool. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she accepted it, her small fingers wrapping around the handle and squeezing as if to make sure it was really there.

She looked up, drawing courage from the tool as their eyes met. "I-I'll help you...!"

He grinned at her then, nodding back. _Now, rather than feeling helpless and lost, I've made her responsible and gotten her involved. Hopefully, this won't be a traumatic memory but rather something she'll remember for years as a good experience. I need to keep her occupied and distracted while I get the actual job done._

"Then I'll be counting on you, Hoana."

"Umm, yeah...!" She seemed a little hesitant, still.

"...Do you remember my name?"

"Umm... Well, it was... Umm..."

He huffed. "Saiga Fujimura."

"That, yes! Papa talks about you!" She shouted, pointing at him and nodding.

"I'd love to hear what he has to say about me. But first, let's eat." He said.

Hoana blinked and a second later her belly rumbled to agree with his point. She looked down and up, and as their eyes met again she flushed purple in embarrassment.

He had brought out a portable heater set, along with water and his packed rations already before she had woken up. Eating pemmican 'raw' was fine, but if he had the time he preferred to actually cook it in some way. As it was, he was making a basic stew using the water he had brought along. The taste should be mild enough that she should be able to eat it, compared to some of the more spiced mixes he had made.

Plus, drinking plenty of water was vital. Even here in the shade of the cavern it was quite warm.

She blinked, looking at the pot that had been quietly simmering for a good while now behind her. The water wasn't boiling, but during the process of making the pemmican, he had only dried out the meat at temperature a little over his own body temperature. That way the nutrients in the meat remained untouched, allowing him to slow cook it like this properly.

"Is that water...?"

"Yes."

She frowned. "I don't like it..."

He huffed. "It's filtered, don't worry. Besides, it's so hot outside, so you need to drink plenty. Try it at least?"

She blinked, before nodding as her belly rumbled again. "Well... okay."

Tasting it to make sure that it was good already, he nodded and took out two bowls. It had been simmering for two hours now, allowing the broth to absorb a lot of the taste, making for a rich flavor with plenty of nutrients and energy.

A common problem with traveler's diets that relied on salted meat had been scurvy and other vitamins deficiencies, a common issue with meat- or grain-only diets. But he had specifically bought meat from Thessian wild-life that had been grass fed. ' _You are what you eat_ ' was quite true, especially when it came to cooking, be it nutritionally or in terms of taste. What the animal ate could drastically affect the taste of the meat in the end.

His mouth still occasionally watered at the memory of eating that wild hog in Finland, once. It had been fed on blueberries for several months, giving it a sweetness that simply could not be found anywhere else.

"Here you go." He said, offering her a deep bowl with a spoon. She looked at the food and the spoon with a frown, before accepting it.

He took his own bowl and began to eat with a quiet 'itadakimasu' that made her blink in confusion, since it wasn't in any asari tongue. He would need about half a kilogram of pemmican to keep himself going, she considerably less. That meant he had enough supplies for well over a week, assuming they only ate what he had prepared. _Proper planning and preparation..._

Though, he was not a hundred percent certain if a pemmican diet contained all of the necessary nutrients for an _asari_ to live. It meant that he couldn't simply expect her to be fine with a diet he knew was acceptable for himself. _Five years and still there are gaps like this in my understanding of the asari..._

Additionally he had to consider how much water they would both need. He did not feel safe about making someone else drink projected water, so he might have to find a source sooner or later.

For now, his tanks should last at least a four days.

Another thing he had noticed and constantly kept stumbling over, was his complete and utter disconnect from the extranet. He had gotten used to having all of the extranet's resources available to him at all time. He had gotten so used to simply looking up information on the fly, be it in the middle of a conversation or while working out, that the sudden inability lead to some metaphorical tripping as he realized that it was no longer an option. _I've gotten too reliant on it, after all._

Well, even if he wasn't sure about its nutritional balance, it did seem to be edible for her, at least.

Smirking, he looked out of the corner of his eye at Hoana who was finally eating her first spoonful. She paused, slowly chewing, before looking surprised and getting immersed in the meal as she began to eat with ever-increasing gusto. She must have been rather hungry.

He said nothing, turning to his own meal again. _No better compliment from a child than that._

* * *

;

* * *

"Is it really alright if I go to sleep, too?" Hoana asked, frowning with worry at him. "Shouldn't I umm... keep guard?"

"Yeah, the sun has set, which means its bedtime, right? We've worked hard today, so it's important to rest too. Tomorrow we'll be leaving, so I need you in tip top shape, okay?"

She tilted her head at him, then. "Tip top?"

He nodded, patting her on the head again before lying down on his own mattress on the floor of the Tristar. She looked down at him from the upraised chair for a few seconds, before settling under her own blanket as well. Judging from her breathing, after shuffling around for a while, she fell asleep ten minutes later.

It had been a rather hectic day.

The ship was in mostly working order again and he had made some plans for how to handle his current situation as well. There hadn't been any problems, a local mega-fauna predator showing up to claim the cavern for itself aside. Or perhaps reclaim?

Hoana had screamed as the large six-legged lizard standing at two meters by the shoulders, with a three-way parting mouth and a meter long tongue, had appeared by the cavern's entrance, running for safety in the Tristar in panic.

Emiya had simply grabbed a large wrench and beaten the thing black and blue, while dancing around its attempts at claw and bite him, for five minutes until it decided that it no longer wanted any part of this place. Slinking back out with its four-pronged tail between its legs, Hoana had been cheering at him for the whole time.

After that she seemed absolutely certain that everything was going to be fine after all, so it had been a rather fortuitous event after all.

Waiting another five minutes, he finally closed his eyes and stepped out of his body. Hopping outside of the Tristar and materializing, he grabbed the datapad he had left outside and ran a short-range scan. _Hmm, good. Nothing seems to be broadcasting. I would prefer to put myself in another Faraday coffin, but it can't be helped with Hoana there._

Turning around, he grabbed the rest of the equipment he had left outside. It was all stuff he had prepared during the daytime, after he had gotten the ship mostly fixed.

The biggest problem he faced at the moment, was simply the fact that he had no idea who and why he had been pursued by. If they were simple pirates, it was entirely possible that they had already left. But if they were related to Professor Henell going missing then it was also entirely possible that they would want to capture or kill him, and were waiting for him to make a move again.

Additionally, he could not scan for them, given that turning on the ship would cause it to flare up like a bonfire in the night on this otherwise uninhabited planet on all sensors that could pick up electromagnetic activity. He had been lucky that this cavern had been located so near the equator of the planet, facing the star as he had landed. The red mountain inside of which he had landed had been soaking in the sunlight for the entire day; even now as the sun had set, it was still warm enough that he could have fried an egg on the rust-colored cliffs.

Stepping out into the open beyond the cavern's entrance, he gazed out.

They were up a third of the way to the mountain's top, the cavern's entrance looking down into a long valley running far below. Between the mountain ranges, he could see thick forests of some sort along with a hint of a river running through at the bottom. It reminded him of Germany and Switzerland in the way the terrain was shaped, even as the tropic climate gave it an entirely different appearance at a closer look.

He inhaled, tasting the outside air and noting that there did not seem to be any wind at the moment. It was still rather warm and the stars above twinkled peculiarly, as a purple aurora shone overhead, dancing between the millions of small dots of light.

Emiya mentally checked the map in his head, carefully choosing his heading as he began to run.

Getting down the worst of the slope, he jumped and began to soar through the air with each leap. His hair and red mantle danced with the wind, as he continued to jump and leap forward, crossing hundreds of meter with every step. He had to take extra care with the equipment he was carrying, though. Making sure to bend his knees with every landing and making sure his hands were allowing the cases he was carrying to bounce, he kept moving.

Clearing the mountain range, he appeared on a dry plain. Cracked dry earth stretched out as far as the eye could see. And 200 kilometers ahead, the Prothean dig sites awaited, hidden between the dunes of sand.

It was his ultimate destination for the moment, but he hadn't been traveling in a straight path, rather he had taken a slight detour further up North. He had devised a plan to look for the ship that had taken to pursuing him earlier, to try to see if they were still looking for him.

Moving out along the side of the desert, he arrived at another mountain. Climbing it with long leaps, he landed on the top shortly. As he inhaled the crisp air, with his boots sinking into the snow-covered top, he looked around. From this position, he could see Dretirop all around him. The valleys and mountains, the thickly grown forests that would not lose out to any of the jungles on Earth, the grasslands near the rivers with countless mega-fauna sleeping by, and far in the distance a great green lake that sparkled with the stars above.

Exhaling, he shook his head and began to clear away some of the snow as he began to set up the equipment he had brought along.

The simple catch-22 he had been presented with, was that if he turned on his technological sensors to look for his pursuers, they would instantly detect him and certainly come swooping in. But if he did not scan for them, then he could not know whether it was safe to leave, and the moment he tried getting off the planet he would be completely at their mercy again if they were there.

To see if it was safe to use electronics, he would have to use electronics.

But the simple problem had an equally simple solution; simply gut the sensors from the ship and run the test _elsewhere_. This mountaintop would let him safely look for his pursuers without the danger of his ship being found out. Of course, it left his ship lacking some of its normal sensors, which was less than optimal, but he had to make do.

Best case scenario was that he would simply be able to re-install it on his ship again and that would be that.

Of course, he could not simply wait here and look over the readings in person. Or well, perhaps if he dove in or remained spiritualized he could, but he would rather not get shot from outer space if they got excited again. Therefore he had simply set the sensors to broadcast its results to a datapad he would take with him and then move elsewhere.

Finishing the set up, and setting the timer that would turn on the sensors in five minutes, he got up. Grabbing the datapad, he turned around and with all his strength leaped off the top of the mountain.

The wind howled in his ears as he spread his arms and legs to maximize his drag coefficient, his mantle flapping at his waist as the ground approached.

It was almost like parachuting. Just without the parachute.

Then at the last second, he pulled his arm inward to shield the datapad against his chest, closing his legs while angling himself to fall forward at an angle towards the ground ahead. His lone extended hand touched the ground and he allowed it to give and bend as he turned his angled fall into a forward roll to bleed off momentum, and as he got to his feet again he continued at nearly the same speed as he began to run forward.

Some may have scoffed at him in London for joining on that one Parkour seminar before he had first set out to be a Hero of Justice, but those skills he had learned had been useful to this very day. Or well, he had learned the basic forward falling roll in middle school Judo lessons, but learning to apply it to higher jumps had been a valuable lesson nonetheless.

Hell, the impact from landing directly alone would have been so large that it would have left a trail. This way, most of it had been bled off to leave a much less noticeable indentation in the ground from his roll.

He continued running for several minutes until he found a spot within the edge of the sensors' broadcast range that had relatively decent concealment. Crouching down, he turned on the datapad and began to wait for the incoming transmission.

Half a minute later, it began to broadcast and he waited with bated breath. Would someone show up? Would his pursuers appear to check it out in person? Had they left? Would they just shoot it out from outer space? As the data began to stream in, he waited patiently. One minute passed. Two. Ten. After half an hour, the sensor stopped scanning and went back into sleep mode.

Emiya sighed, closing the datapad and getting up.

"Nothing definite, huh."

At the very least, he had not found the starship anywhere on this side of the planet. There was a lot of 'static' and background noise which could have just been solar wind and other miscellaneous radiation, from what he had been able to see. Or it could have been a low-power surveillance drone or some kind of small satellite looking for him right at that moment.

Frowning, he turned towards the cave where his Tristar was hidden as he paused.

Had he made a mistake by setting up the scanner so close to his actual hiding place? There was no way a normal human would have been able to set it up this far away, but a good surveillance system would still have been able to cover a wide enough area that it was still looking over the area where his Tristar was hidden. Just because he had not found anything did not mean that there wasn't anyone out there. It was possible that he was being monitored right now from somewhere in outer space; there was no way for him to tell.

If he went back to his ship like that, it might lead his pursuers right to him.

Sighing, he looked at the datapad in his hand. It contained nothing sensitive or valuable. Not really. Hell, he had three more on the Tristar. They were the equivalent of a ballpoint pen or a post-it note, in this day and age.

"Tch, look at me now, littering." Saying that, he dropped it to the ground after having made sure that both the memory drive and cache had been completely wiped.

_Maybe I should have set it up on the other side of the planet as a distraction, and then flown away while they might have been looking at that?_ He shook his head. _No, if they're in outer space and have something like smaller satellites or drones in orbit, it wouldn't make a difference. Not enough information for me to make such a large play._

Spiritualizing, he returned to the mountaintop one more time to check that the results he had gotten weren't any different. It would be rather embarrassing if he were to find out that the broadcast had been hacked and he had just been showed a spoofed feed to lull him into a sense of false security.

Finding nothing unusual, he turned to look out at the desert. Even from this mountain's peak, he could not see the ruins.

It stretched well over a third of the planet after all. One of the reports he had been able to find on the Serrice U infranet had mentioned a theory about some kind of environmental disaster that had caused the desert to appear and begin spreading, some sixty thousand years ago.

Leaping out once again, he soared through the air out over the desert. He had returned to the mountain for more than just the sensor equipment's sake; he needed to see the stars clearly and have his starting position. Once he was in the heart of the desert, navigation would prove rather difficult. Thus, he had beforehand consulted his ship's star charts and the scan of the planet he had taken on landing.

_As long as I follow that star, starting from this mountain, I_ should _arrive at the third dig site. From there, I should be able to find the other dig sites as well._

In his spiritual form, he lacked mass, thus he had no need for the momentum conserving roll he had used before, simply continuing his stride upon landing as if he had simply jumped lightly instead of fallen from a mountain's peak.

He ran for at least thirty minutes in his invisible, ghostly state, before he began to see signs of the Serrice expedition's dig site.

Slowing down, he arrived at a mile-wide hole in the ground. It was only some fifty meters in depth. But with the fine sand here, it was necessary to remove everything at a wide radius to ensure that nothing came collapsing down, when one dug a hole.

_It kind of looks like a gigantic antlion's pit._ He thought, before shaking his head.

At the bottom, he could see a flat surface of some kind. It was darker than the red sand, thus he jumped down to get a better look.

He frowned, noting that the surface seemed like a later addition. Dropping down through the metal trapdoor, he arrived inside of the ruin. It was pitch black, but he felt a floor beneath him solid enough to support his weight.

Materializing, he projected a shining sword again to provide himself some light. Looking around, he could see marks where a stairway had been bolted into the side of this ruin, to provide a safe entrance from the bottom of the sand pit.

He walked around, looking with some interest before he shook his head.

There was nothing here.

As far as he could tell, it was simply a skyscraper of some kind that had fallen down without actually breaking apart on impact and then been covered in sand. The building materials were quite incredible, the windows were the same materials as the test tubes he had seen on Mars. It was quite impressive how they could hold up the tons and tons of sand that must lay above it, all these millennia later.

But it wasn't what he was looking for.

Dismissing the sword, he de-materialized again and jumped up through the side of the building and through the deep sand. Arriving at the surface, he oriented himself again by the stars above and began to run towards the place he knew as the first dig site. It was where the primary camp had been constructed, as far as he knew, and where he was most likely to find evidence of any foul play.

It took him another hour to make it to the camp, though he almost missed it. All of the prefab buildings had long since been removed and the imprints had not remained in the sand for long, the winds covering up all evidence of the team once having been here.

He only noticed that he had arrived by noticing the first ruins that had been spotted. They had been noticed on planetary scans based on the fact that a part of the building was sticking out of the sand, making it possible to detect from orbit much more easily than the fallen skyscraper he had passed by earlier. Thus, the first dig site had been erected here.

The only signs of the campsite that remained were the remnants of the washing facility and some miscellaneous debris, like wrapping plastic and cloth that remained here and there, buried in the sand. All of the prefab buildings had been dismantled and taken back with the other ships, he knew.

_There's nothing here, huh..._

No matter how he tried to look around, it had been removed too long ago. Everything on the surface had been lost to the shifting sands. With sensors, he might be able to scan beneath the sands, but he hadn't been able to bring anything like that with him. And Structural Analysis did not do well with it, either.

Sighing, he turned to look at the ruins. _Well, I've nothing else to try my luck with..._

He leaped forward, delving into the sealed ruins just as he had before. Materializing and projecting another shining sword, he looked around after phasing through the sealed entrance. Unlike the previous ruin, he could not immediately recognize it as anything familiar so quickly. But just like the other ruin, even as he walked in deeper, it seemed like it had been swept clean of everything distinctly Prothean.

He noticed however that the architecture had changed considerably. It was obvious in hindsight, but the Mars ruins had been an exception in that regard, as it had been in many other ways. He would have to try to date this place, somehow. Perhaps by hacking the Serrice University intranet to gain access to their files when he returned?

Placing a hand on the wall, he exhaled as he spoke quietly.

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

First, he simply tried to grasp the nearby structure itself. But beyond gaining an understanding of the nearby layout and the material properties, he could glean little through his Structural Analysis.

He had never tried to read a 'wall' this deeply before, but he suspected that it would be difficult to glean anything after even a year of its construction. This place was much older than a month, of course, meaning he had no hope of gaining an understanding of those who had built it through such means. It was the same as other mundane items, like with the alien blades. He could read the normal echoes and shadows of events past, but none of the detailed history that he was familiar with from swords.

Mostly he could catch glimpses and hints of the enthusiasm with which the asari team of experts had been poring over the whole structure in the recent decade. The was an energy; a passion combined with a hungry drive for information. The Prothean experts had all been exceedingly happy about the condition of this ruin, that much he could tell.

But little else.

Changing tack, he exhaled and instead of trying to go 'deeper', he widened the area he was looking into. Spreading his magical energy outward, he closed his eyes. _Hmm, there._

Opening his eyes, he turned to run towards the end of the entrance hall. Taking a left, he entered the labyrinthine guts of this place. Unlike the skyscraper that seemed quite logically built—the fall putting all the doors at odd places on the walls aside—this ruin was a long series of halls and closed off rooms that seemed to follow no rhyme or reason. The low ceiling made it feel somewhat claustrophobic, even as he continued advancing through.

Left, right, right...

It almost reminded him of a hotel, only many of the rooms were interconnected and hallways aside there was none of the uniformity one would expect.

Arriving at the spot that had stood out to him, Emiya raised the shining sword. Tracing a hand over the wall, he frowned.

There was a spot where cracks spread outwards from an impact against the wall, looking fairly recent as well. It seemed like something tiny had hit the wall with extreme force, or with substantial speed. _Bullet marks? A firefight, perhaps?_ He continued looking around, but could not find any other suspicious signs.

No further impact marks, nor any fallen debris or blood could he find. Then again, he did somehow feel as if this place had been relatively recently swept. Was that merely a sign of the constant use by the asari expedition in the last decade, or had someone cleaned up after a possible fight?

He put his hand on the wall again, closing his eyes as he extended his magical energy outward again.

Emiya opened his eyes, frowning as he looked upwards. Unlike the low halls, the ceiling was quite a bit higher up here. So far up in fact, that he could not properly see it beyond the range of light the shining sword gave off.

Pushing more of his energy into the blade, the light it gave off greatly increased, until it was like he was holding onto a small sun in his hand. The entire room was filled with brightness, and in the new clarity he peered at the ceiling. There was no sign of impact such as with the bullet hole he had found earlier, but there was a microfracture that seemed recent. And there...

_That looks like...?_ He bent his knees, inhaling as he judged the height of the ceiling.

Jumping up, at the apex of his ascent he was just at the right height to stretch out his empty hand against the ceiling. Falling down, his boots made a hard sound against the floor even as he bent his knees to absorb the impact of the drop. Staring at his hand, he opened it slowly.

In his palm was something; extremely thin flakes, black in color and very brittle. _This isn't dust... This is paint. From a hardsuit, maybe?_

Looking up, he wondered how it could have gotten there, when he blinked. Looking back at the spot where the wall had been shot and at the surrounding labyrinthine halls. Furrowing his brows, he began to replay a hypothetical battle in his mind.

_Someone was running; being chased._

Turning around with his sword hand raised, with the index finger extended akin to a gun's barrel.

_Someone shot from here at that person who was trying to take that corner for cover, missing the shot perhaps?_

He looked up at the exact spot he was standing in.

_And that person, a powerful biotic, turned around and slammed them straight into the ceiling hard enough to crack the armor?_

Dropping his hand, he frowned.

"It's possible."

Changing his area of focus from the walls or ceiling, he looked at the floor. If someone had been thrown up and hit the ceiling, they should have fallen down right here, he reasoned. Unlike the quick surprise of the impact against a ceiling or the impersonal bullet, this seemed like the best place to focus on.

Crouching down, he put his palm against the floor and closed his eyes.

Exhaling, he _pushed_ deep into the floor with his magical energy.

Emiya twitched, finding something. Furrowing his brows, he inhaled and focused on the sensation. _Just like with the turian knives and asari blades; take it slow, figure out the basics and then try to reason out what it means._

It took him a full minute until he felt confident in his analysis.

Standing up, he nodded. _An alien that was not a turian or asari was thrown into the air and landed here. They must have broken something, since I can read agony and anger. They were dragged or carried away by someone else. The trail is fairly fresh, too. Less than a week old._

"Meaning that there _was_ a fight here."

That still did not give him any leads on where Professor Henell and the rest of the expedition 'rearguard' could be. Shaking his head, he got up and continued to look around.

* * *

;

* * *

Four hours had passed since he had first come out of the cavern. He had gone through five dig sites, but none of them had yielded any more useful information.

The first ruin had been the location of the primary camp, where the last starship to leave should have been. But due to the shifting sands and wind, no traces remained of where it had been parked. It was nowhere to be found at the moment, either.

Really, as things stood, he had no more leads on Dretirop.

From here, Emiya imagined he would have to start looking at the nearest habitable planets with space control. If he could sift through enough records, he might be able to find whoever it was that had appeared on Dretirop and disappeared with Professor Henell. With any luck, he might be able to find a ship that had on official record set out to Dretirop and returned within the feasible time-frame. Within one Mass Relay jump, it was still an easy task. If they had taken two jumps then it would be a far more daunting task as the number of possible planets jumped to double digits.

And if they had done three Mass Relay jumps before touching down somewhere, or if they had a private base somewhere, or if they had falsified their records...

Well, it was a longshot, but it was all he had at the moment to go off on.

Even his earlier interest in the Prothean ruins had long since waned. There was nothing here, everything of interest had been cataloged and shipped back to Thessia for further study, and the ancient structures had no secrets to share with him. It seemed like Dretirop was a dead end, and he ought to be taking his leave.

But there was one question mark that still remained.

Who were the people who had appeared out of nowhere and started chasing after him when he entered the star system? Were they related to Henell's disappearance? Were they still there, waiting for him to attempt leaving?

"Playing chicken with starships that can take me out from outer space really isn't my kind of game." He grumbled. Additionally, he had Hoana to consider.

He couldn't very well play his usual tactics if she was on the line as well. Thus, he had to flush them out.

And so, he had come up with a plan.

That plan had led him back to the mountaintop where he had left the sensors he had gutted from his ship. The thing about those sensors was that in broad strokes functionality they weren't all that different from a tightbeam communicator. It was merely a matter of focus in the signals used, something which was not a matter of hardware, but of _software_. That meant, that he could dive in and re-purpose the scanners to function as an ad-hoc tightbeam with only some effort. Or rather, something which functioned very similarly to one.

Enough at least, that it was difficult to tell the difference with a ship's scans.

Emiya had not been able to find the distress signal's comm buoy in the system, due to all of the interference and possibilities for hiding such a thing. Star systems were quite massive, after all. And he was willing to bet that those who had been after Henell had not been able to find it either. Instead, they must have targeted the ground systems.

There would have been a transmitter installed on the planet, capable of receiving a distress signal from omnitools and other specialized devices, that then carried forward the signal to a comm buoy in space which then daisy chained it all the way back to Thessia.

Finding those would have been much easier than finding a dormant buoy that could have been hidden anywhere, he reasoned. A few pin-point strikes to take out those transmitters before the actual attack, and the system should have been disabled.

Simply put, if those who had come after him were related to those who had been after Henell, they would probably panic at seeing a ground transmitter connecting to the comm buoy and calling for aid. After all, they should not know _who_ he was. Only that he was flying an asari ship and snooping around Dretirop. That _should_ cause them to over-react and show their hand.

Additionally, Emiya had set one more layer to the trap.

Before he had used a wide-area broadcast to bounce the results of the scan to a datapad. This time, he intended to 'make a mistake', and have his datapad send back a confirmation of having received the broadcast, hiding in a nearby cavern that could have plausibly hidden his Tristar. It was deep enough that anyone investigating would have to go hundreds of meters inside if they wanted to find a ship that could have been hidden there. Any search party would be occupied for a good while there, giving him plenty of time to observe and plan his next step.

Landing in his spiritual form after his leap off of the mountain's peak, he continued back to where he had left the datapad. Grabbing it and semi-materializing enough to carry it, he continued to the cavern he had chosen beforehand.

Arriving, he turned around and looked at the mountain in the distance. Unlike his actual hiding place, this cavern was actually within a far more reasonable distance to traverse on foot and was within sight of the mountain. Even without his hawk's eyes, it would have been possible to see the sensor set up on the peak. Well, most people would have needed binoculars, but it was still within reasonable observation distance.

Turning on the datapad, he finished his preparations.

Setting down the datapad by the ground, he crossed his arms and stared out. Now, it was just a matter of waiting to see what happened.

Counting in his head, he noted that the sensor-cum-transmitter must have gone off. A second later the datapad chimed, receiving a confirmation of the transmission going off, sending out a signal to space in a rough approximation of the distress beacon. He waited, realizing that he had unconsciously started tapping his finger against his bicep while counting the seconds passing by.

Nothing happened.

It wasn't like he had expected the sensors to be shot from orbit with a spinal cannon, or anything, but it was somewhat disappointing that even this did not seem to ellicit any reactions. He sighed, dropping his arms to his side.

_Well, that's that. I'll try leaving tomorrow morning, I suppose. I need to get Hoana back before Hosin goes too crazy—_ Emiya paused, blinking as he sensed something peculiar, far above him. _...mass effect fields?_

He looked up, but could not see anything in the dark night sky. It was too dispersed and weak to be a ship, anyhow. But something _was_ falling down, coming from very high up.

Turning off the datapad and hiding it from sight, he settled to wait outside of the cavern, staring up at the sky. It took less than half a minute for him to finally be able to see what it was that had piqued his attention.

_Those are... some kind of cylinders?_

They came crashing downwards, only slowed down by the built-in hovercraft technology.

Three of them, spread out in a triangular pattern with nearly fifty meters between them, all around the entrance of the cavern. He half expected an impact sound as they touched ground, but instead there was a final flare of the mass effect fields and they simply settled down, light as a feather into the red sand dunes.

With a hiss, the cylinders' sides opened and from each, six heavily armored and armed figures appeared. Clad from head to toe in black heavy hardsuits and holding all some form of long-arm in their hands, the figures wasted no time in surging for cover and baring their weapons at the cavern's entrance.

With practiced discipline, the three teams all arrived by the cavern in less than a ten seconds, moving in paired staggering groups and covering the entrance at all times as they advanced. Their black hardsuits blended into the night extremely well, the subtle shade gradient and texture of the surface preventing it standing out in starlight somehow.

Emiya frowned, looking on as they approached. _It looks like the same shade as the paint I found in the ruins..._ _Five fingers, the structure of the body and foot... Could be humans, or asari?_

One of them spoke, saying four syllables in rapid succession followed by another two, while raising a hand to halt the rest of the armored figures. As a result, all of them stopped.

Emiya blinked at that, realizing he recognized those guttural sound. _Ah, they're batarian, huh. I'd almost forgotten about them, since I haven't seen any in years._

They moved in, half advancing into the cavern while half remained outside.

Shrugging, Emiya turned around and moved to one of the drop cylinders, taking a closer look. _It doesn't seem very complex. Just something to get them down to the surface safely, huh?_ He even made a quick attempt at a dive, to see if he could find anything, but it did not respond at all to his attempt.

Turning his attention back to the armored figures, he dived into one of their omnitools instead. As expected, they were all wearing cheap omnitools with standard operating system and software. It was the same style of operating procedure he had seen among the Russians in his days; in the field only use something so simple that it could not be subverted by a technologically superior foe. He still remembered his initial confusion as seeing entire walls filled with smartphones that had been nailed through the screen into the wall.

Well, even the simplest omnitools were on a level beyond a smartphone from his era.

All three teams were on the same comm-channel, but there did not seem to be any connection to the starship they must have come from. Either they had no contact, or only a select few among them had any specialized equipment for that purpose.

_Well now, should I try to find that equipment or continue observing this team and wait until they return to the ship? Assuming they're the same group that was dealing with Henell, it would mean they will come down to remove all tracks of their arrival. Those cylinders will have to be picked up by a starship too, no doubt._

He had hoped there would a translation program in one of the omnitools, but upon investigation he found none. Then again, this group did not seem like they did much talking with the likes of him, so it could not be helped.

Shrugging, he dove out of the omnitools and followed the party exploring the insides of the cavern for a while. But it seemed that they were merely carefully and thoroughly exploring it for the Tristar. There was little he could glean from them, thus he simply returned to the entrance. He returned in time just to see one of the armored figures stand up and begin pointing around.

Emiya blinked as the figure picked out three people and then began to point around them, followed by using his omnitool to begin talking to those who had gone to explore the cavern. In response to the figure, two parties of three got up and began looking around the cavern's entrance in an ever-expanding search pattern.

_They're looking for signs of me?_ _Well, as long as they don't find the Tristar, it should be fine. It's dozens of kilometers away, so it should be safe._ Settling down at a spot up on the mountainside, above the cavern's entrance, he decided to simply wait and see for now.

* * *

;

* * *

_Ah, there it is,_ Emiya thought as he looked up.

Overhead, the ship that Emiya had first seen at the edges of the star system was slowly descending. It seemed that the ground party's inability to find anything, had forced them to begin taking more active measures. Until now, they had been holding back, hoping to bait him out. But his refusal to be found was forcing them to begin taking more overt measures.

As the ship approached, Emiya crouched and with a long leap landed on top of it, once it was within his reach. He continued watching, as it descended until it was low enough to pick up the three landing cylinders that had been shot out earlier. After that, it moved to pick up the ground team that had been patiently waiting.

Or, rather unexpectedly to Emiya, it landed instead.

The bottom of the ship opened up, revealing a ramp into the belly of the ship. And out of it rolled two large four-wheeled armored ground vehicles. The ground troops who had been waiting immediately boarded the vehicles and set out. _Ah, they're going to expand their search pattern. Makes sense. And that can't be cheap equipment... Certainly not something mere pirating could fund._

Noting that they weren't heading in the direction of his Tristar, he nodded.

_That's fine, it gives me time to see what these people are about._ Emiya crouched down, looking around, before he simply phased through the top of the starship and landed inside. He had no real hopes of finding Professor Henell in the brig of this ship, but it bore investigation nonetheless. He started walking around, taking in the design as he ignored the crew walking around.

It wasn't a very large ship, a frigate he supposed by Alliance classification.

Looking around he found sleeping quarters, an armory, a mess hall and many other facilities with obvious purpose. After poring over the ship, he finally settled by the bridge, looking at a batarian in a hardsuit who was giving out orders—or so it seemed to him anyhow. Without an omnitool to translate their speech, it was difficult to get a good grasp of what was being said.

He additionally tried to dive into the ship's computer but the language barrier was still a problem. Data like this did not carry any meaning or intention in itself, though he _had_ found such instances before as well. In here, it was simply code that when he beheld, revealed itself in a writing system he was not familiar with.

_I still don't understand how this really works... I can decipher machine code to access what was stored within easily enough, but for some reason if its in another language, I can't understand it?_

Additionally it seemed somewhat unusual for a ship to be flying around without any kind of translators, but upon reviewing some of the recorded footage from a space port he realized that the crew had simply learned to speak various languages themselves. _This really is some kind of wetworks outfit, huh. Though no real leads as to who might be behind them._

This ship couldn't have been here for more than a week, based on the onboard rations and supplies and the space that was available for such. And the records were wiped every day, it seemed. _So not only do they refuse to accept comms, they don't keep anything that could point to what they were doing. Paranoid, much?_

Then again, given that this outfit lacked the information technology of the STG or Cerberus, it must have been a policy adopted to deal with their inferiority in those fields.

That didn't mean that he could not read _any_ of the data in the computer. The various sensor feeds and comm-channels were easy enough to tap into, confirming his suspicions that there were satellites orbiting Dretirop and sending back data to the ship at all times.

Trying to leave would have resulted in his and Hoana's sudden deaths. _Then again, it's not paranoia if there really is someone in outer space trying to shoot you down._

At least it seemed like this was the only ship in the system.

He also found a huge stash of credits in a sealed away credit chit, which he found noteworthy. _I'll have to look into that._

Finally he found something interesting as he switched focus from the starship's mainframe to the omnitools found in the personal quarters. Diving into one of the omnitools, he found video footage of what seemed like the various members of the crew participating in various forms of torture, mutilation and rape. With clinical detachment, he noted that the footage seemed to go back years, containing footage of several races and of dozens of distinct locations.

_Well, I figured they weren't exactly the salvation army, given that they tried to shoot me, but that pretty much seals the deal._ He exhaled, moving on to finish his rough investigation.

They were all going to die by his hand here, that was decided already.

Perhaps if it was just him and he were here in an untraceable ship, he might have simply grounded their ship as he left. But given that they might very well track him down to Hosin's...

_No need to leave loose ends, it never works out._

In another locker he found a collection of knives, and though they were silent to his reality marble of their past, the smell of blood and fats sticking to the organic hilts underneath the layers of oil and polish, was familiar enough that he could still venture a guess as to their purpose. There was only so many things one could need a gutting knife in a starship for, really.

Some he had even seen in the videos, he distantly thought.

Finally he visited what seemed like the brig of the ship. It was more of a holding cell in a pit, near the engine room. The walls and floor were soaked with disinfectant, but he did not need to use Structural Analysis to feel the despair and terror that had soaked into those surfaces.

The more he looked around, the more he felt like it was the rule rather than the exception as far as policy went for the ship's crew.

Sometimes he simply ran into people like this, who made it a rather simple decision on how much force he ought to use against them. Perhaps these were simply some hard men doing hard things, but at this point in time they were simply an obstacle and had proven themselves to not be anything resembling innocents.

It wasn't that he was judging them, or justifying his actions by dehumanizing them.

It was simply that he had decided that there wasn't any reason he could see why he should spare them. He needed to get off of Dretirop and find Henell and leaving these people behind on his trail was simply _inconvenient_.

Hopping back into the mainframe, he counted and located all of the batarians that belonged to the ship's crew. Sixteen down on the ground and an additional forty on the ship itself.

With a deep sigh, he raised his hand to his face and projected the black helmet again. He had already long since gotten accustomed to wearing the long-sleeves and gloves on his updated diamene weave armor, but this was a job where he did not want even the slightest chance of his identity to be revealed.

After a moment's hesitation, he also dismissed the red mantle, deciding that a 'clean up' such as this was not worthy of it.

Then, he finished his preparations in the mainframe of the ship.

All cameras were turned off, the airlocks and external hatches were all sealed shut, while a third of all internal doors were sealed shut by invoking a hull breach protocol, and the remaining doors he left unlocked. The armory was sealed shut, and he sent all of the surveillance satellites an order to correct their flights to a degenerating orbit that would cause them to crash down into the planet within minutes.

Finally, he set the engine core on a restart protocol. To reverse any of the changes he had wrought, it would be necessary to first restore power.

And by that point, it would already be too late.

Garbed in all black, he dived out and materialized behind the batarian who had been standing on the bridge the whole time, pacing around and issuing orders. Placing a hand on the man's neck, Emiya stunned him silently. _Zero—keep him alive for interrogation._

Turning on his heel, he turned towards the communications officer—or whatever the equivalent was for a batarian ship, tasked with overseeing all communications, judging by what Emiya had gleamed from the dive into the mainframe—who had noticed that something was wrong, as all power went off in his terminal. It was just a quick snapping of a neck and it was over; the batarian was dead before he even knew what had happened. _One._

Turning around, he projected a curved black blade and decapitated the navigation officer on the other side of the narrow bridge. The batarian had just enough time to hear the sound of the neck breaking behind him before his own head lolled and hit the floor.

Reversing the motion, Emiya backhanded the sword forward and let go, sending it spinning into the torso of a third batarian who had just noticed him. Kanshou sunk in with a wet squelch, digging all the way into the hilt through flesh and bone from the force of the throw.

Stalking forward, Emiya pulled the blade loose as he continued walking. _Two, three._

Red emergency lights finally began to turn on, bathing the ship's insides in a disquieting hue that made it nearly impossible to distinguish the spreading pools of blood from the floor itself.

Pacing forward, he heard the approaching batarian before he saw him.

An armed and running batarian came running in, all four of his eyes turning wide a second before his raised arm was cut off and his neck was parted from his torso. He died before the pistol he had been raising had had time to hit the floor. _Four._

Following the path of the unlocked doors along the length of the frigate, Emiya cut down all he could find. He had cut off all exits strategically, forcing everyone on board onto a straight path; as long as he walked to the end, he would have killed everyone.

He was down to the last five batarians, who had managed to make it to the armory and were in the process of welding it open when Emiya finally ran into some resistance.

_Hmm, they're holding the chokepoint with pistols. No way to get through without taking a few shots by conventional standards._ Shrugging, he raised the black blade and put his right hand against the flat. Pushing in magical energy he could feel it slowly begin 'expanding'.

As it began to destabilize, Emiya finally exhaled and pulled back his arm. Taking aim, he struck forward and tossed the blade into the hallway ahead, where it curved through the air just enough to fly through the chokepoint around the corner.

He heard surprised grunts as the blade sank into the metal bulkhead with a deep 'thunk'. And a second later it exploded, taking out the last of the crew inside of the ship. Checking that they were all dead, he exhaled at their state.

Explosions in enclosed spaces were never pretty.

Spiritualizing, he jumped back to the bridge and found the unconscious batarian he hadn't killed still lying limply on the floor. Mentally dubbing this one the captain, he materialized and projected a rope to tie him up with. There was no telling how long the stun would last, thus it was better to be safe than sorry.

Body searching the batarian yielded a few weapons and questionable objects, which Emiya disposed of as he left the captain tied up.

Around him, lights were turning on again as panels and terminals flickered. Diving into the mainframe, he re-established comms with the ground teams that had been trying to get inside for several minutes now. _Sixteen on the ground, present and accounted for._

All were at the foot of the ship, judging by the re-established short-range comm signals. Diving out and phasing through the bottom of the ship, he dropped among the hardsuit-clad batarians. They were loudly arguing and gesticulating everywhere, several pointing at the large guns mounted on their ground vehicles while others were vehemently pointing at them while shouting back.

Emiya turned around and made for a hill. Close combat was quite effective in constrained environments, but ultimately for clean up operations out in the open it was most efficient to simply be at a distance. Overhead, the stars were beginning to wane as the horizon was turning a lighter shade or purple.

Dawn was fast approaching.

Stopping at a hill where he had a decent view, some half a kilometer away, he materialized again and projected his bow. Exhaling, he raised it and in his mind readied sixteen arrows. Sustained high volume of fire could be rather exhausting, but a simple volley like this was something he could easily handle.

Especially given that they were all standing still, like simple targets.

Raising his bow, he took aim at the first of his targets. The arrow appeared in his hand and he pulled back the string only roughly halfway up his bicep, raising the tip enough that it would arc and hit home.

He loosed the projectile.

Projecting the next arrow he repeated the action, only this time he lowered the bow half a finger as he pulled the string three centimeters less back.

The next arrow, again the same. And again. Lowering the aim and pulling back the arrow a little bit less with each shot.

One of the problems snipers often faced was that the moment the first target was shot, all of the other targets would become uncertainties, entering a state of flux where it became very difficult to take them out. There was no telling how they would act, in the moment they realized someone had been shot. Some would freeze, others would jump for cover, some would begin to fire back blindly while some would remain calm and analyze the situation.

Thus, a skilled sniper had to either be a good enough judge of character that they could choose a specific order in which to take out their targets in a group, _or_ be able to take all of his targets out before they realized what had happened.

Emiya had settled for the latter in this case.

The less he pulled back the arrows, the slower they would fly and the more curved their trajectory would be at distances that were was less than their maximum range. But if he fired the first arrow upwards, it would not be flying the straightest path to the target, rather it would be first flying up and then coming down again. Thus even if his successive arrows were slower in absolute velocity, because they had a flatter trajectory to their target they would actually have a shorter airtime. This meant that his second arrow could slowly 'catch up' to the first arrow, as would the third and fourth, which would have even smaller and smaller arcs to travel through.

Using such a method it was possible to hit a single target simultaneously with multiple projectiles in the same instant, even if they were loosed in succession and not at the same instant.

Or sixteen different targets, as it were in this case.

He had actually adopted that technique from artillery and mortar technology, where it was known as 'multiple round simultaneous impact' firing. Well, he could also do it in 'reverse' by shooting faster and faster arrows that would catch up to the slower arrow that had been shot first, but for that he needed a much greater distance to work with. But he had practiced the MRSI technique enough at half a kilometer that it was second nature, even after a century, that it was simply what he had settled on using.

Emiya exhaled, coolly observing as all sixteen targets were hit in the same instant.

Kinetic barriers went off but could not successfully hold back the 250 gram arrows flying at supersonic speeds very well. Their hardsuits fared a bit better, but the sharp points punched through the hard ceramic plates nonetheless and stabbed into their internal organs without fail.

_Two—no, four survived. Poor shot placement... Their organs probably vastly differ from humans. Should I have gone for the heads after all? No, the rounded helmets and the lightness of their heads make it unlikely for the arrow to pierce through, deflection or the head snapping back too likely. Torso necessary for proper penetration._

He raised the bow again and shot four additional arrows, watching all of the batarians die dispassionately before he dismissed the bow and arrows alike.

Shaking his head, he spiritualized and returned to the ship. _Now then, to try using the datapad's translation software and see if I can find anything on the mainframe. After that, I'll see about interrogating the captain._

Looking up at the star slowly rising up in the horizon, Emiya judged he had still about an hour left before he ought to return. As he got to it, he noted how easily he had fallen back into this old habits.

Five years of peace and quiet had had no effect on him after all, it seemed.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya opened his eyes and sat up.

"Oh! You're awake!" Hoana immediately noticed, excitedly jumping to stand next to him. He nodded, getting up from his mattress on the floor and smiling at her.

As she chattered about breakfast and having been waiting for him to wake up, he moved to pat her head, before hesitating. Turning his palm up, he stared at it. _It's nothing._

Shaking his head, he worked his jaw and inhaled through his nose. Blinking, he looked at Hoana. His mouth felt _odd._

"...Did you pull at my lips while I was sleeping?"

She froze, turning her head away and avoiding his eyes.

"Umm..."

Raising a hand to his nose, he frowned.

"...Did you stick the D-plier in my nose?"

Hoana twitched, before drawing a deep breath and crossing her arms to pout at him. "...You weren't waking up."

"...And?"

"Well in 'the adventures of the cursed sword princess', Z'till used the flat of her i'usushij to see if the general was still alive! Her sword fogged up from her breathing, even if it was too faint to be felt against her skin!"

"...Ah, I see. And because my breathing was too shallow for even that, you felt you had to push it _deeper_ to make sure, is that it?"

"Exactly!" She chimed up, looking at him as she realized that he understood her intent. Only to flinch at the unimpressed stare he was giving her. "Umm... I mean..."

He reached out, lightly flicking her forehead.

"Oww..." She rubbed the spot, looking up at him with a sullen expression that tried to be a fierce frown like her mother's, but only came across as a petulant pout.

He put a hand on her head, smiling lightly. "Let's get some breakfast and then start heading back home."

"Umm, right!"

* * *

;

* * *

"Preparations for takeoff complete?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Hoana shouted back.

"That was for receiving orders; you answer questions with just 'yes, sir'."

"Umm...? Aye, sir!"

Emiya huffed, still making one last visual check that he had brought everything back inside the Tristar and that they were both properly strapped in.

"Power on. Start up diagnostics... All green."

Hoana grinned, throwing him a thumbs up. Their repairs of the radiator panel had been perfect, thus he threw back a thumbs up of his own.

"Countdown." Emiya said, flicking switches here and there, adjusting some of the sensors that he had re-installed. It had taken him a few hours, but it had been a relatively easy job.

He grinned as Hoana began. _Never underestimate the value of a hardcover manual, this could have taken so much longer without it..._

"Three... Two... One... Lift off!" And at her last word, he activated the mass effect fields and began to rise up with the thrusters.

Through the main screen, they could see in real time a 270 degree view of the 'front' of the Tristar. A second later, they were completely off the ground. Hoana made an excited shout, bouncing in her seat as Emiya nodded.

Adjusting the view of the main screen, he essentially reversed the controls. 'Backing out', he flew forward and carefully made his way out of the cavern. Outside, the red sands and purplish sky greeted them, and as they rose to about 40 kilometers from the ground, Hoana's jaw seemed to want to stay at the surface.

She stared around, awe and excitement obvious as she kept staring at everything.

"You want to make a short trip around the planet before we leave?" Emiya asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Can we?"

"Sure." He said, flipping a sensor offline as he adjusted the Tristar slightly to turn away from a certain direction. _She doesn't need to see that._

"Yes, please!" She immediately answered and he began to fly towards the great green lake he had only seen from the distance before.

There was no point in heading towards the mountains where the wreckage of the batarian starship remained. The captain had been insistent that he was an independent slaver and pirate, until it had become obvious that the rest of the crew was already dead, at which point he had bitten his own tongue off. He had tried to question the batarian about Henell, but aside from a bullshit answer about knowing nothing, followed by an admission of having raped and airlocked some asari he supposedly had found here, the captain had had nothing to say.

It was just meant to distract and enrage Emiya, he figured. An operation this smooth was not fielded simply to kill or capture some random asari for kicks and giggles.

Types like that—who, even in a complete loss, were motivated by sheer spite to be as troublesome as possible—were always annoying.

The datapad's translation software had not been able to circumvent all of the decryption forcing him to get creative, but overall it seemed like there wasn't all that much information stored on the ship. It seemed like standard operating procedure for batarians to wipe all evidence before setting out on a mission. For plausible deniability by whoever it was that was backing and ordering them, he supposed.

But it wasn't like he hadn't found _any_ leads.

So he had copied over the useful data to his datapad and then set about with destroying the rest of the evidence. He had been tempted for a while to simply take the ship for himself, but its distinctive design, which he had not seen before on any commercial listings, along with its dubious origin had disinclined him of such notions.

Assuming that the party that had been after Henell, these operators and the hostage takers on the Citadel five years ago were all a part of the same group, it seemed foolish to create such an obvious link to himself by returning with their 'recently gone missing' frigate. That, and the whole thing was steeped in the metaphorical filth of its previous owners.

So, he simply decided to destroy it.

This was simply an event he wanted to distance himself as much as possible from before anyone managed to realize it had happened. The one encounter with a lone frigate had been enough to convince him that he did not wish to be in the sights of any major power capable of fielding starships. He simply could not fight back against something like that, under any less optimal conditions than he had been able to orchestrate.

_Starships are troublesome, huh._ He thought as he completed a circuit of Dretirop.

The peridot sea had looked beautiful from a distance, and Hoana had asked if they could go swimming, but scans had indicated that it was full of poisonous seaweed which gave it that distinct color.

The mountain ranges near the north pole had been like walls of radiant crystal in the sunlight, and as they finally left for orbit Hoana had marveled at the golden desert that seemed to stretch on forever behind them.

"Well, then. Time to go home." Emiya said.

"Yeah!" Hoana agreed, smiling widely.

He began to accelerate slowly, making sure to keep an eye on the various gauges and internal sensors, to make sure that nothing would be giving way in the middle of FTL, and that the radiator panel was handling the engine's heat output properly.

A part of him would have liked to believe that was the reason why he was unable to react in time, but the simple fact was that it was over before he even had time to realize.

The internal lights went off as the main screen died, thrusters automatically reversing to slow down the ship. Three seconds later, he could feel something with an absolutely _massive_ mass effect field appear right above them and another second later a deep _thunk_ of something attaching itself to the side of the Tristar echoed through the hull.

_Ah, so that's why they were holding all comm-lines off; a cyber-attack is just that quick._ He distantly noted, trying to get access to the ship's system.

But all of the extranet connectivity signals had been turned off, allowing him to only distantly feel some of the omnitools aboard the new vessel that had appeared out of nowhere.

"W-what's going on...?" Hoana asked, clutching the D-plier as she looked around. The sound of something echoing just earlier—a magnetic anchor attaching itself to the hull, Emiya realized—had spooked her completely.

"It's okay, I'll keep you safe." He said, taking off the seatbelt and getting up.

She blinked, hesitantly nodding.

The main screen suddenly turned on, revealing a stern looking asari wearing a black hardsuit. "Crew of the Tristar TD-441-1a-C5, I am Huntress Shiawe of the Asari Republics Interstellar Diplomatic Patrol, prepare to be boarded. Do not resist; Justicar Anatha shall be there shortly and will react with extreme prejudice should you attempt hinder her."

Emiya blinked as the feed cut off, as at the same time he could hear the manual override for the hatch being worked from the outside. _Someone is forcefully opening it from the outside with biotics?_ _Well..._

_Shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WHEW!**
> 
> No events, no Singularities! Just normal grind! With half AP and increased success? Fucking finally, I was getting exhausted! Eh, just 10 SQ and you can't even put in Camelot as the best Singularity in the questionnaire? What the fuck, FGO?
> 
> It's always _something_.
> 
> Thanks to everyone on pattreon, too. Surreal stuff.
> 
> Thanks to randomperson6666, Something8576, Olive Birdy and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.
> 
> Thanks to daniel_gudman for an in-depth analysis of the chapter.


	20. The T'soni 2: With a Vengeance

_Let's play this cool,_ Emiya thought, exhaling.

For a moment, he felt a surge of worry that the asari were intent on simply forcibly opening the airlock into the vacuum of space itself, but it quickly revealed itself to be a baseless fear.

The hatch opened with a hiss, the internal pressure difference between the Tristar and asari craft only such, that there was a slight push of air outwards into the other craft. As the airlock was fully opened, he could see out into what looked like a hangar of some kind just beyond the hatch, with regular life support. _Their ship is big enough for the whole shuttle to be taken inside?_

That put it at a whole class above the frigate he had encountered, much less his own barely-more-than-a-shuttle Tristar. _How the hell did they catch me off guard with something this big?_

He did not have long to look out, as through the hatch walked in a tall statuesque asari, wearing a crimson hardsuit with golden highlights, the hard bottoms of her boot heels clicking against the floor with every step. She had an air of absolute authority and command about her, as she slowly turned to look at them.

That unique hardsuit could only mean one thing on an asari; a _Justicar_.

They were an ancient order of extra-judicial enforcers, tasked with enforcing a rigid code that supposedly extended to cover all possible situations. In theory, they could be called a form of policy-enforcing knighthood order, but in practice there was so little oversight among their number that it was a difficult moniker to apply. _Really_ , they were government-sanctioned vigilante executioners. They took no prisoners, they answered to no one, they cared nothing for the specifics of law or circumstance; all crimes carried the same penalty in their eyes.

Death.

Ruthless and unyielding, they were the closest thing to his old self he had seen in this galaxy; indiscriminate demons of justice that stopped at nothing.

Which in practice made them his worst enemy; a Hero of Justice in an imperfect world would always do harm, inevitably leading to a conclusion where justice must be served on him who had sought to embody it. That, and there was a single glaring difference between himself and the Justicars. He had _always_ acted upon his ideals; they lived by a code sanctioned by the whole of asarikind, which required a compromise on their part.

After all, a true Hero of Justice was an unsightly existence in the eyes of society.

They were generally accepted, and an even occasionally _celebrated_ existences in asari space, something he had never been able to experience during his time as a human. Of course, he would have never accepted the _muzzle_ they had, which made that difference possible.

Which was what annoyed him so about that order.

In response to the Justicar order's successes, those who lived by greed and malice had simply gone to greener pastures, or worse yet gone and gotten themselves _elected_ into some official capacity. Though there were no real elections for positions of power due to the use of direct democracy, there were still those who had the honor of preparing certain matters for public debate, who were technically paid a salary drawn from taxes. There were dozens of questionable banana republics that were little more than shields for some shadier dealings occurring on Thessia, as he had seen. Their codes were very specific in that regard, forbidding them from acting out against the democratically elected officials or the foundations of the republics themselves, or outside of asari territory. If there was something he could not stand, it was half-measures that only served to prolong a problem. If cutting down a person was the best way to resolve a problem, then cut down that person he would. But the Justicar would look away, if their code did not allow them to confront an injustice.

Thus, despite the Justicars' overwhelming competence and wide authority and their existence that stretched back for thousands of years, today they were forced to be just as active as ever before. Nothing had changed, because their code did not allow it. They fought the symptoms, caring nothing for the cause. They killed by their code, blind to how nothing changed.

It reminded himself of his early years.

Yet, hadn't he just executed a whole ship's worth of batarians on that measure? That one easy and permanent solution for all ails, wasn't that what he so despised? Stuck between effective measures that numbed him and immature half-measures that accomplished nothing as he was, the very sight of the Justicar aggravated him.

The Justicar Order represented that very fault in his eyes to a completeness even he had never reached. They did not protect the people. They did not enforce justice. They did not seek to right what was wrong. They were simply the same as he had been, once. Blindly following a code, where he had been chasing after an ideal.

Was it the fact that they were half-boiled, or that they had been able to exist without being condemned by asari society that he found so distasteful? Did he find them too naive for their cause, or was he envious of their ability to continue with their quest at the cost of the essence of it?

He wasn't sure.

In the corner of his eye, Emiya could see Hoana biting her lip and nervously staring alternatively between the Justicar and him. The adult asari's deep purple eyes locked onto his, narrowing as she sniffed.

Turning to look at Hoana, she spoke.

"That is not your _father_ , child. How do you come to be here?"

"Umm..." Hoana hesitated, looking at Emiya as she hesitated.

"Is that any business of yours?" Emiya asked, narrowing his eyes as he stood up to be in front of Hoana.

"I did not question you, _human_ , stand aside and let the truth out." The tall asari—for her race, anyhow—said as she narrowed her eyes at him.

Emiya said nothing, narrowing his own eyes in return. _Should I question her authority here? They're only supposed to act within asari space. No, that will just highlight the lawlessness of this region. Her ship has forcefully disabled mine, giving her de facto authority._

While he had gotten accustomed to Maiden-level biotics in i'usu and biotiball, he had never faced a Matriarch before. And from that experience, one thing was clear; you did not want to fight a biotic in an enclosed space without something that broke their line of sight.

He had watched and read things about what talented Matriarchs could do, but clear recordings were relatively scarce. But what he knew did not seem all that promising, especially in regards to Justicars; centuries of dedicated and patient training; hundreds upon hundreds of battles to draw experience from; the best skills the Asari Republics could offer in training and the freedom to act as they saw best fit.

This was not a fight he wanted to have onboard a spaceship.

"So you are _not_ her father. By the code, I am tasked with the protection of all asari children. You will release her to my custody, so that—"

"No, you clearly have better things to be doing right now. I'm heading back to Thessia, to her parents, right now. Well, _was_ , until you so unceremoniously attacked us."

The Justicar paused and suddenly the tension in the ship ramped up considerably.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see four additional adult asari standing by the airlock, garbed in black hardsuits. None had weapons on them, not that they usually needed any in such tight quarters.

"You seem to labor under the misconception that your opinions in this matter are of any concern."

Emiya shot back immediately. "And you seem to think I believe that you're a Justicar, just because you wear that armor."

He could hear five simultaneous gasps as the Justicar blinked. Though she held a stoic mien before his accusation, it was obvious she was surprised that her authenticity was being questioned from her eyes.

He could see her reigning in several impulses, before she finally spoke.

"To make false claims of being one of the Sworn Order is the most treasonous of crimes. Any and all impostors are punished to match such a foolish act." She did not assert her identity directly; if she _had to say_ that she was something, it would seem like his questioning may have had substance to it, now.

Only the Justicar wore that armor, and all asari knew it by sight, after all. Only a fool would question that. A fool, or someone who knew something was wrong with the picture.

He had never been able to find a copy of the whole Justicar code, since it was an ancient thing that was to be memorized in whole by the Justicar alone and no one else, but he did know one thing with relative certainty. The Justicar were only supposed to act against _asari_ or _within asari held territory_ when acting out their code.

This was not asari territory, nor was he a member of her species. By that logic, she had no right to act against him. Of course, he needed to make that clear in this situation. Now that he thought about it however, was there any reason for him to not simply hand Hoana over? If this asari was a Justicar, that would mean she would protect Hoana if he handed her over.

He had refused her on impulse, more than anything. _Temper, temper. Play it cool._

Well, if he offloaded Hoana onto the Justicar, Hosin was certain to think no better of him. Then again, Emiya was already fairly certain that any and all goodwill he had garnered with the quarian must have evaporated with his accidental kidnapping of the man's only child.

"So you _are_ a Justicar, then? One who follows the code to the letter?" He asked directly, changing tack a little.

She inhaled, standing straighter. It was one thing to be forced to assert one's authority before an implication, and another to answer a direct question.

"I am of the Sworn Order. One who judges and who executes, by the Code. Within me is naught but servitude to my Oaths and the protection of all asari." She answered, staring at him now as she recited that line.

It was iconic enough that even Hoana recognized it.

Emiya smirked. "Oh _well_ , that makes this _simple,_ then. Get off my ship, Justicar."

Her expression narrowed then, as she glared at him. He waited with bated breath for her reaction. Had he pegged her wrong?

"I am not here by the Code this day. The Third Oath of Subsumation has been evoked, and I am here as but the blade of another." The Justicar spoke, turning to look at one of the huntresses by the airlock.

Emiya blinked, _what did that mean?_

One of them looked up from an omnitool, reporting out loud her findings.

"The distress signal was not sent from this ship, the tightbeam does not match the signature, ma'am!"

The Justicar frowned, looking at them again. "Take them into custody, then. I will question them once I have investigated Dretirop."

Emiya inhaled, flexing his fingers as he rolled his wrist. Five asari would be a little bit difficult to handle, especially given their biotics.

Long odds, but if he shut off the lights and managed to get the Justicar first...

"Yes, ma—"

"Is that truly necessary, Anatha?" A new voice spoke up. Everyone froze, and even Emiya felt a sudden urge to cease with his planning and to simply _listen_.

The Justicar frowned, turning to look at a new figure slowly emerging into the Tristar. The four huntresses bowed at her passing and even the Justicar seemed to wilt and withdraw a little at that presence.

Emiya blinked and at the same time, next to him, Hoana whispered out loud the name that was on the tip of his own tongue as well.

"Matriarch _Benezia...!_ "

 _A spiritual leader, this far out in the Attican Traverse? What is she doing here?_ He wondered, before he got his surprise back under control.

The asari wore a dark dress, which Emiya could immediately tell was of the highest quality and cut, that would serve perfectly well as personal body armor if it came to a fight.

Emiya blinked, inhaling as he focused on himself again. He ignored the sheer presence she seemed to exude, a talent for simply commanding the attention of all who were anywhere near her. She was not the first one he had met with such an ability. _Okay, two Matriarchs and four commandos. That could get dicey._

If he tried to take one down, the other would be free to act to restrain him. Even with crossing lines of sight, one of them could always attack him.

Biotics were a game-changer of the highest order, when it came to fighting in constrained environments. Everywhere here was within their range, and with Hoana he could not act freely to take them all out with one large move. He _could_ jump out of his body and overwhelm them with his superior speed, but that would lead to questions from Hoana.

Maybe if he stunned her first... But then he would have to lie to her to explain how they got away. If he killed these asari like the batarians, Hoana would remember the Justicar and Matriarchs, and if he simply stunned them and made a run for it, the asari would still have a lead on the Tristar that would lead them straight to Hosin's.

Even if he wiped their computers, there was no telling whether someone would remember his ship's ID. Besides, there were only so many stripped down Tristars with scorched panels in the galaxy.

And fighting would still keep him stuck in the hangar of the larger ship, meaning he would have to act out without knowing his full opposition. What if there were security measures set to blow up his ship or self-destruct the asari ship in case of an emergency?

Besides, though they had attacked him, unlike the batarians they hadn't actually shot at him and were willing to talk. One massacre on his hands mere hours ago, he had no appetite for destruction at the moment. _Change of plan, get arrested and then break out and get away once they're not grouped up together. Hoana will be a problem, though. They won't throw her in the same cell with me, if at all. I'll have to wing it again, I guess._

"They are suspicious." The Justicar said, though somehow it seemed less like a valid argument and more akin to a petulant complaint, before the Matriarch.

"Then we shall politely ask them to join us for a respite, until the investigation on Dretirop is concluded. There is no need for such hostility, for we are clearly not in the company of enemies." The eldest asari present continued speaking. Her words seemed less like a rebuke, and more like an alternative that simply had not been considered until now, somehow. "After all, are these not the very innocent eyes you are sworn to serve and protect by the code?"

Placing a hand on Hoana's shoulder, Benezia smiled at the Justicar, with Hoana blinking and looking up between the two elder asari.

Emiya blinked, realizing the Matriarch had somehow gotten within two steps of him without him realizing it. _When did she...?_

Justicar Anatha frowned, inhaling slowly before shaking her head and looking away. "As you wish."

"Well then, let us begin by properly introducing ourselves." The asari continued. "You may already be familiar with me, by way of reputation, but let me have the pleasure of introducing myself, nonetheless. I am Matriarch Benezia, a humble guide and adviser to all asari who seek my counsel. And who might you be?"

She looked down at the adolescent asari, bowing slightly at the hip so as to not tower over her.

"Umm, umm! I'm Hoana!" The adolescent asari said, bouncing like a puppy as she excitedly stared up at the much taller asari. Benezia smiled down at her, inclining her head slightly, before looking up at him expectantly as she stood up straight.

Emiya exhaled, looking at the two. _Did they set up this 'good cop, bad cop' exchange in advance?_

"Saiga Fujimura." He said simply, still eyeing Anatha varily.

Benezia smiled, nodding. Somehow it seemed like a mother approving of a child's compliance and Emiya had to keep his face from twitching. _At least she doesn't seem hostile. I can't sense any malignant intent from her._

"Now, have either of you eaten yet?"

He blinked at the seeming non-sequitur, before immediately responding.

"Yes."

"No." Hoana answered in the same instant.

Emiya had to blink, looking down at the adolescent asari who was studiously avoiding his gaze suddenly.

"...I thought you said you ate while I was getting the ship ready?"

"I did!" Hoana fidgeted under his gaze. "...Well, some of it. I don't like water."

He had to sigh, raising a hand to his brow. _How fickle._

"Did you at least drink properly? I even made some fruit juice for you."

"Yeah! Can you make some more?"

He raised an eyebrow at the hopeful tone. "Not if you continue to waste food like that."

"I didn't _waste_ it, I just—!" Hoana's eyes shot wide as she raised a hand to her mouth, and for just a second her eyes wandered to the storage compartment.

The very one where she had stowed away, before.

Emiya blinked, before his expression went carefully neutral as he stared at her. The littlest asari present seemed to be sweating bullets under his gaze.

"... _Who_ did you feed it to, then...?" He asked in a very quiet voice, leaning down until he was looming over her.

Hoana licked her lips nervously, avoiding looking at him directly. "Umm..."

His eyes narrowed and he stood up, turning around to look at the baggage compartments.

"Umm, I poured it away! I didn't..." Hoana tried to say, but the fib was obvious to his ear.

He took a step forward and she jumped up from the seat.

Pausing, Emiya turned to stare at Benezia who seemed content to simply stay quiet and watch this play out by the side. _Well, let's see what she does. If this Matriarch is trustworthy at all._

As Hoana got out of her seat, he grabbed her under her arms and lifted her up to Benezia, who blinked at the proffered child with mild surprise.

"Hold this." He simply said, ignoring the flabbergasted asari all around him as the Matriarch took the child with but an amused expression.

"Umm, Saiga, I..." Hoana tried to protest, but was silenced gently by Benezia.

"Shush, child."

Emiya walked up to the luggage and began to look through it. _Something small enough for her to carry, but with sufficient ventilation..._

"Ah, that's it."

He pulled _it_ out, turning around to level a disappointed look at Hoana.

"What is this?"

"...It's umm...Kurinth, He's very nice and doesn't bite at all, _I swear_."

Emiya snorted, holding the little sleeping lizard by its tail in the air with one hand. It had the same strange three-way parting jaw and long tail, though it only pronged into two distinct ends. _Do they increase with age? No, it's not a fox, is it?_

"Hoana, we do not pick up strange animals from planets we visit. Especially animals that will grow _this_ big." Emiya said, raising his other hand to show how tall the animal would grow, if it ever matched the lizard he had had to fight off in the cave.

A few asari present stared at the extended hand, before looking back at the little lizard in his hand. Their surprise and disbelief was obvious.

"B-but, I'll take really good care of him, I swear. Papa will be okay with it, I'm sure!"

"I very much doubt that." Emiya deadpanned. "We are taking him back right were you picked him from."

"B-but...!"

Benezia made a gentle laugh, disrupting the conversation. Both turned to look at her, then.

"Do you see now, Anatha? There is no cause to worry over this child's safety, in matters regarding this man." The Matriarch said, looking at the Justicar who had crossed her arms and seemed annoyed by the whole situation. "After all, does it not appear that her safety is his paramount concern?"

"...Fine. But they're not leaving until I've investigated Dretirop." The Justicar acquiesced, before turning to look at the four huntresses by the airlock. "What of the scans?"

"They are mostly complete, several unusual sites were detected. Do you wish to depart, ma'am?"

Anatha shook her head. "Send out an investigation team along with the commandos for protection detail, I'll come look over the results later."

Having said that, she nodded at Benezia who smiled in turn.

"Seeing as how that is settled, I do apologize for the suddenness and circumstance of this meeting. But," The Matriarch continued, patting Hoana on the shoulders as she spoke. "As it appears the little one has not been properly fed—and by no means do I wish to cast aspersions on you, but children are wont to be stubborn—shall we adjourn to my ship for an early lunch? We also have an expert exo-biologist on staff, who could look over your little friend, as well."

Emiya hesitated.

 _She apologized for it, but she didn't say that she wasn't the one who initiated this attack, even if she is giving off that impression. I didn't notice anything from her while she held Hoana, so she's probably not intending to fight us? Should I ask directly whether she was the one who ordered the sudden attack, or not?_ He could handle hardball with the Justicar and probably even fight it out with all of these people present.

But could he fly back to Thessia if he did that?

But at the same time, he could already tell that he was not going to win in a war of words against this Matriarch. His gut instinct, honed by years of working with exceedingly competent, headstrong and proud women, simply shouted at him to tread very carefully with this elder asari. _Should I decline? Will she turn the matter back to the Justicar? I can handle that, but... Or is she bluffing?_

As he said nothing for several seconds, Benezia only smiled.

Finally, he cleared his throat.

"Alright."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya looked around, sitting on the comfortable floor cushion as he did. Though he tried not to show it, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 _Is she really just going have lunch with us?_ He felt more than a little exasperated.

Before him, the asari chef was preparing the various ingredients and setting up for the performance. A part of him was rather excited at the opportunity of witnessing an asari chef in person for the first time, but he tried to focus on the situation at hand.

The ship he was on, the Dreyn N'var, was a rather heavily armored and armed cruiser. While they were escorted into the guest hall, he had wasted no time and began to look around and gather information by all means available to him. Shaped like an elongated and rounded T, the ship almost looked like a flying manta ray of some kind. The ship had it all; speed, power and armor. It was one of the first things he noticed, as he began to look through the specs of the ship.

They might call themselves a diplomatic something or other, but there was no mistake about it. This was a _warship._ While he had thought the mass effect field massive earlier, he realized that he had not even sensed a third of the core's full output as he managed to get into the ship's mainframe.

_Their sensor range is absolutely massive; the mainframe is able to take it all in and filter out everything but the relevant data, even building predictive models outside of its true range and compensating for the time lag. No wonder they got the drop on me. They must have been aware of me while still light-minutes beyond the edge of the system, way outside of the Tristar's range._

With his ship inside of the Dreyn N'var, it would be a rather difficult ordeal to escape by force. Even now, though the four commandos had receded, the Justicar and Matriarch were right here.

Next to him, Hoana was staring at everything with overwhelmed awe and a touch of worry; Kurinth had been taken away by a doctor halfway into their walk here. Benezia had assured her that the lizard would not be hurt, which seemed to assuage the adolescent's worries some but not completely.

"Well then, Saiga. How did you come to be here? It is quite a ways from any place where I would expect to run into an asari child." Benezia asked, causing him to turn his attention to her.

"...Well, she stowed away on my ship. And by the time I noticed, here we were." He began, making a distraction to Hoana so as to not reveal anything of himself.

As long as he could skirt around with half-truths and lies of omission, he could handle most conversations. Even if he felt an overwhelming pressure from this Matriarch, he was sure he could hold his own for one conversation.

"We were shot down by pirates!" Hoana immediately jumped in to the conversation, wide-eyed and excited to share that tidbit.

Emiya had to hold back a flinch as he wanted to facepalm; he had entirely forgotten about Hoana. _This... isn't going to work at all, is it?_

"Oh my." Benezia nodded, looking at him expectantly.

Emiya cleared his throat.

"Well, they were _probably_ pirates."

"You do not know?"

"They tried to shoot my ship, but they didn't exactly announce themselves over a comm-line or anything." He explained.

"Well then, we will have to check those records on your ship. For the purpose of identifying those pirates, of course?" Benezia nodded.

_Did she just extract my agreement to their rummaging through of my ship's computer? Well, they were doing it anyhow, but..._

"Sure." He nodded. He had cleared it all of anything too incriminating before he had left it behind. He had confidence in that much, at least.

Even now, he could tell that three asari were rummaging through the Tristar.

"And why did you decide to visit this planet, Dretirop, then?" Benezia asked, motioning for him to continue.

_No point in denying it, they would have seen us getting out of orbit._

"...Personal interest in Prothean ruins. A hobby, if you will." He said simply. She nodded, her pupils dilating slightly. _She knows something; go on the attack._

"I'm assuming that's why you're here as well?" He asked immediately, staring at her closely for any tells. _Are they here for Henell?_

"Hmm, I wonder." The Matriarch merely smiled at his attempt. "Though now that we know that someone tried to hurt an asari child, we cannot let them remain unpunished. Other matters can wait."

_...I just keep on feeding her openings, huh._

Even having hacked into the Dreyn N'var's mainframe, he had not found anything that had given him any clues as to their purpose here. A few days ago, Matriarch Benezia and Justicar Anatha had simply boarded the ship and everyone had tripped over themselves to obey.

The lack of true hierarchy in the asari military forces meant that things like this could simply happen, where a popular figure would ask for help and no one would question it. For all that he could tell, only the two Matriarch sitting in this table with him knew why they had come out here.

The asari chef walked up to the table and bowed. "Matriarch, Justicar, honored guests..."

The asari seated bowed in turn, as did Emiya.

Standing up, the chef inhaled and her biotics flared. Before and around her on the floor were dozens upon dozens of small bowls, filled with various ingredients. There were choice cuts of meat, strips of fat, vegetables, fruit, ground spices as dried fruits. As many ingredients as he could name, there were two more he had never even seen or heard about before. On the side and behind her were two large vats filled with a flammable oil, and between them lay a small brazier.

"While it may be customary for the eldest to begin, I believe there is one among us who is hungrier than I." Benezia smiled, looking at Hoana. "Go ahead, Hoana, order whatever you wish."

The youngest asari blinked, hesitating for a second, before nodding. She looked over the various ingredients set by the floor, clearly apprehensive over the sheer selection that lay before her.

The chef smiled, then. "You may choose any two, three, four, or five ingredients. Worry not, there is plenty of time, little one."

Hoana nodded, pointing at two bowls. The chef nodded and inhaled, curtsying as a small flare of dark energy danced across her skin.

Emiya leaned forward, eyes narrowing as he began to observe. _Here we go._

From the two ingredient bowls, pieces rose up into the air slowly. Behind the chef, from the vats of oil, a small blob rose into the air as well. It flew over to the brazier and immediately caught fire, flaring and dimming like a dancing star in the night sky as it flew over and around the chef.

 _She's using her mass effect fields to control the flow of oxygen into the flame._ Emiya noted.

The pieces of foodstuff flew down and dipped into a thick sauce, followed by some spice being sprinkled over it. Then, it flew up and began to orbit the burning globe of fire in the air. Suddenly, the burning sphere opened up and swallowed whole the piece of foodstuff, becoming a burning bubble that surrounded the food. And that wasn't all; with her precise control, he could see her extracting only minute amounts of liquid from the ingredients. The chef had perfect control over how juicy the food would be, just as she had perfect control over every other aspect of the process.

All the while, the asari chef had been dancing around, her graceful steps only just missing the various bowls on the floor as she continued to manipulate the mass effect fields that held aloft and spun the fire and food around her.

Two seconds later, it was pulled out again and floated onto Hoana's plate. Though with how her jaw was hanging wide open, it could have been just as well placed right in her mouth.

" _Dlau N'sar_ , little one."

He smelled the scent, noting that it was superb even without having to taste it. He _could_ match the taste, he knew.

But that was all.

All in all, it had only taken ten seconds to prepare. With mass effect fields, it was possible to lower the thermal capacity—the amount of heat the matter could absorb without changing it's temperature—and thus cook foods extremely quickly. He had replicated this with his pagoda, but lacking the finely tuned senses and experience of a centuries old biotic, there was no way for him to replicate this level of finesse.

Additionally, the presentation and freedom with which she could produce _anything_ from the ingredients available to her...

He simply could not compete. _How aggravating._

This was also why asari kitchen lacked water faucets, and why Hoana had complained about his stew. With the ever-present eezo 'contaminating' all foods, boiling food had a tendency to exacerbate that taste. On Earth, the mineral content and acidity of the water used could affect the food to a great degree, as well. But on Thessia, it was a sign of desperation and ineptitude to boil food to make it edible. Powdered eezo was added to foods often enough, but like any spice, when used in excess it turned into something nearly inedible.

He had had to make all of his pots and pans himself for that reason. With the two mainstream ways of food being either that of pre-made and packaged instant food, or the extremely skillful and difficult process of biotic cooking, there simply was no room for home cooking in the current zeitgeist. Not at least in the way he had been used to it.

"Well, then. How about our other guest?" Benezia asked, causing Emiya to be pulled back from his musings.

"Hmm, what? I've eaten, it's fine." He answered, noting that everyone except Hoana was staring at him. _Bad manners? Right._ "Err, I'll have the same as she did, then."

The chef especially seemed to be smiling quite widely at him. _Ah, was I staring?_ Clearing his throat, he looked away.

A few seconds later, however, his eyes were glued right back to the action as he followed the chef's skillful handling of the ingredients.

It wasn't merely a matter of handling the fields, really, that was the problem. Though they had to be very precise in both shape, effect and timing, that much could simply be handled through careful practice and recording of results.

He had been able to replicate several simple cooking 'programs' simply through time and effort, after all. What made biotic cooking so special, was the fact that skilled biotics could ' _feel_ ' through their fields as well. It was a strange phenomenon that seemed to be some form of synesthesia, where unexplainedable and undetectable feedback from the eezo nodes within a biotic's body was understood by the brain in the form of ghostly sensations with the other senses.

So far, it had not been possible to replicate with machines, to the best of his knowledge. Or his own attempts.

A skilled biotic chef could literally _feel_ how the food was cooking while _tasting_ it the whole way through the process, a hundred thousand ghostly little fingers and tongues roaming over the food as it cooked. Even if he masterfully copied the process and replicated it down to the finest detail, he could not replicate that function.

"Do you not intend to eat?" Benezia asked, causing Emiya to blink and look at her.

He realized just then, that his meal had been prepared and placed before him. It looked fantastic, irking him somewhat, even as he could not help noting his hunger rising at the scent and sight of the fare.

Taking one bite, he slowly chewed, before he looked up.

The chef smiled, waiting for his reaction. Somehow, she seemed even patronizing as she stood there. Yet, despite his annoyance, he could not lie about matters regarding food.

"Superb."

_I would be hard-pressed to match this... And it was a simple two ingredient dish, huh..._

"How wonderful that out guest is pleased, is it not Shiala? I believe I shall have the..." Benezia smiled, ordering and letting him off the hook.

The dinner continued in much the same vein, as everyone ordered in turn once their bite-sized portions were finished. With the speed and fine-control over food, it was customary to rotate through several orders to clean the palate as you cycled through. This way, each dish served enhance and accentuate the next.

Emiya was the only one to actually order a full five-ingredient course, selecting the most varied and difficult ingredients he could see just to be able to observe the chef while she was at work. _I can't copy her, but I can memorize the ingredients and apply that to my next pagoda. I'm going to rip you off for all you're worth for showing off that much._

He wasn't being petty, not at all.

"I have noticed that you do not wear an omnitool." Benezia began, as her request to the chef began to be prepared.

"...It's on the ship, I didn't see a reason to bring it along."

"Then you have learned the asari tongues yourself?"

Emiya nodded.

Given the obvious limitation to his Servant form being unable to carry around an omnitool, he had taken it upon himself to actually learn the common tongues of the galaxy himself. With his cybernetics, it hadn't been very difficult as a complete translation was always just a thought away.

Even other languages than the asari were relatively doable in short order, given that he could invert the translation software so that he was hearing a salarian translation of everyday conversations while having the translation available to him in real time. He had managed to learn three of the most common asari languages, two of the salarian six commonly used in business and negotiations, and additionally the standard turian.

The fact that he had never even thought to learn batarian was coming to bite him in the ass, given what had happened on Dretirop.

"Your pronunciation is quite good, you must have practiced quite diligently." She continued, obliquely asking whether he had learned it himself or had merged with an asari to learn it more quickly.

"I've had plenty of time to learn from the translation program."

She nodded, considering his answer and he could almost see how she was picking apart his answer in her head and drawing connections to other things he had said.

 _Say as little as possible, say as little as possible. Distract and digress to other subjects._ He repeated in his head.

Seeing that he had no particular interest in the subject, it seemed that Benezia changed tack and settled into silence, as her own third fare was finished and placed before her.

They ate in relative silence, though Justicar Anatha declined after the first course, stating that she had already eaten rations earlier. Her presence seemed more out of custom than any hunger on her own part.

"So, how did you ever manage to elude those pirates, Saiga?" Benezia asked, as they were beginning to be done with eating.

The individual courses were small, such that they could eat as many different things as possible. The chef seemed more than happy to continue dancing about, even taking to meeting his gaze whenever he began to stare again. Which happaned more than once, as he got particularly deep in his thoughts as he analyzed her cooking.

"...Well, I landed in a cave, fixed the ship and then left."

If Benezia was displeased or disappointed by his curt explanations, she did not show it.

"Without going to see the ruins?" She asked.

"It seemed unwise to stay."

"And you did not see those pirates again?"

"We didn't leave the cave, we haven't seen them since we landed. They must have left." Emiya answered, looking her directly in the eye without a waver. _Well, I did see them, but 'we' together didn't._

Next to him, Hoana nodded her head. "They couldn't find us! We hid in a really big cave."

"I see. You must have kept your starship turned off and waited for them to leave, then." Benezia nodded, turning thoughtful for a moment.

"Mm— _Oh!_ Saiga fought off a big lizard with a tri-wrench! It was so cool!" Hoana piped up again, looking away from her half-frozen half-caramelized fruit treat.

It was a particular feat of biotic cooking, in that it was like a three dimensional yin-yang symbol where the two ingredients combined and met in the middle. The closest equivalent he could think of that he could make was fried banana with ice cream. _I'll have to try learning how to make that one in particular, it seems quite complicated..._

Benezia nodded slowly, turning to look at Emiya as she raised a single brow.

"Was this lizard by chance... _this_ big?" She seemed almost amused—yet not sounding disbelieving or challenging of the claim—in tone as she raised her hand to imitate how he had shown earlier the height.

He cleared his throat, looking away.

"Yeah!" Hoana immediately confirmed. "It couldn't touch him at all, but he didn't kill it, just fought back with the flat of his blade until it pulled back and ran away. He was just like Z'till!"

"Oh my," The Matriarch said, looking at Emiya. "I did not know they taught i'usu with tri-wrenches these days. How impressive."

Emiya barely held back the sigh, as he realized he had zero control over this conversation. "...Well, something like that."

"Then, did you perchance set off an emergency beacon. Of any kind?" She continued asking.

"...No, the pirates would have found us if we did, I think." Emiya answered, as Hoana tilted her head, not quite knowing what they were talking about now. _Damn, it actually worked like one? So there was a beacon in the system, hidden somewhere. Or did they receive it directly while in the system? Could they have been monitoring the frigate?_ _Doesn't matter, if I stick to the story, they probably can't link me to it._

"...I see. You were quite fortunate, then." Benezia nodded, giving the Justicar who had been sitting to the side a meaningful look. "Do you know what happened to the pirates?"

Emiya shrugged, saying nothing.

"I protected Saiga properly, so they didn't dare come!" Hoana declared, puffing up at the proclamation.

Emiya blinked, looking at her. Their eyes meet and he shook his head with a slight frown.

Hoana blinked, realizing that he wanted to keep it a secret. She nodded back minutely, understanding his cue.

"Oh my, how courageous of you. You will make a fine huntress one day, with such a strong spirit." Benezia said, though he could tell she had missed nothing of their byplay.

Emiya cleared his throat, putting his hand on Hoana's head and patting her. "She's tougher than she looks."

He looked up, only to realize that every asari in the room had homed in on that gesture. He blinked, slowly raising his hand away from Hoana, frowning as he glanced at Benezia.

Even the Matriarch seemed curious about that.

"What?" He asked. _Does that mean something unusual in asari culture? Now that I think about it, I've never seen it before._ "Did I do something?"

"Hmm? Oh no." Benezia answered, looking at him. "But what does that gesture mean?"

"...What?"

"It means he likes Hoana." She answered, looking up at the silent adults, finally settling on Emiya and smiling. "I think...?"

"Ah." As one, they all seemed to nod and as suddenly as the situation had started, it was over.

Emiya blinked, realizing that he just witnessed something of the asari he hadn't ever seen before. Now, it was as if nothing had happened, all acting normally again.

A door by the side of the hall opened up, and an asari in a white and green bodysuit walked in holding the lizard in her arms.

"Kurinth!" Hoana exlaimed, getting up and running to meet the doctor, who with a smile handed the lizard to Hoana. Emiya could see that it had some form of adjustable collar around its neck, as well.

"He's in fine health, and does not carry any pathogens or diseases as far as I can tell. I still gave him the neutralizer injections and a probiotic. That should cover most of it. He should be safe now, but in case of any rashes or other ailments, contact an exo-biologist immediately." The doctor told Hoana seriously, as the youngest asari nodded excitedly, hearing only half.

"You're not keeping that thing." Emiya deadpanned, and Hoana turned around with hurt eyes, staring directly at him as she held onto the lizard with desperate and protective zeal.

"I would not worry overmuch, exotic pets are common among asari children. On Thessia there are plenty of other doctors who specialize in these matters, it will be fine." Benezia said.

Emiya inhaled slowly, remembering that he had read a lot about how asari of old had a tendency to have animal companions and pets. They did not seem to require breeding out any undesirable traits either, as humanity had often needed.

But that had nothing to do with this.

"Be as it may, I'm not going to reward her with a pet for smuggling it onboard my ship. Especially not after she herself stowed onboard in the first place, as well." Emiya did not budge.

Benezia placed her hand on his, as she smiled sympathetically—even a bit sadly—at him. He froze at the contact looking down and then back up, their eyes meeting.

"You have not been very long among asari, have you?"

He leaned back, just a bit as he furrowed his brows at her. "I've lived five years on Thessia, you know."

Realizing he sounded a touch defensive, he tried to relax.

"As I suspected; not very long. I know you are human, but please understand, that she is an _asari_ child. This is my advice as a Matriach—and more importantly—as a _mother_. Let her hold onto it. Her own mother will surely agree, you will see."

"I..." He hesitated, glancing at the hopeful Hoana who was staring at him while holding onto Kurinth protectively.

There was a moment of complete silence, as both asari stared at him, as if they could see straight to his soul in that instant.

He cleared his throat.

" _Fine_. I'll tell her parents to send the bill to you, when it chews through a _bulkhead_."

She smiled at his grousing, removing her hand. He frowned as he looked away, repressing the shiver that ran down his back. _Did she do something just now? No, I felt nothing and my brain chemistry is running normal._

He could not say that he liked this Benezia very much. Rather, he was beginning to wish he could get out of here as quickly as possible. In fact, he wanted payback. He realized how petty he was being, but did nothing to reign it in, nonetheless.

Putting on a friendlier smile, he turned to the Matriarch. "May I ask you something?"

She nodded, smiling. "Certainly. If I may offer any guidance then it is not only my duty, but purpose in life, to offer it."

"Oh. Good." He cleared his throat. "This was a spectacular meal, and I'd like to repay you for it, any way I can. How about I make you dinner sometime..."

He leaned in, putting a hand on hers just as she had done to him just now, whispering the following words.

"But, let's make it a little bit more... _private_ , shall we?" And in tone with the whispered word, he slowly ran a thumb over the back of her hand. Gently, just enough to brush her skin and to tickle, as if with a feather. _Make it personal, make it far too intimate, knock her off-balance and hit her hard and head-on._

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Justicar Anatha staring at him suspiciously, unable to hear his words. And at the same time, he could see just the smallest of tremors in Benezia's eyes, before she reigned it in an instant later.

But it had been there, undeniably. _Take that, you meddling great-grandmother of a sage or whatever you are, you._

"Unfortunately, I am much too busy for such. But, I thank you for the offer nonetheless. It is a most gracious one, and you honor me with it." She answered, regaining her calm, as she leaned back.

 _She recovered quickly. Was I imagining it?_ Emiya thought, nodding seriously and pulling back to pretend nothing had happened. _I said I was going to play it cool, yet here I am, getting hotheaded over nothing._

"Oh, well maybe another time."

She nodded, a little mirth finally entering her eyes then. "Perhaps, when I have the time, I shall take you up on that offer."

* * *

;

* * *

"Is it really alright to just let them go?" Justicar Anatha asked, staring at the main screen on the CIC.

"They are not related to Henell's disappearance. You saw the logs yourself. We reviewed and compared them with the Mass Relay's logs twice; they only arrived here after Nirida went missing."

"...Still, they are suspicious. You should have asked them about the disruptor torpedo. That batarian ship was taken out by controlled-munitions-grade weapon in a single blast." Anatha insisted.

"Yes, a most curious thing, that. But their ship could not have handled such a payload. Also, neither set foot out of the cave during their stay on Dretirop."

The Justicar scowled. "So they say, but what proof is that? They must know _something_ , I can feel it in my gut."

"Possibly, but I believe they are on the trail for Nirida as well."

"Huh?" The Justicar asked, turning around to stare at the Matriarch.

The Matriarch smiled. "He is attending at the University of Serrice, a noted friend of the Serrice Museum's curator, and has recently come into contact with the returnees of the Dretirop expedition. His interest in the Protheans is obvious, as is his focus on Nirida."

"It explains his interest, but for what purpose would he take on the journey to Dretirop. Especially all alone from Thessia, if we are to believe the child was there by accident? He must have some reason to come out here, no one simply drops everything to fly halfway across the galaxy."

"His initiative and haste is unexpected only if one forgets that he is _human_."

The Justicar frowned, before sighing. She could not argue that; it had been mere decades since their entrance, and humanity was still showing no signs of fitting in with the galactic community, too blinded by their haste and ambition to notice how many enemies they were making.

"...So, what are you going to do about it?" The Justicar asked, frowning.

"Huntress Shiawe has been tasked with trailing him. I believe he knows something, yes. But I also believe it more likely that we will learn what, if we let him go. He is quite headstrong and wily with words, as you could well tell." Benezia explained, before turning around to walk away. "It does not do to startle a fish when one hungers, after all."

"Shiawe is too green, even for a human opponent. She needs one crushing defeat to curb her spirits, before I would entrust her with such a task. Any task, truly."

Benezia halted by the doorway. "Then it is good that I have notified others, is it not?"

"...As you say, Benezia." The Justicar nodded. "And what of the batarian shadow frigate?"

"I am afraid I have no enlightening revelations regarding that matter, and must bow to your expertise, Anatha." She said looked over her shoulder and inclining her head to the other.

The Justicar nodded. "I shall head down to Dretirop one more time, then. They are still finding more crashed satellites, perhaps they will reveal something more."

"Your thoroughness and sense of duty do us all honor." The Matriarch smiled as she walked away. She hesitated for a moment, contemplating asking something, before she shook that thought aside and continuing on her way out.

_He seemed to have been watching the biotic fields, rather than the chef... Could he have... No, I must be imagining things._

Behind her, the Justicar frowned as she turned to look at the main screen showing the belly of the asari cruiser, where the Tristar was preparing to leave.

As Benezia in turn returned to her personal cabin, she noted an incoming call was on her personal terminal. She inhaled, walking forward and pressing the accept button on the haptic adaptive interface.

A screen opened up and she bowed to the turian.

"Saren. Have you considered my offer?"

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled, glancing behind him as he entered the Tristar.

It was obvious that their things had been scanned and rummaged through, but at least the asari had had the decency to clean up after themselves. He turned around and watched as the airlock closed shut. The controls of the Tristar were restored, causing the pilot's terminal to boot up.

 _Are they really just going to let us go...?_ He waited with bated breath, as he ran a diagnostic on the ship through the regular controls. _No, they must have planted surveillance and tracking devices while they were at it. That collar is tapped for sure. Is that why she was so insistent on letting Hoana keep it?_

He glanced at Kurinth, still quietly sleeping on Hoana's lap on the second pilot's seat. She noticed his eyes and immediately held the lizard protectively.

Emiya exhaled, still considering simply turning back around and landing on Dretirop to boot out the thing through the airlock. He shook his head, sitting down on the pilot's seat. _I'm sure Justicar Anatha would take that to mean I was looking for trouble by returning to the planet._

_As the engine turned on and he achieved lift off, the dock doors opened up on the asari cruiser, allowing him to slowly fly out as the comms officer on their ship guided him. While doing so, he began to think back to those words of advice Benezia had given him. Something about them seemed strange to him. Something more than merely the surface level impression and understanding he had. Was she trying to tell me something about the asari? No, more than that, have I fundamentally a warped understanding of their culture?_

As they flew out, he turned the scans around and looked at the Dreyn N'var behind them. It really did look like a flying manta ray, that had somehow swallowed the Tristar whole. _Out from the belly of the whale, huh._

Picking up speed, he continued watching the cruiser until it disappeared from his scanner's range. Only once he hit FTL, did he properly relax and begin to calm down. In these speeds, he should be relatively safe.

He might have honestly preferred to simply fight it out, compared to the lunch he had been subjected to.

As they continued to fly towards the adjacent system where the Mass Relay waited, he could sense Hoana relaxing next to him in her seat. _The asari as a whole are a race that seems to be very... 'motherly'. Hoana and Benezia, at both extremes of age, seem to possess that instinct to protect that is commonly linked to motherhood in humanity._ _Do I simply lack motherliness, making me incapable of understanding them? Or have I been watching them too insistently through that lens, which renders me unable to truly grasp their character?_

"Kurinth, huh?"

Hoana looked up, smiling at him as she looked away from the main screen that showed the stars ahead, with the overlay of navigational data. At this point, he could just as well flip a flight VI on and let it handle everything. _It's actually somewhat boring, compared to diving and flying the way I first arrived..._

"Yup! I named him after the goddess of huntresses, because he's going to grow up big and strong!"

"I'm sure he will. Just don't come crying, when he's sleeping in your bed and you can't lift him up to get in yourself."

She gasped, looking at him aghast.

He had to restrain the smile that almost appeared on his face at that reaction. Somehow it was extremely refreshing to simply be able to tease someone without having to think about everything, all the time.

"Well... Then—then I'll have papa make a double bunk! I can sleep on top."

Emiya huffed, and the rest of the way he continued teasing the adolescent asari in a similar vein. He probably wasn't going to be seeing her after this, after all.

* * *

;

* * *

Thessia loomed just ahead, as Emiya continued slowing down.

As Emiya turned on the comm-line to Hosin's he glanced at Hoana. She seemed to have suffered no ill effects of this trip, from what he could see. That much was good, at least. When contact with the orbital station went through, he found it rather peculiar that there seemed to be no mention made of Hoana over the comms. In fact, something about the asari on the other side struct him as unusual.

_They didn't ask about her at all? They can't have not noticed... Right?_

Shaking his head, he landed in the customer-side dock. Through the display, he could see Hosin running out to greet them. Even with the mask covering his face, his distressed and erratic body language was obvious.

Hoana jumped out of her seat and Emiya barely had time to open up the hatch before she ran headfirst into it. Getting out of his own seat and walking out, he hesitated. This was not merely a working relationship, but rather the quarian was someone Emiya had come to rather like. There was a sense of camaraderie, the two sensing an outcast adrift in the galaxy in each other.

How would he react towards Emiya, now?

There was no excuse for having taken so long with returning. Even with the issues on Dretirop and the batarians and asari, he should have noticed long before that. But he hadn't.

As he walked out, he was just in time to see Hoana jumping into Hosin's lap as the parent and child embraced one another. Whispered words were exchanged, as Hosin gripped the adolescent asari tighter at Emiya's approach.

He felt a lump in his gut, at that.

"...You're back." Hosin said, standing up.

"...Yeah."

There was a moment of tense silence, as neither spoke a word. Finally, Emiya cleared his throat.

"We ran into some trouble and had to do a hot landing. The Tristar got a bit beat up, but I managed to fix up most of it. I'll pay for the damages—"

"Huh?" Hosin blinked, looking at the Tristar only then and noticing the scorch marks and warped radiator panels. "...Oh, uh, yeah. Don't worry about it, I'll... I'll handle it. It's fine."

Emiya blinked, frowning a little. "...Okay?"

 _Something is wrong here_.

He looked around, noting that the space station seemed somehow a lot quieter. There weren't any asari or quarian workers milling about.

"We went to a strange planet! There was a big cave and pirates shot us down! And, and Saiga fought a giant lizard! And then we met a real Justicar and Matriarch Benezia was there! We had dinner together!" As Hoana began to rapid-fire explain all that had happened, Emiya could see how Hosin was reeling with all the information he was being given.

He looked up to Emiya, his eyes narrowing behind the dark visor. It was as if a spark had gone off. _He seems... hopeful? Why?_

Emiya cleared his throat. "It was complicated, but she's safe as you can see."

"Yeah. She is, isn't she. You... You're actually..." Hosin nodded. "No, never mind."

Emiya paused, frowning at the quarian who seemed somehow both absent-minded and exhausted at the same time as he was overjoyed to have found his daughter again.

"Where is everyone?"

"Huh, what?" Hosin blinked. "They're off for the day. It's... Hoana, why don't you go find Serri and... What is that thing?"

"It's Kurinth! I found him! Can I keep him?" Hoana immediately piped up, causing the quarian to blink.

"Uh... Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you go show it to Serri, I'm sure she'd love to see it."

"Umm, okay!" Hoana answered and as soon as her feet touched the ground, she was off.

Half way to the hangar entrance, she skid to a halt and ran back. "Saiga, umm, thank you!"

With that she ran back and disappeared.

As they both watched the child running through the hangar, silence reigned anew. Emiya noted again, how he could not hear any signs of work being done. _Something is wrong here._

Inhaling, he stared at the quarian. He seemed gaunt, somehow. Tired, as if he hadn't slept since Hoana had gone missing. But somehow, the machinist did not seem to be turning any of that frustration on him.

Hosin seemed more resigned, than anything. Yet at the same time, almost determined.

"...Is everything okay?"

The quarian looked up at that, blinking twice and then suddenly looking around nervously.

"Yeah. Yeah. Everything's fine. Just, just been busy. And worried sick. It's... It's nothing you need to worry about."

Emiya nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. _Something is definitely wrong here._

Extending outwards, he hacked into the omnitools and computers he could reach on the station. But a cursory search found nothing unusual, beyond most of the staff being away for several days now. And... _His wife isn't here?_

It was unusual, but he couldn't find anything pointing to a cause. Slowly nodding, he looked at Hosin.

"I had the skycar brought here, so you can get your stuff and all, yeah?" Hosin said, pointing towards the other side of the hangar.

Emiya blinked, looking out and spotting it right there. Looking back at Hosin, he slowly nodded again. _Why would he bring it to the shop-side? That's valuable space he's wasting?_

"I need to get back to work. Just leave the access card in the ship and we're good." Hosin said, turning around and leaving. Frowning, Emiya looked at the receding back of the quarian.

With a shake of his head, he set about getting all of his gear from the Tristar and setting it all up in his skycar. It was a tight fit, but it was still manageable in no time. During which, he saw and heard not another soul on the space station.

The only activity he could note, was an outbound transmission on a comm-line, where Hosin simply said that ' _Hoana is back_ ' on a broadcast. Hosin's wife, Roane, must have been on Thessia, then. _But that message seemed very curt, somehow? And a broadcast, rather than a direct message?_

As he settled into the driver's seat in his skycar, Emiya gave space station one more look and scan through his cybernetic hacking, before he shook his head and set a course for Serrice. It was as he flew out, that he finally noticed what was so unusual about the asari on the comms, who had handled his docking.

It was a voice he had never before heard on Hosin's station.

 _Did he hire someone new? While throwing out everyone else?_ Emiya frowned, exhaling as he dove into the skycar's systems and looked through everything. But it was obvious the skycar had not been turned on since originally being left at the hangar. As he pulled out, he frowned.

Entering atmosphere and taking a heading for Serrice, he considered what exactly was throwing him off about his encounter with Hosin. _He seemed drained and tired. Exhausted. He was happy to see Hoana, but he wasn't angry. Which means... He has something even bigger to worry about, right now?_

Well, if the quarian wanted Emiya's help, he need only ask. That much had been made abundantly clear over the years they had known each other.

 _So either it's something he doesn't think I should be involved in, or he thinks he can handle it._ Sighing, Emiya decided to simply trust Hosin's judgment for now. It had thrown him off a little, that Hosin hadn't asked about the pagoda. When giving the device away to Roane, he had made explicitly clear how sensitive and fragile it was. He had even constructed it in a way that would obfuscate its inner workings from most means of passive scans and so that taking it apart would cause the whole thing to fall into pieces.

Either she would keep him from taking it apart, or it would probably break when he tried. Half of the screws had been projected inside of the pagoda and could not be reasonably removed by other means. It should have gotten the quarian interested in the possibility of mass producing and selling the cooker.

 _I had hoped to rope him in properly and then use his infrastructure and connections to start selling as a series of cooking ware._ But it seemed that the quarian was much too busy.

Well, it could wait.

As Emiya rolled to his apartment's parking space, he exhaled. He noted offhandedly, how there did not seem to be any other vehicles anywhere near here. It was slightly unusual, actually. "Can't be helped then. Maybe I'll have to just start up the business on my own."

But that was sub-optimal.

The point had been to become partners in the endeavor. Hosin would handle the actual manufacture and selling of the cookpots, while Emiya supplied the basic design and capital for the start up. That would leave him with plenty of time to handle actually important matters, while netting him some real credits that he would not have to launder, or whose origin he had to constantly keep track of in his head. And now with his observations of actual biotic cooking, he had plenty of new ideas he could incorporate and enhance in his first functional design.

Stepping out of the skycar, he stretched as he looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed since his leaving for Dretirop.

It was as if this whole planet never changed somehow. Like it was stuck in time since two thousand years ago. Even the five years he had spent here did not feel like that long of a time, when no one around him seemed to change at any noticeable rate. Day in, day out. He had simply repeated what he had been doing yesterday, while telling himself that tomorrow would be different.

That once Nirida Henell returned, something would change.

The worst part was, he knew exactly how to get the asari logos. He could probably get it within a week, if he simply put his mind to it. Their race was rather infamous for that ability, after all. But he had refused, thinking that it would be pointless, as all the Protheans were dead. If he simply acquired the logos without learning a means for that process, then how would that help him with his true objective?

_Or is it? Is there any reason to truly uncover the mystery of their disappearance?_

He had spent countless hours researching the Protheans, yet it did not seem to give back any results. Certainly, he had stumbled upon the missing Henell, but what did it matter? It was beginning to feel as if there was no progress to be made on that front. Of course, he could simply set out and begin investigating ruins on his own, and there was a chance that he could find something out there like that.

But in doing so, he would be giving up his ability to act on the extranet.

Which was not just a small thing to give up, either. The amount of good he thought he could do through those networks was immense. He could affect the lives of billions, even if... Even if he saved no one by doing so. A part of him wholly believed that he should dedicate himself to solely his extranet activities, while another part of him decried the fact that he was not truly acting as he had during his life in doing so.

Perhaps his lack of results was simply the natural cause of his settling for half-measures. He neither focused on righting wrongs in the galaxy, nor did he fully resolve to try to solve the mystery of the Protheans.

Grabbing all that he could, he kicked shut the skycar's door and began to make for his apartment. _Is it time to choose; one at the exclusion of the other?_

Walking up to the door, he mentally unlocked it as he opened it with one hand. Walking in, he put down his bags by the coat rack, only to freeze. It was an immediate reaction on his part, the realization that someone had been here. The entrance mat was slightly ajar from how he usually left it; a chair in the kitchen had been moved; there was some of the outside sand by the hall, as if someone hadn't quite properly dusted off their shoes. Or worse yet, walked in-doors with their shoes on.

_I left all the doors locked, when I left._

He looked around, scanning the kitchen and the windows. They were all still locked, just as his front entrance had been. But small things, signs and tells of people walking around and touching everything, popped up to his sight. Everywhere, the more he looked, he could see that someone had been in here.

Reaching outwards, he went onto the extranet and contacted the Serrice City Hall's servers to see if he had been discovered. The trap would tell, if someone had been snooping into him.

"Wait, what...?" He blinked, frowning as he tried to parse what he was accessing. It was definitely the Serrice City Hall's server, but something about it was completely off.

He immediately pulled out and severed the connection.

 _Looks like it's time for me to leave._ He turned around and immediately reached for the door. There wasn't anything in the apartment he really cared about, beyond a few bags he had just brought in from the skycar. Food and supplies, was all he needed at the moment.

Opening the door, he stopped as if he had hit a wall.

Frowning, he looked at the two familiar faces that greeted him. Three pairs of eyes blinked in unison, before Tyra took initiative.

"Hey, Saiga! We came over to see if you were at home again!"

"Hello." Liara said, her tone of voice much less open as her eyes revealed a deep well of determination within. "May we come inside?"

Emiya blinked as Liara walked straight inside without waiting for his answer, glancing at Tyra who seemed just as surprised. She licked her lips, glancing at Emiya and making a slightly awkward laugh as she herself walked inside as well.

He shook his head.

"Take off your shoes, at least."

The two asari blinked, looking at him curiously. He looked down, only then realizing that they were both wearing the common fashion of Thessia, body-fitting trousers with integrated shoes.

"Right, never mind. I assume the two of your were here, before?" He exhaled, closing the door and setting the second internal safety lock in place as well. Even with a key, it could not be opened now.

Tyra blinked, nodding at him once.

"We, uh, came to see if you were home a couple of days ago, and—"

"A Spectre by the name of Tela Vasir was waiting for us, she had opened the door for us, I think, when we came the first time." Liara interrupted Tyra, whose eyes boggled as she realized what she was saying.

"Liara! You—"

"She's set up some sort of elaborate trap to arrest you, part of which involves getting us to make you confess something which she can later use to extract more information out of you, once she's captured you." Liara continued, unabated, pulling out what looked like an old-style recorder from her pocket. It was pretty much entirely analog—something he could not hack or detect so easily.

He blinked, looking at the thing.

"Huh, that explains quite a bit." Emiya sighed, causing Tyra to look at him questioningly. "But that still doesn't explain what _you're_ doing here. Now, I mean."

"Tyra was certain that you were innocent and argued that she could prove it. I don't think the Spectre believed her, but was willing to try it anyway. I think we're a distraction while she sets up outside. They seemed to think you could spot an ambush if it was set up before you arrived."

"Liara, that's—"

" _I_ am simply here because you are _wrong,_ and I can prove it. And I'll prove it _before_ you're hauled away, if I have to." Liara said, her voice confident and confrontational. "But I have connections; if you wish to walk out of here, then we have ten minutes time before they come for you."

"What? Wrong how?"

She sniffed, crossing her arms. "About the _Protheans_. You said—"

"You want to have an exo-archaeological argument with me while there's a strike team setting up just outside to arrest me?" Blinking, Emiya turned to look at Tyra. "I can see why she doesn't have a lot of friends, now."

"Ahaha, she's, uh, she's just kidding, Saiga, you shouldn't pay too much attention to her." Tyra tried to deflect, though her panic was obvious. "Listen, what they were saying, it's not true, right?"

"But Liara, you do realize that your lips are being read right now, don't you? Your double cross has already been revealed to them." Emiya said, ignoring Tyra.

The Ularu undergraduate blinked, frowning at him. In response, he raised a thumb over his shoulder to point at one of the large windows in the living room behind his back.

"The building fifty meters that way is a perfect spot for a sniper, and I'd bet that there's a team set up there right now, with a lip reader. If they're going low-tech because they're worried about being hacked, that only makes sense."

Now that he had started paying attention, there was a tingling sensation on the back of his neck. The same one that he had always relied on to tell when someone was observing him from afar.

It had saved his life on more than one occasion.

"No way... You really are some kind of human superspy on the run?" Tyra asked, taking a step back in shock.

"Snipers?" Liara blinked, asking at the same time, surprise plain to see on her face.

"Well, its not quite like that... But I see why people would make that mistake. Oh, and the windows are bulletproof, don't worry about that."

"B-but...?" Tyra blinked, still reeling from the whole situation.

Emiya himself sighed as he walked to the shoe rack and removed the whole thing from the alcove it had been stuffed in. Clenching a fist, he punched into the bottom and it cracked with just one strike. Fingers reaching in, he pulled out several boards and threw them aside, over his shoulder.

"What are you..."

He ignored them, pulling out the belt and pistol from the secret compartment he had made years ago. Checking them over, he noted that the batteries had obviously run out, but everything else seemed in decent enough condition.

Standing up, he opened a closet and took a freshly charged battery that he had left in a far more accessible location and swapped out all of them. Whoever had investigated his house had clearly not been thorough enough. Well, he had set up the shielded compartment for that exact reason. _Lucky for me._

Turning around, he could see both of the asari standing there, eyeing him with some surprise. Shrugging, he turned on the kinetic barrier belt, the pistol and the scoped rifle he had. It wasn't quite an automatic mid-range weapon, nor a proper long-range precision rifle. But it would do, here on the edges of Serrice where he had plenty of space for maneuvering and taking quick shots between the sparsely built buildings.

In fact, he had memorized the entire neighborhood closely enough that he should be able to make a getaway. Now, getting off of Thessia, that would be much more difficult.

He reached for the coat rack, happy to find his longcoat made out of the version two diamene weave still there. Then again, at first glance it did not look like much more than a plain black coat, so it made sense that no one would bother taking a second look at it. Throwing it on top of his hardsuit and kinetic barrier belt, he adjusted the shoulders until it felt good.

The only real difference from his old weave, was that he had changed the synthetic fiber to a modern version and given it the same liquid armor treatment. Graphene—and by extension, diamene—still remained the best available armor material to the best of his knowledge. With the difficulties in producing solid sheets of it, it seemed that galactic production focused more on carbon nanotubes, that could be produced in larger quantities more cheaply and in more useful forms.

Graphene still saw use, but mostly mixed in with various resins and rubbers to give it better properties, or in very small quantities in wearable electronics that had to be able to bend. He seemed to still remain the only one capable of making graphene in large enough sheets that it could be fashioned into diamene body armor.

Well, his version two was slightly better with the inclusion of the newer synthetic fibers, especially at intercepting the small bullets used in common firearms today, at least. It also breathed better, which made it quite comfortable to wear. Not that it mattered right now, what with the hardsuit underneath it.

But every layer mattered.

He turned to the door, moving to head out. If they expected him to remain inside for ten minutes then he needed to get out right now, before the snipers could communicate his movements. As long as he left these two behind, they should be safe from the ensuing gunfight. This apartment was a lot sturdier than it looked. _Take a left, I'll have some cover behind the pillar and jump down to the basement alcove. Go through and take the east-side window out to the streets and work from there while they're scrambling to find me._

"Wait!" Liara shouted, but he ignored her, reaching for the door. "I said wait!"

Suddenly, he was pulled off his feet and was sent sliding several meters backwards. Landing on all four, he recovered and stood up to look at Liara who had just used her biotics on him. She stood, arms raised and with fire in her eyes as dark energy flared around her.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

She glared at him, "Do not underestimate me, I have—"

"I've been on Dretirop, I'll believe you can handle yourself in a fight, alright." Emiya cut her off. "But do you really think this is the time for this? When have you last slept? You look like you're about to fall over any second."

She inhaled slowly, standing upright as she gripped her fists tighter.

"' _The time for this?_ ' You have the gall to say something like that after you came to _my home_ and had the nerve to spit on my life's work? I have been studying the Protheans for longer than you have lived! We, the asari have been studying them for longer than your people have had electricity! What could you possibly know? Did you watch some vid documentary and suddenly think yourself an expert on all things Prothean?! I have waited four days for this moment, and you will _wait_ until I am finished!"

Emiya blinked; had he wronged her so greatly as to warrant such an outburst?

"...I see, perhaps I was out of line in—"

" _I do not want your apology_. I will simply prove you wrong, that's all that matters." She ground her teeth.

 _This isn't just about me. She must be experiencing pressure from every facet of her life, and my intrusion into her one refuge must have triggered this. She seems shy, but at her core her defining trait seems to be stubbornness and anger, huh._ Emiya realized, clearing his throat.

"Okay. Let's... you said I had ten minutes—eight and a half, now—to talk before they storm in, right? Let's talk, then."

She exhaled, un-balling her fists and slowly nodding. Taking a slow breath, she closed her eyes and then seemed to relax.

"Saiga, what... Who are you? I, I thought they must have been mistaken, so I..." Tyra interjected, finally finding a place where she could.

"It's complicated." Emiya shrugged.

Tyra only seemed more confused by that. Steadying herself against a wall, she stared at him with eyes that seemed as if she had never before seen him.

"You spoke of the zeioph on Armeni, before." Liara spoke up, then. She seemed to have calmed down enough to speak clearly now.

Emiya nodded, mentally running through the map of the neighborhood as he listened to her. _I'll have to make it to the skycar, if I want to get anywhere. Based on what Tyra and Liara are saying, then there should be at least a small team, headed by that Spectre, Tela Vasir. Better to assume they're out in force, though._

Exhaling, he tried to focus on ways to get off the planet. It seemed that his choice had been made for him. Like this, leaving behind Thessia with his cover blown, he would have to give up on most of his activities on the extranet. The question remained; to pursue Henell, or to seek out other ruins and investigate independently.

Perhaps this argument was a good way to settle that. Had his independent research lead him to poor conclusions? Should he seek out Henell? Or had he been right and he was simply better off relying on himself alone in matters regarding the Protheans?

"You implied that that was the result of a concentrated effort by the Protheans to wipe them out."

"Yeah." Emiya nodded, running mentally through his resources. _I have two guns, a high-end kinetic barrier and this house. It should withstand most everything they can throw at me. A gas or biological agent could be a problem, but I can put on my helmet so that should be okay. Liara and Tyra would be exposed, as would the neighbors. Or have they been evacuated? There were no vehicles here that I could see. I'll have to hope they aren't that desperate._

"You said you had not actually been able to observe the gravesites, but I contacted those who had been the first to find it and was able to get my hands on the first pictures and vids taken when they discovered the tombs." Liara continued speaking, walking to his kitchen terminal and trying to turn it on.

"Wait, I thought you were being held under watch by that Spectre. And that that footage was to be deleted, given the sacrilege laws by the Citadel?"

"...I have my means. They did not delete all of it, in fact there is a... concentrated effort by some anonymous individuals to look into such matters, regardless of Council laws." Liara said, not meeting his eyes as she tried to work his terminal. "Why isn't this thing working...? Oh, did they sabotage it before? I needed those pictures from the extranet dropbox, to..."

He noticed that neither had an omnitool on their person. That Spectre must have confiscated them.

Emiya cleared his throat. "No, that was my fault. Haven't gotten around to replacing it. But I'll take you for your word on the matter. You were saying?"

She groused and let out an aggrieved sigh, crossing her arms as she leaned against it.

"I... Yes, the... the artwork there clearly showed the Protheans as a positive figure; protecting them from some other external and distinct in nature threat." She began to explain. "While they were on the outskirts of the Prothean territories, it does not mean that it was the Protheans who were responsible for their deaths. Rather, given artwork and murals, it is more believable that the Protheans were at war with some other race or civilization, and that the deaths of countless on Armeni were rather the result of a great struggle on that planet between two much greater forces."

"That much makes sense in theory, but do you have proof?" Emiya asked.

"Yes. There have been several... illegal—more or less, anyhow—investigations on Armeni into the graves. The results are clear; there are members of more than one race buried in the various chambers."

Emiya blinked, for a moment entirely forgetting all about his running analysis of the Spectre and her strike team outside. "Wait, say that again."

Liara smirked, more than happy to continue. "Yes, fourteen graves that had been eroded enough to be accessed without causing further damage were investigated with small drones. The dead buried within were set into great mausoleums, with the murals on the walls depicting a great struggle where the Protheans are depicted as the leaders in a desperate struggle against an invading force. In just those fourteen graves, they were able to find six different races, all of whom were depicted as great heroes alongside the Protheans in those battles. The damage from the opened tombs was substantial and no DNA testing could be done, but the photographic evidence is still overwhelming."

Emiya nodded slowly.

"Have these been dated?"

She shook he head. "That would require taking samples and official paperwork to have suitable laboratories look them over. Those who have taken upon themselves to... have a superficial look, could not do such without revealing themselves. But it does not have any bearing on the fact that it is evidence against your theory!"

He opened his mouth to reply, when he heard something hitting his living room window.

He turned around, coming face to face with a fully armored asari on the other side. The commando seemed surprised that the glass had held against her boot, a grenade held aloft in her hand, no doubt as a prelude to her entire team rushing inside to capture him.

"Well, it looks like we are out of time." Emiya shrugged, raising his pistol and activating it as he looked around. At the various windows, he could see all the areas of importance around his house, giving him a clear understanding of their movements. He had chosen this apartment for more than just the locations and rent, years ago, the view simply could not be beat.

Well, the asari saleswoman had talked about the sea-view, which was also quite nice. But not what he had been most interested in.

"I am not done, yet. There is more." Liara insisted, walking up to him, only to be startled by a sudden noise that was even louder.

It was the sound of a firearm going off in the distance, muffled by the walls, at the same time as in their perception three impacts hit the living room window. Minute cracks spread, but failed to punch through his Reinforced glass. Glancing at the impacts, he judged them to be from a sub-machine gun, aimed at an angle to avoid hitting any of them while breaking the glass.

"Unfortunately, I don't think they'll be willing to wait." Emiya said, flipping over the dinner table. "Get down there."

"I said, I am not done—"

Liara's words were cut short as a massive impact could be heard against the front door of the apartment. The entire building shook at that, and Emiya raised an eyebrow. _Luckily, I didn't just Reinforce the door or windows alone, or the ceiling might have come down on us just now._

Another massive impact hit the door, as if a car was ramming into it repeatedly. Taking a quick look at the two asari and noting they were in cover, he exhaled and put a hand on the door.

A third impact. _Now._

As expected, the biotic asari who had been repeatedly Charging at the door was just in the middle of the cooldown from her third, as he opened the door. He raised his pistol and pulled the trigger three times so quickly that it might as well have been one action. All three shots hit her face, her biotic barrier flaring to protect her. _The Charge gathers static similarly to FTL ships, which is dumped into the Barrier, buffing her defense considerably._

As he had expected, the shots did no damage, but the flare was enough to blind and stun her for an instant. He wasted no time, taking two steps and putting his whole weight into a side-kick straight to her solar plexus.

It sent her back only two meters, rather than the massive impact he had expected to send her flying a dozen meters at a minimum. _Her barrier took the brunt and she had time to weigh herself down. Damage was minimal and now we're just at poor engagement distance again._

Realizing that he had misjudged his tactic, he immediately jumped back and slammed shut the door, all the locks back in place since they must have a key if they had gotten in before. The asari biotic wasted no time and Charged immediately at him, but was blocked by the closed door. The door held on for a fourth time, but the frame was beginning to give way.

He could hear her aggrieved roar of anger on the other side.

 _A biotic that strong is going to be trouble; need to get distance from her._ Turning around, he looked at Liara and Tyra. The latter was staring at him with wide eyes, having finally accepted that he was in fact being chased by a Spectre for completely legitimate reasons.

"As I was saying, I was not done." Liara continued as if nothing had happened.

He blinked, before shrugging. "Alright, looks like I'm not going anywhere for a while."

"Open up, Emiya! You can't run!" The asari behind the front door shouted. "The whole Parnitha system is in lockdown. There's an entire STG division coming here and the Serrice Guard has already been mobilized!"

"Tela Vasir, I take it?" Emiya shouted back. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"You know damn well why. Your hacking days are over, you've kicked up enough of a fuss already. Give up, we'll make your life comfortable as long as you fess up to what you've done and cooperate!" Tela shouted, kicking the door once to punctuate.

"Mm, let me think about it. Come back tomorrow?" He answered flippantly, before turning his attention back to Liara.

The Spectre barked an angry laugh, before throwing another Charge at the door. "Fine! I'll come and get you the hard way, then!"

The frame was starting to come loose, thus Emiya walked to grab a closet he had and dropped it in front of the door, for a little bit more support. At the same time, he projected four swords inside of the doorframe; he had made it special so that there were slots where they could fit in and bar the door effectively. This way, the frame was now taking support from the rest of the foundations. _She'll knock the house off of the ground before she breaches that door now._

Exhaling, he holstered his pistol as he could see Tyra looking at it with some panic in her eyes, in his peripheral vision. _Okay, so they've got me surrounded and sealed off._

Out of the corners of his eye, he could see asari and salarian operatives alike at the various windows. From the west-side, he could hear what sounded like a shaped charge failing to go through an outer wall. Well, he had chosen this apartment for more than just the view; the walls were quite good even before he set about Reinforcing them.

"' _A man's home is his castle_ '..." He recited with some amusement at those efforts and the loud failures they ended in all around him. He looked up to Liara, who was patiently waiting for him. "Well, go on, I'm listening."

"You also said that their rate of expansion was impossible. I assume you meant in the sense that if they were not using the systems they arrived in as labor and raw material aggressively, they could not have kept on expanding so quickly, with that."

He nodded. "Right. The Mass Relays are massive. Considering how long it would take to travel between clusters of systems, they couldn't have brought that much material and workforce with them. Even assuming an automated workforce, the infrastructure necessary is far in the excess. For them to have enough fuel to make the trip to a next cluster, they would have needed even more resources and workforce. Well, unless they had some form of space travel we lack, which seems _unusual_ considering the amount of functional starships they have left behind."

"Well, what if..." She inhaled, crossing her arms and then licking her lips as she looked away. It was clearly something she did not want to say. Mustering up her resolve, she stared him straight in the eyes. "What if the Protheans did not build the Mass Relay network?"

He blinked, ignoring the Charge that hit the front door again and the sound of a grenade going off against the living room windows. They merely buckled a little bit, but held firmly against the explosion.

"Well, they were still as fast as the krogan and the rachni, weren't they?" Emiya pointed out.

"Indeed." She smirked, causing him to blink. "Neither of whom are noted experts in either building ships or exploring. Rather, we should look at _your_ race, the humans, for a baseline in that regard."

"Us?" He blinked.

"Yes. Your race is not only aggressive and relentless in pushing their boundaries, but also quite skilled in matters of designing and building starships. Your expansion into the Attican Traverse and beyond is nothing short of _terrifying_. Yet, you have not waged war and subjugated everyone you have met along the way. Well, not to my knowledge anyhow."

He nodded slowly, considering it. "Well, let's accept that premise, though it flies into the face of galactic convention regarding the origin of the Mass Relays. But humanity did wage a war with the turians—"

"Which only proves my point further. It was a massive drive for humanity to produce starships and related technologies, of which there remained a surplus after the Citadel intervened. The rush with which humanity took to the stars _after_ the short war was the largest short-term push seen in the galaxy's recorded history. Similar rushes were also seen after the end of the Rachni wars, by the _krogan._ But perhaps due to their longer lifespans they were nowhere near as quick, taking centuries to your decades. The Prothean expansion model only makes sense if we assume that, especially given the copious circumstantial evidence for them being in the middle of a desperate war just prior to those expansions." Liara excitedly explained. It was almost strange, how her exhaustion and anger was dissipating with every word she spoke. "Thus, unless we are willing to debate the subjective interpretations regarding artwork depicting the Protheans—for which we lack the necessary tools, regardless—I believe I have proved that the Protheans were not merely some brutish and warlike race of imperialistic conquerors and subjugators."

Emiya blinked, raising an eyebrow at the conclusion she had made. It was obvious that she felt very strongly about the subject, but at the same time, he couldn't dismiss her assertions quite with just that.

"...Okay, so I may have been wrong. But from the sixth age onward, I still believe they were extremely warlike, most of the artwork of that age still survives in relatively good condition and is generally considered to be of that nature."

She frowned at him, mouthing "The sixth age... Yes, the age of the cataclysm. Onward...?" before she fell deep into her thoughts again.

That was the period from which he had been mostly looking into, near the end of the Prothean's rule of the galaxy. He had been primarily investigating their disappearance, after all.

Well, it seemed that she had been mostly pacified with that, so he exhaled. _I guess I don't know all that much about the Protheans, either. Henell, it is._

Looking down, he began to rummage through the bags he had brought in. Taking only the bare necessities like food and water, he left the rest behind. Glancing at the two asari behind him, he reached into a closet and pretended to pull out a rucksack when in actually he projected it.

Having stuffed it with everything he thought vital, he threw it over his shoulder.

 _Now, I just don't get why they let these two in here. They're just giving me hostages. Certainly, Spectres have the leeway to let them just be killed, but it doesn't make sense for them to still give me any leverage like that._ He turned to look at the two again. Tyra was sitting on the floor, staring at him quietly, while Liara was biting her lip and not paying attention to him at all. _They're not active combatants, so..._

"Say, Tela..." He asked out aloud.

The biotic spectre had paused as she seemed to have been listening in on his continued debate with Liara. _What does she think of all this, I wonder..._

"You didn't put these two in here just so you could take them hostage against me, once you broke in, did you?"

"Hah, you've got me. Your psych profile said your were a big softie." Tela laughed. "Who am I not to leverage that to my advantage?"

Emiya realized she was as much trying to gauge his reaction as to signal her utter lack of care for their lives. Was she trying to dissuade him from taking them hostage, or double baiting him into doing so after all so she could use it against him?

He shook his head again, looking at the two again. Liara still did not seem to care one bit, even as Tyra seemed even more distraught than before. _What a mess. Again._

"Look, you're not getting out of there on your own, Emiya. Why don't you cut a deal with me. I can work _something_ out for you. I'm your only chance; your only life-line. I'm not mad about you trying to run off, in fact, I respect you for trying. It takes guts to never give up, even in a situation like this. Just let me in, okay? We'll talk this out."

"Have you tried ringing the chime? That's what it's there for."

There was a tense silence. He had just made the equivalent of a 'say please' at her. He heard her moving, but nothing more. He had disengaged the mechanism, after all.

He pulled away from the door as she kicked it again.

"Get out here, you son of a bitch! The fuck! Is! This! Door! Made! Out! Of!" Tela shouted again as she fired eight rounds from a shotgun,—by the sounds of it, anyhow—into the door to punctuate her words.

He could hear the sound of her shotgun overheating and the warning beeping of it entering locked cooldown mode, as she panted angrily on the other side.

"I've found that asari are insistent knockers and thought it proper to modify the door because of that. Sometimes, they can chime for you wouldn't believe how long. Asari can be way too insistent, you know."

He might have misheard, but she might have growled at him then.

Reaching out with his cybernetics, he felt his skycar within reach. He turned it on, intent on calling it the bedroom windows, where he could jump from the second floor in and fly away. He noticed that none of the operatives were wearing any gear that he could detect or hack, now. From the ground up, this operation had been planned around the potential abilities of ' _Redhax_ ', it seemed.

Only, the car's engine died down two seconds after it had started and landed with an audible thump, outside. It was nothing in the software, but something in the actual engine itself that had died, as he could still feel the onboard computer just fine. _So they got to Hosin, too? Explains it, then._

A second later, he felt his connection to the skycar be cut off. And then everything else; as if the whole of Serrice within his range was experiencing a total black out. _Huh, they really did come prepared to go all out._

"Umm, S-Saiga..." Tyra piped up, rising up almost hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"What did you do? I, I thought they were wrong for sure, I swear I only wanted to help you, I didn't think this would happen!"

He shrugged. "Like I said, it's complicated."

"It must be." Liara agreed, resuming her glaring of him. "For this much to have been mobilized against you. And what do you mean ' _sixth age onward_ '?"

It seemed that she still didn't like him much.

"...Well, that's that, and this is this. If you'll excuse me." He said, walking to the bathroom and closing the door behind him. _If it's come to this, then no point in holding back._

Exhaled stepped out of his body, letting it sit down on the floor. The signal could do whatever it liked, at this point, it hardly mattered. He sighed, realizing that he should choose between his wearing his disguise or not. Until now, whenever he wanted to act out in his spirit form and materialize, he had to have a disguise. Something that would let him act without being stopped by most people and would keep the asari from realizing that it was a human going around and helping in disaster sites and raiding underground crime rings.

Which meant that his usual get-up had been right out, in the years past. No asari had his figure, even if he covered his face.

Which had lead to him donning an armor that made him look like a Justicar. An _asari_ Justicar. With the body lines and silhouette to match. Apparently he had been given the nickname 'great red' on Thessia, considering he towered over them in his full disguise.

Sighing, he closed his eyes.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

Exhaling, he ignored the high heels he was wearing as he crouched down.

Spiritualized as he was, these walls weren't a problem to him. Leaping up, he spun in the air as he cleared through the roof and looked downwards. He could see twenty two armored figures outside of his apartment. Seven teams of three, plus Tela Vasir by the front door.

Angling himself in the peak of his arc, he materialized and fell down from fifty meters in the air onto all four just behind the Spectre by the front door.

She felt the disturbance in her biotic field before she actually heard the sound of his fall, he realized. She was already turning around with her shotgun to face him. _Too slow._

Re-directing the shotgun, he kicked her in the back of the knee and wrenched the gun from her hands. She tried to elbow him in the face, but he leaned back just enough for it to miss. He could see her face now, the utter surprise and shock, only there for an instant, before she tried to headbutt him.

He headbutted right back, just as hard. He had only had his helmet and his body as a Servant for protection, while she had a biotic barrier that could take multiple shotgun blasts head on without trouble.

Unsurprisingly, he came out much better, as she reeled from the impact.

Not letting up, he freed an arm and immediately punched her in the gut. It was a bad punch, without any hip to drive it forward or mass behind it beyond just the swinging arm. But it was enough to break the rest of her Barrier and send her reeling several meters back, as she tried to catch her breath.

She stood up, eyes burning with an unspeakable rage.

Dark energy roiled around her body as she roared at him. He could see the biotic charge coming a mile away. Judging from the impacts she had made against his door, she had the strength of a runaway skycar behind her Charge.

Raising his hands up into a boxer's stance, he got on the balls of his feet. With a smirk, he gave her a universal ' _come on, then_ ' sign.

It worked perfectly as she fueled even more power into the budding biotic field. And like a rocket she was off. Time seemed to slow down as he side-stepped, his rear arm setting up. Tela came rushing in at speeds beyond her own comprehension, unable to stop or change her course.

Right in time to run into his perfectly timed cross counter.

She stopped dead in the water, even as her Charge pushed him back on his feet. But the power and speed he had generated into the punch had been mostly enough to negate her built up force.

No, more than that, it sent her flying through the air like a rocket. She landed a dozen meters away on the ground, like a sack of potatoes as she hit the dirt and rolled with the impact.

As he saw her get on her side, dry-heaving as she tried to get up on all fours and failing. _Huh, gave her a concussion. Was almost worried about here there. Well, she'll live. That's good enough for me._

Suddenly, fifteen pinpricks of pain assaulted his back. An instant later, the sounds of the SMG firing reached his ears. Turning around, he came face to face with a fire-team of three salarians in black hardsuits. They blinked through their helmets on realizing that despite his lack of a kinetic barrier, he had not been hurt at all.

He dashed forward, grabbing the nearest and throwing him into the second salarian. The third tried to use a tech attack from his omnitool, but Emiya batted it aside with his hand in mid-air before shattering the offender's leg with a snapping low kick. Grabbing all three he tossed them aside, where they were out of harm's way.

Well, beyond what he had done to them.

_Broken bones and bruises; medigel will handle it._

His back was fine; the bullets had failed to penetrate the armor. He had never actually been shot yet, but he treated the threat as real nonetheless.

Through an application of his one spell that blended equal amounts of Reinforcement and Projection, he repaired the armor's back.

He turned around and dashed to the skycar. Putting a hand on the bonnet, he felt his magical energy rushing out and into the engine. He found the sabotage quickly enough and felt some relief at noticing how easily fixable it was. Pulling out the radio-receiver equipped piece used to killswitch his skycar, he blinked as he found a note attached to it.

An actual, physical note. Not really paper, but a printable tag with a Van der Waals' adhesive back that made it handy for most all surfaces with asari common writing on it.

Blinking, he read it in an instant.

' _Saiga, or whoever you are, I don't know if you'll find this or if it'll just get me in an even bigger mess. If you really are some kind of superspy that's been eluding the STG for half a decade and you actually manage to find this, then I didn't want any of this. I don't know if you actually kidnapped my daughter or not, or if you're actually coming back from Dretirop or wherever. But I didn't want any of this. I never wanted any of this. I should be mad at you, blame you for bringing this shit to my doorstep. But maybe it was a long time coming for all the shit I've been doing... Maybe you aren't supposed to get to have a happy family life after you've broken as many laws as I have._

_They cut me a deal. I go to jail, Roane goes to jail, Hoana gets to live with her aunt. I was always fine with getting caught. I'd kept both of them clean. There shouldn't have been anything to implicate Roane, but that spectre didn't give a fuck. She just told me to get it done, or she'd shoot her right in front of me. Please, I beg you, please find this. Because if you don't, I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for running away. I need to protect Hoana. Maybe you brought her back, I don't know, at this point I can't tell. I've never been so scared in my whole life. Please. If our friendship ever meant anything to you. If you feel bad about Hoana if it was an accident. I have money. A few hundred thousand credits, even now. I swear I can pay, just please help me._

_-Hosin_ '

He exhaled, crushing the note and putting it into a crevice of the red hardsuit he was wearing.

_Well, that complicates things._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to PseudoSteak for beta reading; had some trouble getting this chapter straight in my head at first. The heat and the seagulls are making it impossible to sleep so my head feels like mush.
> 
> Also a thanks to my patrons, they're pretty fucking cool.
> 
> Thanks to Olive Birdy and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.
> 
> Thanks to AlyrSoryu for pointing out that Emiya was reading the script/knowing things he quite wasn't supposed to.


	21. Droned Out

Emiya turned to look at the fireteam of three asari he could hear coming around the corner of the house.

They must have heard the sounds of his clashing with Tela Vasir, or did they have some form of communication tech that he couldn't detect? Spirit Hacking was proportionally useful to how much information could be stored and processed on a given platform, but his ability to affect wireless communications was directly tied to his cybernetics. Something, which was a known quantity to the Special Tasks Group, given that they had manufactured the things. They knew his specs even better than he did; developing countermeasures was certainly something they should be able to do.

 _I need a distraction, something that will force them to break their formation,_ he thought.

The three came into view just around the corner and he could see their eyes widen at the sight of him through their visors. No doubt Tela Vasir's crumpled form behind him added considerably to their shock at his appearance.

 _They'll do just fine,_ he concluded with an unseen smirk underneath his featureless red helmet.

He exploded forward, reaching the three asari so quickly not a one of them had time to react. While he could not dodge bullets that had already been fired from mass accelerators and was vulnerable to being shot if he stayed stationary too long, as long as he kept moving he was practically untouchable.

Slowing down just enough that he would not be clotheslining _through_ themor crushing their internal organs on impact, he grabbed two of the asari by their waists. They had no time to struggle as he heaved both over a shoulder and then burst into a dash again.

They shouted, realizing something had happened and Emiya felt one trying to use her biotics on him, as they struggled. But it was too late as he jumped into the air with both and tossed them forward in the air at the peak of his ascent. He looked down, seeing the ocean just below him some five meters below. The two asari shrieked, having no idea what was going on and just realizing that they were airborne, only to be silenced a second later as all three hit the water and were submerged into the Serrinan sea.

Emiya spiritualized and leaped back out from the water, invisible and imperceptible to the world, making it straight for his apartment without any of the other teams realizing it. Pausing at a tall rooftop where he could look around freely, he observed the happenings for a few seconds. The third asari was running towards the sea, where she had seen him running just now, loudly shouting for others to back her up in a panicked voice. _With this, they think a dangerous combatant is in the sea at the edge of their perimeter, forcing them to break open their formation as they can't leave the flank uncovered._

They didn't seem to have overwhelming numbers on the ground, despite the claim of the Serrice Guard having been involved. _Tela Vasir must not trust them as much, keeping them at arm's length._

He looked up, blinking as he realized there were a formation of four gunships heading this way, flying high up in the sky. It was only one of three other similar formations he could see, and in the distance he also spotted swarms of combat drones moving to encircle this part of the city. _That would be the STG then_. _They must have satellites and starships in orbit looking down too, even if they aren't in contact with the ground teams. I should treat everything as if I'm being watched at all times._

He could see another ship coming low and slow from another direction. It was obviously a civilian vessel, unrelated to the gunships as it was trying to come closer. A newscraft, he realized as he spotted the channel logo on open display on the craft's side. It was intercepted and turned away by one of the Serrice Guard's gunships a few seconds later, still some 3 kilometers away.

Looking around he could tell that people were being evacuated from the nearby neighborhoods, too. All omnitools and terminals in the area were broadcasting the same message to evacuate and get to a shelter, he could hear.

They must have expected a quick operation, but they had obviously drawn up a plan for a longer confrontation as well. While it was refreshing to know he was in the company of professionals who would not seek meaningless collateral in their pursuit, it also hinted at there being more in store for _him_ as well.

Looking around, he mentally counted the combatants he could see, overlaying them with a mental map he had of the streets and houses, noting who was covering what angle and where they were moving to patch up the holes he had created in their enclosure. In the distance he spotted at least seven sniper teams as well, the three he had noticed before included. None however were covering the front entrance directly, he noted with some amusement. _That Tela Vasir certainly had confidence to spare. Or did she want some privacy? Hmm…_

Now, given how she had been taken out, they were scrambling to reinforce the front entrance under the assumption that the 'Justicar' had been trying to create an opening for him inside to get out. That was fine, it left the bedroom balcony completely open.

The only ones who could cover that angle were airborne units and they were focusing on the sea right now.

Numerous drones swarmed the coastline, in perfect synchronization and formation. He knew a drone swarm when he saw it. Focusing on a relatively near drone, he pondered. _They don't seem to be using any form of wireless signal I can detect, but that level of cohesion and synchronization must mean they are connected somehow. Is it merely a matter of distance or..._ With three prodigious leaps, he crossed the distance and intercepted the drone in flight, landing on top of it into a crouch. His weightless spiritual form not so much as shaking the drone as he made contact with it.

Extending his palm against the top as he crouched, he spoke, "Alright, let's see what makes you tick. —Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

Emiya sank inside of the drone, opening his eyes as he flipped around and landed atop of its virtual facsimile inside of the dive. Compared to the drone, he had shrunk to a size where the actual hardware of the drone—a small discus shaped computer in the center of the orange glowing sphere that was visible outside—seemed like it could have been an actual flying saucer large enough to carry him. Crossing his arms, he looked around, the sensors and cameras creating a surreal projection of the outside world that overlaid with the digital grid he had grown used to long since.

"I see. It communicates through a laser tightbeam, with four separate VI handling layered functionality and cyber-defense in quarantined parallel, so even if the communications unit were hacked it shouldn't affect the rest of the unit." He nodded. "Then, this is a test run to see if I can _hack_ something like this. They're feeling me out."

Which meant that he _shouldn't_ hack these things, not right now anyhow. That way, it would give the impression that he couldn't, and if he ever needed to then he still had that option available to him.

 _How thorough_ , he noted with some grim amusement. _I must have made an impression the last time. Well, it can't be helped then. At the very least, I should wait until most of the civilians are safely out of the combat zone, before I make another move. It will give them more time to recuperate and reorganize, but it can't be helped._

Looking around he exhaled, dropping down into the house and back into his body. Opening his eyes, he noted he had not been disturbed in the ten or so seconds he had been out by either of the asari in his apartment.

That was just fine; he had not planned to be out so long that it would raise too much suspicion out of the two. Still, this situation was beginning to look rather grim. Fighting against an entire city, or even the entire planet was not something he could very well do. Unbidden, the comparison to his previous life rose to the forefront of his mind.

 _Isn't this just how it ended back then? The threshold for my freedom rises too high and I accept the judgment of society for what I have done? I haven't killed anyone here and now yet... But it's likely I will have to, if I want to get off-world. Is that cost worth it? Didn't I decide to end my life this time around the same way?_ He exhaled again, rubbing his eyes.

Somehow, despite the fact that he had been just as active both in scale and effect of his actions, it did not _feel_ the same as that time. He had done what he had thought right, but without the suffering and despair of others in clear sight it did not feel like he was actually doing anything.

At least, nothing that qualified for the title of a Hero of Justice. He had once again simply been someone useful, rather than someone who could save others from despair.

Perhaps his 'hacktivism' had simply been too shallow?

But as such, their reaction to him was just as dissimilar as his actions had been the first time around. At the conclusion of his life he had been executed with much fanfare and pomp, with numerous crimes and inhumane acts cast at his feet as he was painted into a grand villain of unknowable proportions. Here, they were holding back way too much for something of that nature to be afoot. If they wanted him dead, they would not have sent in Liara and Tyra in. They could have simply set up Hosin's orbital station to blow up or shot him with a starship the moment he came through the Mass Relay into Parnitha system if that was their goal.

That meant they did not want him dead.

Rather, they wanted something from him. Most likely his cooperation; his ability to hack anything, he guessed. Only for _their_ benefit rather than their detriment from now on. The obvious conclusion to his being captured was that they would interrogate him and be coerced to join their cause, one way or another. If he did everything right, then perhaps he could continue helping people, just working for the Council. Perhaps he could demonstrate his worth and character, even becoming a Spectre for their cause? Or some other organization, with close ties to them but less public. His worth was certainly great enough to allow such exceptional circumstances, by his own analysis.

Well, until he tried to resist too much or grew too headstrong, and they weighed the possibility of him running free and perhaps even seeking revenge on them against losing out on whatever they thought he could give them. Sooner or later the balance would tip and they would seek to remove him. They would try to learn how he had been able to hack into everything he had, discarding him the moment they no longer needed him, or his value sank too low.

 _It's that, huh. Before, I struck fear into the hearts of people with my actions. This is different, for all I've done is bother and inconvenience those in power by forcing them to punish those who have wronged. My life was ended at the hands of those who feared me, but now I am but the object of greed and desire._ Remaining on Thessia, he had for the most part relied on local authorities to handle the bulk of enforcing justice. He had cut no bloody swath through the unjust and corrupt but had simply pulled off their covers of secrecy, revealing them to the world and forcing those in power to clean up the mess.

Emiya could even imagine it; accepting some bargain with these people in exchange for his continued relative freedom. They would seek to dominate his physical body if he made some deal with them, only allowing him to strike out to keep him in line. He would have the upper hand there, with his freedom of movement as a spirit who was only possessing this body, but it would be a shackle nonetheless.

Something of that nature wouldn't have stopped him for long and it might even be the least bloody end to this situation, yet... There was _something_ that repulsed him about the idea of working for them.

If he for example managed to become a Spectre, how long would they stand by his actions? The Council at its core was not corrupt or evil. They sought to maintain a balance where all had a level playing field, while maintaining a status quo. But they were lukewarm in his eyes. They were too conservative and centrist in both policy and ideals. Someone like him; a dyed in the wool extremist who had died with a smile on his face for his ideals, could never reach an equilibrium with a group like that.

In him they saw a useful bloodhound; a beast that could be tamed and leashed to their cause and benefit.

But once they realized just how sharp his scenting was, how relentless he would be in the pursuit of his goals and how uncompromising he was… They would realize that they had not discovered a hunting hound at all, but a mad dog that would tear off its own head to keep pursuing its prey, wholly heedless of any leash, collar or master.

He ground his teeth at that thought; the very idea of accepting a muzzle like that. Like the _Justicar_ did.

Perhaps he was still simply immature and simply unable to accept the price of his goal. Perhaps he should accept the means, whatever they may be, in the pursuit of his goal? Perhaps that was the root cause of his downfall, originally. That he could not accept any losses, stubbornly running forward until he fell to the ground, dead and lost to all others in his own delusions. He had accepted but one collar and that one had been without a leash; its only restraint that he serve in death. And even then, arguably he had utterly broken free from the Moon Cell.

If the omnipotent God's Eye could not reign him in for long, then how would a measly Council of three?

Getting up he dusted himself, just in time to hear someone walking up to the bathroom. Splashing some water on his face as the door was opened, he turned to watch as Liara stood there with an expectant expression. It was obvious she still believed their conversation to be unfinished.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he forestalled her by pulling back a leg and then kicking at the ceramic tiles beneath the sink once, twice. On the third kick, the tiles came loose, shattering and giving way to his hardsuit's boot.

"What are you doing?" Liara asked, obviously taken aback by his sudden burst of violence against the bathroom wall, all other thought utterly forgotten for now.

Crouching down, he looked into the darkness of the hole he had made. There, just at the edge of where the light could reach, was _something_. Reaching in, he went all the way to his shoulder before he reached the sealed container there that he had hidden years ago between the various pipes. Pulling it out, he had to widen the hole in the wall he had created to actually get it out completely.

"Getting my grenades. Why?" He asked, as if it had been the most obvious of answers.

"Grenades?" Liara repeated, taking a step back with obvious surprise. She looked like she wasn't certain whether they would explode from being merely stared at.

"You have grenades? Is that why you're so good at throwing?" Tyra asked from the doorway to the bathroom, where she had been quietly watching them for a while now.

Emiya had to blink and look at her, causing her to flush slightly.

"...That's actually possible, I don't remember being particularly good at sports in school." He shrugged, grabbing the box and walking to the kitchen. "Never actually tried kicking one, though. _Well_ , a few live ones aside when the situation called for it, but those weren't planned."

Tyra snorted at that despite herself as some of her usual mien returned through that exchange, while Liara looked at them strangely. Dropping the box on the table, he began to open the seals with a knife he took out from a drawer. He had a pretty good selection of black market goods that he had been able to intercept and appropriate over the years here.

A few teargas grenades, some fragmentation, mostly 'flashbangs' which were only relatively useful when it was this bright outside. There were even a few smoke and chaff ones, but with the level of sophistication available in high-end omnitool and personal hardsuit scanners and sensors he suspected they had, those weren't all that useful. While the chaff _did_ work, it was not potent enough to counter the filtering and predictive functionalities of good combat support VI.

Really, they were only useful as distractions right now.

Going through and mentally cataloging a useful selection, he considered the situation. _I still don't know why these two were sent in. It seems rather naive to think I would reveal something to two young asari. At least something that would later help with getting me to speak up during interrogations. And the reverse hostage situation seems convoluted and unnecessarily complex, as well._

"Hmm, a false flag?" He considered. If they were trying to set him up for something, then that could make sense.

"What?" Tyra asked, looking at him.

"Why are you here?" He immediately countered, ignoring her question.

"Umm, didn't Liara already tell you?" She blinked.

"You did. And it seems rather farfetched. Speaking of, I can't say I am impressed with you two coming here. You should have thought it through properly, instead of simply barging in like this into such a dangerous situation."

The two asari blinked at him as he said that. He raised a chiding finger to them, as he put his other hand on his hip.

"You might think you're invincible, because you are still young. But you really shouldn't be so quick to jump into dangerous situations; you should think about yourselves with more care. When a Spectre comes asking you to be voluntary hostages for a wanted criminal, there should be some red flags going off, you know? You should have refused, outright and utterly. You said you were convinced that I was innocent, but now that you're here with me and realize that I am in fact a wanted man, do you realize how horribly naive that was? You two should have displayed more care. What if I hurt you or really did take you hostage? Did you think about that?"

Tyra and Liara looked at each other, both utterly nonplussed by his sudden lecture.

Still, he felt it ought to be said.

"But you wouldn't hurt us?" Tyra half-said, half-asked. She seemed confused by his attempt at lecturing them, more than anything.

"You don't know here was reckless and foolish. And that goes for you doubly, Liara. Did you think of the possibility that you might have aggravated me into acting out? I understand the desire to be right, but just because you're right doesn't mean you're correct."

Liara frowned, shaking her head as she affirmed Tyra's point. "No, you _wouldn't_ do that. And what did you just say...?"

"Tela Vasir didn't tells us it was going to be like this, at all. She said you were a hacker, that there wouldn't be any danger, that you wouldn't be armed and... And that we would be helping you and her at the same time, that way. And, and you _wouldn't_ do that, anyway." Tyra was rambling now, obviously growing excited.

"Yes. She said there would be a team outside coming to arrest you, but there had not been any talk of anything like _this,_ " Liara said nodding. "I mean, she did point a gun at us, but… She put it away immediately."

Emiya sighed, turning more acerbic. "You aren't getting it, because you're _cocky_ kidswith no sense for danger or understanding of your own mortality. I get it, you've a thousand years ahead of you, so the thought of your own mortality seems utterly alien. But that's no excuse to be an _idiot_."

They both seemed to get offended by that, huffing at his characterization of them.

"I don't think you have any room to talk about being ' _cocky_ ' or an ' _idiot_ '. Or of being a too young to understand anything. I'm not the one who just kicked a _Spectre_ in the face, or, _or_ hides explosives in the bathroom!" Tyra shouted at him, crossing her arms with obvious displeasure. "And, I'm like _thrice_ your age. At least."

She was pouting now, as she wouldn't look him in the eyes.

He sighed, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows as he tried to understand why these two simply did not _understand_. Was it their biotics? Did they think they were that invulnerable because he did not have that talent? Was it the culture on Thessia? While it was peaceful, it wasn't like it was entirely sheltered. There was something about their actions that he couldn't quite place a finger on.

Even if they had been deceived and surprised by this situation, they had not once tried for the door.

It was as if they felt no fear towards him.

"And, _you wouldn't do that!_ How many times do I have to say that!" Tyra said again, this time seeming to grow quite agitated as she spoke. "You, you're weird and strange and you won't tell me anything… But I know you wouldn't do that!"

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do!" She was shouting at him now, balling up her fists as she glared at him. This was the angriest he had ever seen her and probably the angriest he had ever seen an asari become, in fact.

He sighed, then. _It's like they have no self-preservation instinct against me. Do they trust me that much? They barely even know me._

"Never mind, it's becoming increasingly clear that I don't understand asari at all," he groused half to himself as he turned to look away from them.

Liara nodded, as if he had only said something incredibly obvious just now. "Then let us return to the subject at hand. You said, 'sixth age onwards', as if it had not been their end?"

He sighed deeply then, realizing that there really was no distracting her for long when it came to the Protheans. _I might have to actually shoot her to end this conversation, huh._

Then again, perhaps he should tell her. If something did happen to him and as he suspected his memories would not return to the Moon Cell in the case of his perishing, then perhaps he ought to share his findings with someone else. She certainly would spare no expense in uncovering that mystery, once brought into the fold. If nothing else, it ought to get her off his back at least.

"You said ' _sixth age onward_ '," she pointedly repeated as he said nothing, walking right up to him. "What did you mean by that?"

"Just that," he said as he made up his mind to tell her. Of course, that didn't mean he had to be polite or easy about it.

Liara shook her head. "No, _no_. You're implying there was some form of 'seventh age' by saying that. That's just a myth; a bad vid tale about Protheans going into cryosleep to hide from some great catastrophe, or some such other nonsense. The sixth age's end is defined as the end of the Protheans."

"A bad vid tale? You mean like the theory that the Protheans didn'tbuild the Mass Relays?" Emiya asked with a raised eyebrow. "As I recall, talk like that is just as frowned upon in the academic circles."

"That's— _that's_ different." She said, obviously annoyed he wasn't letting that slide.

"Oh? Is it really?" He questioned.

"The Mass Relays are..." She hesitated, not certain of what to say. Or _how much_ she could say. Finally, she settled on something she thought she could say. "The design and structure of the Mass Relays is such that it is possible for them to continue working in perpetuity. There are several Mass Relays which are believed to have been created by the Protheans, but most of those are of vastly different form, as if they were... _imitations_. When looking at the bulk of evidence, it…" She paused, as if coming to terms with what she was saying just then, herself. "It does make sense to consider the Mass Relays to be something that they discovered, just as we all have."

It seemed like something she had some difficulty saying, as if there was a great mental struggle involved in speaking such things out aloud.

"Wait, how would you know that?" Emiya blinked at that, frowning. "As I remember it, the Council barred investigations and other such attempts on grounds of laws regarding tampering with religious iconography. An objection spearheaded by the asari Matriarchs, if I remember correctly. I looked into that; the Asari Republics have been vehement in their refusal to allow _any_ study of the Mass Relays. They cite the possibility of another Rachni War and other kinds of catastrophes occurring. What are you basing this on?"

"I..." She licked her lips, turning away. Finally, after a long moment she spoke. "...My mother is a Matriarch, who receives a lot of attention and has access to a lot of classified materials and reports... Well, some decades ago, I may have... _borrowed_ her secure access codes and... never told her about it?"

"Ah. And she hadn't changed it since?" Somehow that did not surprise him. Liara at first had struck him as a rather awkward and distant person, but he was beginning to realize that it more of a self-imposed restriction than anything else.

At heart, this was an exceedingly headstrong and bullheaded woman who would balk at _nothing_ when she set her eyes on something.

"No, no she hadn't," she said with downcast eyes.

"And this was recently? Since our last discussion?"

"Yes. It was... not something I would have done ordinarily, but I had some questions that would not rest until I found answers." Liara shook her head at that, giving him a second's glare before exhaling. "I found several things I do not know what to make of, but the most important find were the results of an independent study by a certain Matriarch, made into the structure and function of the Mass Relays. She received quite a bit of censure for that, it seemed, too. I copied those files over and had planned to show them, but..."

"I said I'd take you for your word."

She sighed, nodding.

"If the Protheans did not have to build the Mass Relays or travel conventionally between systems, then certainly my theory is bunk." He nodded. But that kind of answer could only raise more questions in the end. Such as, "But then, who then did build the Mass Relays?"

"That's..." She frowned, turning silent once more. "I do not know. It is quite disheartening to find out that perhaps all I know of the Protheans might be wholly wrong. Perhaps that is why such attempts have been forbidden? Goddess, I cannot even imagine what the hanar would think, were this to become publicly known."

"Who knows. But," he answered, before deciding to push on. "As for the 'seventh age'… What would you do if you found circumstantial evidence of the Protheans having lived past the sixth age?"

Liara hesitated, swallowing as she considered his words.

"...I do not know. Something of that nature would change... well, _everything._ But you do know something, obviously. Is that also why you are so convinced of their nature being so... brutal?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

 _Well, it's difficult to consider them gentle protectors, given the numerous test subjects on Mars. Perhaps that's just another human-specific gripe. Perhaps among the Protheans something like that was simply normal,_ he mused.

"Guess I'll have to break another wall, then." He shrugged, turning around and walking towards the living room.

He walked, brushing the wall with his fingers and palm as if he was searching for some hidden sign or clue in the surface. Of course, it was all theatrics and a distraction. There was no actual stash there, since the thin walls would have been so easily scanned through, but she was not going to realize that. Probably, anyhow.

"Huh?" Liara asked, following him with her eyes.

He found a spot where he knew there was a hollow between the support beams and pulled back his arm, letting it loose as if it were an arrow. The punch went through as if it had been just plaster, causing both Tyra and Liara to blink in surprise.

Reaching in, he exhaled and spoke under his breath.

_'—Trace, on"—begin projection,_

The Prothean gunblade appeared inside, hidden from view from the two others and he pulled it out as if it had been there all along. He had brought it forth in the condition he had found them; old and non-functional. But that would only lend credence to his claims here.

Turning to Liara, he smirked at her eyes boggling at the sight of the gun. With a casual disregard, he tossed it at her. "Here, catch."

She almost tripped in trying to catch it, her eyes wide and her hands shaking as she juggled it for a second before finally getting a good grip on it.

Liara stared at the gun, blinking and mouth agape before looking up at him again. "You have Prothean artifacts just lying around in your house?! And you threw them around like, like! _You—_ "

"I don't think you have much room to talk, given your complicity in secret digs and your, ah, _reading habits_." He smirked at her, crossing his arms.

"That, _that's_ different! We take extreme care to not damage those sites in any way, nor do we _steal_ priceless artifacts and hide them in our house-walls," Liara said, turning her attention back to the gun as she inspected it. "The dust damage alone could have been catastrophic—the effects of modern compound materials interacting with the porous handle material—not to mention what moisture could have done to..."

Emiya rolled his eyes. "I didn't steal it. I..."

He paused, considering his words as he tried to find the right word. Saying that he had forged or replicated it would give her the wrong impression; it wasn't in any better or worse condition really. It should be just as valuable as the real things as an object of study, he reasoned.

"Yes?" Liara asked, raising an accusing eyebrow at him.

"Hmm, well. I _borrowed_ it," he said with a smirk, finding his choice of words rather fitting.

She did not seem impressed by that, rolling her eyes at him with obvious exasperation. Even though he had thrown her own words right back at her, she had no intention of letting him have the last word. However...

"There's hundreds more where I found it, so it's not really a big deal if I have one or two here, anyhow." He shrugged.

That one sentence was enough to cause her to completely freeze, all arguments completely draining out of her. She almost dropped the pistol herself, then.

"Y-you found a site in such good condition?"

He nodded. "And that wasn't all. Dead Protheans—I _think_ , anyhow—in recognizable condition. Vehicles, research and work stations, hydroponics farms and more."

Her jaw dropped as she simply stared at him. "That's, that's the historical find of the _millennia!_ Wh-why haven't you gone public with this?"

"Well... It's complicated." He said, shrugging. Why _would_ he go public with it?

Tyra jumped in at that. "No, no. You said that already before and I let it go, because—because of all of this!" She gestured around the house, or perhaps she meant outside of it. "But even I understand how big _that_ is. You have to explain something like that!"

Emiya ignored them.

"I'd rather not. Not right now anyhow; it would take too long. And I should be moving out, anyhow. Tela Vasir and the others have probably been evacuated already, and they're only going to hit harder after this."

"Evacuated?" The two blinked at him.

 _Should I leave them here? The house will still hold up to a lot of abuse. It would draw the heat away from me, probably. But if Tela Vasir had plans for these two, then that might just get them killed,_ he thought with a frown.

"Is that why you're escaping from the Council? You know some hidden plot that they're trying to cover up? Do you know why the Protheans went missing?" Tyra asked, and her eyes seemed to sparkle as she stared at him.

"That's ridiculous," Liara said with a huff. "They... Well, no, but... No. That's ridiculous." She shook her head, moving back as she had calmed down from his revelations just now. "So, what there made you so certain that the ruin is from the seventh age?"

"There were human remains there. In what looked like test tubes, or exhibits, maybe. From several stages of our evolution, including one that was very late. I compared it afterwards and it matches a skull that had been dated to 30,000 years ago, in rough features," Emiya explained, crossing his arms as he leaned back and began to list out some features he had noted with one hand. "High rounded cranial vault, nearly vertical forehead, very small brow ridge and jaw protrusions."

"That's..." Liara nodded once, processing what he had said. "I know very little about humans, but... Is it possible that such humans could have lived before the disappearance of the sixth age Protheans?"

Emiya shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not an expert, but it looked like a modern human's skull; something that shouldn't have existed before the Prothean's disappearance. Overall, it possessed features commonly considered unique to modern man from a very distinct era and geographical location. The cranial capacity was also rather large... So far, not a single specimen has been found with features to match it that is older than fifty thousand years to my knowledge. Maybe they were doing something that caused it to evolve early, or maybe it was an outlier specimen or perhaps older remains have not simply been found. There's a lot to account for."

Too much for him to attempt that line of investigation. Even today, there was too much uncertainty among experts of human evolution. That angle would lead to endless speculation and would not be playing to his strengths at all. No, Structural Analysis would be more efficient, especially given how clear the memories in the pistols he had found were. As long as he could crack the Prothean logos, he was sure to learn more than even a century of conventional study could offer.

If it turned out that the remains he had found on Mars were from an earlier era, then he would figure it out as he went along.

Liara nodded, looking down at the pistol in her hands.

"Have you dated this?"

"No, I couldn't." Emiya shook his head.

She frowned at that. "What do you mean, you couldn't? You have been here for years, have you not? Goddess, you hide it in a wall when the Serrice University museum is so near…"

He blinked. "Oh, you mean like with a laboratory and..."

Suddenly, he felt like slapping himself. Even if it was a projection of his, it should be right all the way down to the finest details. Probably, anyhow. Perhaps it was in the same condition as it had been five years ago, but it was definitely something he should have thought of doing himself years ago.

 _Well, that settles it. She should definitely know about Mars,_ he thought with a nod.

"What other way could you possibly—" Liara began to ask, but was cut off.

"Alright, that settles my plan of action," Emiya said, nodding to himself. "Now the only question that remains is... What to do with you two."

"Huh?" The two asari blinked at him.

"You're not taking us with you?" Tyra asked, though she did not sound particularly relieved or confused. Rather, it seemed to her as if he was doing something very roundabout."Like, umm, as hostages?"

Shaking his head, he explained "No, that wouldn't work. They don't want me dead, so I don't need you as shields. And at the threshold where they begin to use lethal force against me, your presence won't matter much at all either. So really, you'll just slow me down If I take you along once I actually leave."

Tyra seemed almost offended by that, but he ignored her.

"But, I could take you somewhere that would be safe," he said.

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda looked up, frowning at the incoming message. _What is it now?_

With a proper omnitool, she no longer had to worry about the Citadel's interference or surveillance; the dual boot methodology ensuring that only encrypted messages would pass through the surface installation. Still, they had to use the MMO for communication, but at least with the program she had written up to handle the nitty gritty conversions it was much quicker now.

It was only the beginning of what was to come, she knew. Parts of the countermeasures were her own design and work, too. Pressing the haptic interface, her eyes slid over the text before she inhaled. She closed the holographic screen, packing her things and moving out immediately.

Shirou Emiya had been discovered.

She cursed under her breath as she hastened to make it to the meeting. She had taken such great care and gone to such great lengths to ensure that she not reveal herself after finding him. Yet, so soon afterwards, Shirou Emiya had been found. Parnitha system was in a state of partial lockdown, with all physical traffic being re-routed to the numerous orbital stations for the moment. Even data traffic was being heavily monitored, the only reason Cerberus had been able to realize anything was happening was due to a message to the Council being intercepted.

 _Damn it, did they find him through some other means or was it the blackout, after all?_ She jumped into the VI-driven X3M cab and opened up her omnitool as she resumed her work.

But her previous zeal and efficiency was all but gone, as numerous thoughts and worries warred for her attention. She had been called in along with the status update she had received, informing her of the situation but telling her nothing of Cerberus' intentions. They would not simply wait this one out; she knew that in the last few years the hunt for Outis had only intensified with each passing month.

Something big had been going on, and that man was at the heart of it.

Learning from the Armstrong incident, Cerberus has heavily invested in deniability wherever possible. Where before they set out to create a base of operations that could serve as anything and everything between a military base and a meeting ground for their operatives, now they simply opted for using intermediaries and putting enough walls in between them that none of their own personnel could directly be implicated in anything.

Stepping out of the vehicle, she briskly walked to the sushi restaurant, nodding at the receptionist who bowed at her and immediately moved to escort her to a room as she spoke the cover name of who ought to be waiting for her. Nothing more than an everyday meeting for a busy corporate worker, that's all.

Opening the door to the private room, a head turned and for a moment Miranda almost drew her hidden pistol.

It was an instinctual reaction to the stare she was receiving from a dark-haired man who had turned to look at who had opened the door. Icy blue eyes met dark ones, and for a moment the world seemed frozen around them as they simply judged and weighed one another. The seated man was the first to relax, leaning back with a smirk as he eyed Miranda from head to toe.

"Took you long enough, heavy traffic?" He asked in curt and dry voice, before looking at the man who had led her there. Raising a cup, he inclined his head and spoke. "Refill and bring some beer too."

"Yes, sir. At once." The man behind Miranda bowed, and again to her with a, "Please be seated" as he left.

"Transmission delays. I did not know there would be others on the Citadel. I thought this has been declared a non-operational zone due to security concerns?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.

He shrugged. "We're just passing through. Waiting for you, in fact. Would have been easier if you'd have a known address, could have just picked you up myself."

"And leave a trail for others? I don't think so," she said with a sniff as she eyed him down the length of her nose. "' _We_ '?"

He smirked, nodding with his head towards an unseen corner in the private room.

Miranda walked in, closing the door behind her and letting her eyes roam until she spotted Rasa sitting in the corner. There was another tense moment, but as neither spoke a word the dark haired man chuckled.

"I see you've met."

Miranda broke the stare, glancing at the man who seemed to be taking extraordinary pleasure out of the sudden tension in the room. They all knew each other by reputation, yet none of them wanted to work with one another. Then again, their wants were of no consequences here. What the Illusive Man wanted, he got.

Getting up, the man smirked as he extended his hand to her.

She inhaled slowly, accepting the handshake with some prevarication. A small pad on the omnitool's physical component—the thin bracelet directly against her skin—vibrated slightly on her wrist, giving her confirmation of receiving a file transfer from the Asian man. Looking up, he let go of her hand and clenched it once as he stared at it.

"Soft hands," he judged with a shake of his hand. "Try not to slow me down too much."

She said nothing, releasing the hand and making the effort to wipe her palm on the table cloth in as obvious a manner as possible, even though she was wearing gloves over her skin. He merely rolled his eyes at her.

They only shook hands for the protocol exchange.

With Citadel growing heavy-handed in their surveillance, other means of communication had to be established. Simply put, on Cerberus standard omnitools there was a partitioned section for files that should be shared with other Cerberus standard omnitools. Then, whenever a physical handshake was initiated, a file transfer and update would occur allowing both parties to quietly and quickly handle mission briefings and updates without worry of leaks from conventional networking.

It was based on a system that had been in use among the Alliance Intelligence Agency's field operatives for years, modified for Cerberus' needs as times changed.

What she had received earlier had only been the briefest, most surface-level of messages, partly due to the limitations of the MMO communication method and partly due to the sensitive nature of the information. What she had received just now was the true meat and bones of what was going on in Thessia; the mission dossier and relevant status reports that would truly tell her what was happening.

"Were you followed?" Rasa asked, staring at her as she stood up.

"Of course not. Were _you_?" The two women stared at each other as the tension in the room spiked up again.

The sliding door behind Miranda opened up again as the restaurant personnel returned. He walked to the table, setting down a clay bottle of some kind, along with a more common-looking beer bottle.

"What was this?" The asian man nodded, grabbing the clay bottle.

The server looked up, blinking as he smiled politely at the question. "Sir, it is a salarian import. There have been in recent years a great deal of interest in various rice wines on Sur'Kesh. We have a great selection of—"

"Thought so," the dark-haired man said with a sneer as he grabbed the bottle. It fit into his palm easily, his fingers wrapping around the whole of the bottle without issue. He looked at the server who had politely stopped speaking, waiting for him to continue. "It tastes what you'd expect those swamp lizards to cook up. Rice wine? More like fetid piss with vinegar."

"I... Sir, I apologize—"

He thrust forward the hand over the server's head and with ease crushed the clay bottle. The clear liquid with just a hint of amber tone to it ran freely through his fingers, causing the server to flinch and blink as he was soaked.

Bringing down his arm, Kai Leng smirked and tossed the shards at the server's chest, shards clattering as they impacted and fell to the floor.

"Don't expect to see me back." And with that he walked out, grabbing the beer bottle on the way out as he did.

Miranda glanced at Rasa who uncrossed her arms and stood up, moving to follow after the Asian man without a word. Sighing, she glanced at the server who was bowing and apologizing profusely at them as they left without a word. They took another skycab, with Kai Leng pointedly taking the front right seat as he crossed his arms and ignored the two women while sipping his beer, bringing them to the commercial docks where they boarded a merchant vessel listed as owned by a salarian-turian joint company.

However, the whole of the crew was human, and their loyalties lay decisively elsewhere from their paycheck's source. Inside, an unfamiliar man sitting in a wheelchair gave them a scowling greeting.

"You're late."

Kai Leng shrugged as he walked past the seated man, "Had to pick up the ladies, you know how it is."

Receiving only a grunt in reply, the Asian man seemed to almost smile. The wheelchair turned around and began to roll away, with all three moving to follow.

"We've wasted enough time. The ship will be leaving in a few hours for Thessia, during which time you'll all have to be brought up to speed."

The omnitools of all three suddenly vibrated, signaling them that they had received a packet update, like the one she had just received from Kai Leng. Miranda froze for an instant, but instantly controlled herself and pretended that she had not been taken by surprise just now. _That system is extremely short-range, how did he...?_

"Read those when you can, it's the mission briefing with the most recent updates. For now, Miranda Lawson is assigned team leader."

Kai Leng immediately protested vocally, "What? This is a hot infiltration! It's obviously _my_ area of expertise!"

Glaring at the seated and unmoved man, the dark-haired man ground his teeth.

And for all his loudness, it was obvious that his distaste for that decision did not lose out to Rasa's one bit. The silent woman glared at Miranda for a short moment, before pretending that she had not been itching to pull her pistol just now.

"Shut up." The wheelchair stopped and all three had to stop as the man turned around just enough so that he could turn his face and address the standing man directly. "This comes from the top, so just do as you're told."

Kai Leng ground his teeth, glaring at the other before inhaling slowly and nodding with grudging acceptance. " _Fine_. But I want—"

"Not my problem." The wheelchair turned, and the man resumed moving forwards. "Read your mission statement and keep it to yourself."

The dark-haired man blinked, before grunting and moving to follow after the wheelchair. Miranda rolled her eyes at the byplay, as she eyed through the packet update she had received. _It was completely legitimate. At that range? He must have some sort of specialized system in his wheelchair for it._

As Rasa walked past her, Miranda moved to follow.

"The ship will only make the circuit to one of the orbital stations to unload its cargo. Security will be too tight for you to get to Thessia through normal means, thus you'll be taking the new ' _Injectors_ ' and will be dropping directly to Thessia. After you land, make clear of the pods before the remains of the prototype eezo core self-destruct. What happens after that has nothing to do with me, so read the mission briefings thoroughly."

Miranda perked up at that, realizing that this was the man who had been assigned to spearhead Cerberus' research and development into stealth in space.

"' _Injectors'_? You mean the stealth landing pod system?" she asked, walking up to walk parallel to him.

The man in the wheelchair looked up, before finally nodding. This close up, and looking for it, she could see _something_ running beneath his clothes. As if a cable that connected the man to the chair was laid bare against his spine, for some reason.

"You developed it? You're here to test the models, then?" She asked again, frowning as she realized that she was being set up as a guinea pig.

The man smirked, knowing she had quickly realized what was going on. "Indeed. There's only so much of the exotic variant eezo left, after all. This will be the first test in a hostile monitored system, which will make or break this system. Try not to fuck it up."

Kai Leng piped up at that. "Exotic variant eezo?"

"Five years ago, in an incident known as the ' _ghost-ship of '72_ ', a skycar managed to fool the entire space surveillance grid of Earth." He began, before pausing at the frown the dark-haired man was giving him. "Yes, it wasn't just some conspiracy theory, it actually happened. Cerberus took great care to memory hole that incident and to bury it entirely. It's now been mostly dismissed as a freak solar wind discharge interaction with the Van Allen radiation belt. Weird aurora interacting with a dark comet that then burned up in atmo, nothing more."

He chuckled at that, shaking his head.

"The skycar was recovered, correct?" Miranda asked, motioning for him to continue. "You managed to reverse engineer that process?"

"Indeed. Inside of the engine, something peculiar was discovered. Someone had modified the engine to fit a much larger eezo core than strictly necessary. It was what allowed the vehicle to achieve such ridiculous accelerations and fool all of the sensors the way it did. That lump of eezo was taken out and studied very closely for years, and do you know what they found?"

Miranda said nothing, waiting for him to continue though she did have some knowledge of that case.

"They found that the eezo was disappearing. Slowly, but surely. A little at a time, just going somewhere else. No one knows where. But as a result, it behaves unusually. Even for element zero."

"Whatever." Kai Leng scoffed, slowing down as he ignored the wheelchair-bound man.

"And that is the basis for the proposed stealth system, then?" Miranda asked, paying the broody man no heed.

"Indeed. Thermal sinks have been tested before, but the problem with heat has not been so simple that it can just be solved with a few years of research," the man answered, smirking. "Well, not until we discovered that EVE can also be used to vent out various forms of heat and electromagnetic radiation as well."

She had to blink, frowning at the implication. "To where?"

The man in the wheelchair smirked as he shrugged. "Somewhere where sensors can't pick it up, more than that I don't know or care. But I do know it can be used to make a small craft utterly invisible. Electrical, thermal, even visual can be handled once the excess heat from the cloaking system is no longer a problem. Even an active scan can be partially absorbed and dissipated."

Miranda nodded, making a note to look closer into the subject later.

"So that's how we'll get onto Thessia?"

"Yes. You'll be placed into a small craft and then lanced out from the merchant starship some ways from Thessia with stealth turned on, allowing you to land undetected on the planet. I'm here to record the data and see how well it works, primarily."

Rasa finally spoke up, walking up to them as she did, "And this is where this ' _Shirou Emiya_ ' comes in?"

"Yes." The man in the wheelchair nodded, turning thoughtful for a moment before he continued. "He has ties to the entity known as 'Outis' and is suspected to know about where the exotic variant eezo came from. Given that we only have limited amounts of the matter, if we wish to make strategic use of it in the future we will need to find the original source. And given what it could offer us... Make no mistake, this mission is vital to the future of humanity."

"So, we're here to find some pencil-neck researcher?" Kai Leng asked, clearly not amused. "Easy job, then. As long as we make it to the ground, at least."

At that, the wheelchair completely stopped. Turning around to look over his shoulder, the man eyed Kai Leng for a silent moment before giving him a mysterious smile.

"Well, I don't mind if you think that. Your death won't matter in the scheme of things, I'm sure. As long as _he_ is brought in alive, everything else can be handled."

Kai Leng looked at the man through narrowed eyes and for a moment it seemed like a fight might break out. The wheelchair turned ninety degrees and a hatch automatically opened. The wheels of the chair went over the raised ledge between the two compartments seamlessly, as he entered another section of the ship.

They moved to follow, coming to see the needle-like black crafts before them as they entered.

"These will be your rides down to Thessia. I'll show you how they work, as soon as we're on the way. For now, read your mission briefings and gear up. You know where the armories are." And with that, the man in the wheelchair turned around and left the same way he had come.

Kai Leng clicked his tongue, rolling his neck with clear and barely-restrained aggression radiating from his body language.

"Are all N7's so clip?" Rasa asked out aloud, causing the dark-haired man to glare her way.

But then he seemed to realize that she hadn't been talking about him at all, causing him to stare at the doorway with something resembling respect. "So that was the butcher, huh."

Strangely placated by that realization, the man turned on his omnitool and began to read through the mission briefing without another word.

Miranda eyed the two for another second before turning on her own omnitool's display. She needed to not just know this mission in and out, but all of Thessia as well, she reasoned. Given how Outis had reacted the last time she had visited, there was no doubt that he would be appearing in person this time. Sooner or later, _he_ would be within her reach.

And when he was, she intended to blindside him at the best possible moment and take him down. She smiled at that thought, as immersed herself in the graphs and reports before her.

* * *

;

* * *

"Of course, that all depends on what you want to do right now," Emiya said, placing a hand on his hip as he tilted his head. "I have no intention of forcing you to go anywhere; if you want to stay behind, then that's up to you."

"…Do you think we should come with you?" Tyra asked.

"Is it really necessary for us to leave?" Liara asked, frowning at him. "She may be a Spectre, someone who has been given the authority to act as she pleases by the Council, but… I cannot believe she would do anything to hurt us."

Emiya grabbed four canisters from the box, checking the labels before he nodded. "Then, can you think of a reason for her to have sent you in here? You said you didn't see any of the others before she brought you here. Does that mean she was hiding them from you, or that she was hiding _you from them_?" He looked at her, crossing his arms to punctuate his statement.

Liara sniffed but seemed to accept his reasoning. Or perhaps she was simply too tired to argue. There had been a manic energy to her, but now it seemed to be draining out of her now. "Very well. I am… I am not entirely sure what is going on. While this does not seem like the best of ideas, I think I can trust you to not hurt us, at least."

"Yeah, Saiga wouldn't do something like that." Tyra said, nodding. "If you think it's important, then… I'll come with you."

She looked at him with determined eyes, nodding twice.

"Alright then, that's settled. Time to make an exit," he said, nodding in return as he uncrossed his arms. It was good that he didn't have to start negotiating with them; saying something like ' _I'll only tell you where I found this if you come with me_ ' in regards to the Prothean pistol, or something.

With a smirk, he tossed a pair of grenades into the air and grabbed them mid-air with one hand.

"What are those?" Tyra asked again.

"Chaff and smoke grenades." He answered, walking to a window and looking out.

Unable to see anyone nearby, he opened the latch pulled the pins of two grenades and dropped them right down and then closing the window. Immediately they began to smoke and in less than five seconds the whole window had been covered and darkened by the rising silver cloud.

"Uh, that doesn't really explain anything?" Tyra said, peering around him to look at the window with obvious curiosity. "What will that even do?"

"It'll blot out weaker sensors. It's essentially a cloud of tinfoil confetti, mixed with a chemical solution that reacts to oxygen and begins a slow burn. That produces lift which lets the small pieces of metal remain in the air for longer while causing them to reflect the heat everywhere." Emiya explained, opening another window and throwing out another two grenades. "Basically, it blinds sensors. Well, personal lower end hardsuit and omnitool based ones, anyway. A starship has enough room for one that can just filter the chaff out and see through it, as do higher end personal sensors. But it'll still work as a diversion. Well, the other was just teargas. I only have a few of the chaff ones, after all."

"Wait, what?" Tyra blinked, looking at the two canisters he had taken and lobbed out through the kitchen window. One of them rolled and settled against the front door and a salarian shouting to get to cover could be heard as he closed the window. He must have been trying to lockpick the door. Had he also been listening in?

Well, it wouldn't matter. They knew he was trying to get out from before already.

"And how does that help us?" Liara asked, obviously curious as well as her attention was drawn away from the pistol she was holding.

"It'll draw their attention. Long enough at least for us to get away."

"What do you mean? That Spectre is still out there, isn't she?" Tyra asked, looking out through a window and trying to peer through the rising smoke. She curdled her nose at the stink after a second, taking several steps back and sneezing.

Emiya pulled her back, looking at her as he frowned. "What part of 'teargas' don't you understand? Good, none of it got in your eyes. Stay away from the windows."

"How did you even get this stuff?" Liara asked, crossing her arms.

"You'd be surprised what they're willing to ship right to your doorstep." He said, glancing at her quickly with a knowing smile.

She peered at him suspiciously, obviously not buying a word he was saying. Of course, the delivery companies had had no idea of the actual contents, so he hadn't lied exactly.

"Come on, let's go." He said, grabbing the rest of the box and walking to his bedroom.

The two asari hesitated only for a second and moving to follow after him without any complaints as he took the lead. At several of the windows, he threw out a few grenades with obvious reactions audible from outside. Turning to the two, he took three grenades and put them in his pockets, holding onto two more as he eyed them.

"You bring everything you need?"

Tyra blinked before going through her pockets and his bag that she had taken for some reason from, nodding afterwards as Liara gave him a level stare. "Where exactly do you think we'll be able to go from here?"

She nodded at the balcony, right outside on the other side of the glass door. It was built such, that it did not offer a direct view from anywhere on the ground as the hillside the apartment was built on sloped down, nor could it be accessed directly without climbing up the side. Not so far in the distance, the ocean could be seen and heard as it offered an undisturbed view of the Serrinan sea.

Emiya smirked, pulling the pins on the two flashbangs and throwing them out through a window on the opposite side of the room, before turning to the balcony door. Outside by the front of the apartment, the two flashbangs went off at the same time as he reached for the skycar and turned its engines back on.

It hummed to life immediately and responded to his connection without any problems, now that the sabotage had been rooted out. Bringing it over the apartment and landing it on the veranda, he turned to look at the blinking Liara and Tyra, the smirk still on his face.

"What do you mean? The car's right there."

"How did you...?" Tyra asked, looking at him with wide eyes.

"No time for that, get in the car." He said, opening the flimsy-looking balcony glass-door, ignoring the flattened bullets lying on the ground and the small cracks around it.

_They must have climbed up and tried it, too. How dutiful._

As he did, the car doors swung wide open on that side. With an exasperated shake of her head, Tyra hastily walked into the skycar, Liara only two steps behind her as she eyed him. Stepping out, he closed the glass-door behind him, the light _click_ of the lock telling him that it closed shut behind him.

No point in giving them an easy way in.

There was a sudden flare of a mass effect field on the other side of the house, but it had nothing to do with him he realized. Suppressed firearms started going off and someone was thrown up into the air with a burst of biotics on the other side of the apartment block. _Someone is fighting?_

Someone was trying to breach the encirclement from outside, he judged. Well, he was leaving so it had nothing to do with him.

Emiya could hear footsteps pounding the ground, coming just around the corner of the apartment as he stepped into the car. Whatever and whoever it was on the other side of the apartment, it was acting as more distraction and giving him more time to leave. No cause to look a gift horse in the mouth. Getting in the front of the skycar with the two asari in the back, he closed the door and tossed the rifle and backpack to the front passenger seat next to him. The skycar rose into the air as he began to operate the controls.

"Alright, let's hope they don't shoot us down." He said, inhaling as he turned the hovercraft around and began to head for the city center.

"What?!" Tyra grabbed both front seats and jumped forward to look at him as she shouted. "What do you mean shoot us down?"

"Hmm? Don't worry about it, a slip of the tongue."

"No, no, no, what do you mean shoot us down?!"

Emiya looked up through the windshield at the skies above. "See those gunships?"

Tyra blinked, looking in the direction he was pointing.

"They're... pulling away?"

He nodded. "Which either means they're not going to try anything until we land, or then they're going to shoot us down from orbit, with either a satellite or a starship. No way to tell before it happens."

Tyra swallowed at his flippant tone, sitting back almost numbly. He had to roll his eyes, as she finally seemed to understand the severity of the situation.

"Do you even have a plan?" Liara asked, causing him to turn his attention to the rearview mirror to look at her.

Normal skycars did not have such features, since the computer had a proximity sensor that did the same and more, but he preferred having a physical mirror as well. The old habits of glancing up and to the side mirror simply could not be so easily replaced, after all.

"Sure. But, well. If they come down in force it will have to be... _fluid_."

"I'll take that as a no." Liara nodded, exhaling. "Goddess, what a mess."

Looking at her through the rear-view mirror, he nodded his agreement with some amusement. Turning his attention forward again, he continued to accelerate. Setting their altitude to such that it would not be safe for them to suddenly fall down, he was making a bluff that they would not try their luck with shooting him down, so long as he continued moving slowly enough that they could keep an eye on him. Hearing rustling behind him, he blinked as Tyra crammed to the front passenger seat.

She moved aside the collapsed rifle, looking at it curiously for a few seconds before setting it up on the dashboard and then placing the backpack into the foot-space so that she could sit. She turned to look at him, sheepishly. "Liara is busy looking at that gun thing, so I thought I'd give her more space, you know..."

Emiya nodded, eyes returning to look around.

Up ahead, five of the drone wing swooped towards him suddenly. They were still well over two kilometers away, thus they must not have expected him to be able to keep an eye on them. He frowned as they turned off the holographic outer shell projectors and turned on cloaking devices, becoming invisible to the naked eye. Even to his sight at this distance, he realized with some annoyance.

Luckily, he could still sense their mass effect fields without any problems, as they began to approach him rapidly.

"So, we... I'm not really sure what to say about, uh, all of this. It's so _much_ , you know?" Tyra spoke, and he grunted, focusing on the approaching drones.

They were firing up secondary mass effect fields, that were not focused on themselves but ahead of them. Another five took a hard left, as a third pentad began to rapidly climb as all of them turned on their cloaks and disappeared. _They're planning to pull us down, then? Increase our mass so that the engine can't keep up? Or disable it outright and catch us in mid-air?_

"I had just thought, that you know, you were this interesting looking guy and we could have some fun. I mean, every time we met, I just kept having so much fun! You know all these weird things and I was always thinking and wondering what you'd show me the next time we'd meet."

"Uh huh." Emiya inhaled, frowning as the drone pentad from above began rapidly closing in as they created a bubble of increased mass, while the two other pentads coming in from the left and right were setting to flank him from both sides.

"But, with everything that's going on right now, I don't... I don't know if we can keep being friends. I mean, I had a lot of friends on the Citadel and they all forgot about me once I moved. The extranet just isn't the same, you know. It's just, I don't know what to do…"

Reaching for his pistol by his right hip, Emiya exhaled and rolled down his window. At this range hitting it should be possible. Of course, given the distance and the air resistance of the bullet, it might not do all that much damage.

"—so. What do you think?"

"What?" Emiya blinked, looking at Tyra.

She frowned at him, staring at him accusingly. "You weren't listening to a word I just said, were you?"

He blinked again. "Can't say I was, no."

"Unbelievable." She huffed, crossing her arms and looking away from him.

Not really sure what he had missed, he shrugged and drew his pistol. Leaning his head and hand out through the window he narrowed his eyes until he was fairly certain he could see the faint shimmer of a cloaked drone.

Taking aim, he corrected for the drop and wind and pulled the trigger four times in succession. Something in the distance shimmered, as he hit one of the drones coming to flank him. But that was all. _They have kinetic barriers on top of the cloak? Expensive stuff, STG no doubt. That changes things._

"What was that?" Tyra asked, leaning to look at the mirrors to see what he was shooting at, but unable to see anything.

"Cloaked drone." He said simply, closing the window.

"...Oh." Tyra said, looking around as she grew interested. "Is that what you were looking at?"

"Hmm? Yeah." With twirl he returned the pistol to his hip and reached for the rifle instead.

With its longer rails, it would have more power and a better chance to taking down the drones even if they used the same bullets and same batteries. Though, he would have to adjust the firing settings a little bit, first. At this distance and with the kinetic barriers those drones had to go along with their lightness, he needed some serious punch to be able to take one down. Anything too slow would just push it back, which wouldn't help much in the long run.

It would be like tossing a ping pong ball into the air and trying to break it with your fist; the ball would simply bounce away without taking any damage. To do anything he would need a ridiculous velocity to a round, especially at this range and since he would be shooting backwards from a moving vehicle.

Of course, the recoil would be sheer _murder,_ but it couldn't be helped.

"You never did tell me where you found this gun," Liara noted from the back.

He looked up, meeting her eyes through the rear-view mirror. "It's a pretty long story, so to make it short and succinct, there's another Prothean ruin on Mars. Do you know where that is?"

Liara frowned before hesitantly nodding. "That was the Prothean outpost discovered near the home-planet of humans, wasn't it?"

Emiya nodded. "I found it near where the first one is, just a few kilometers beneath the ground. There was an elevator shaft to the upper ruins, but it has collapsed. It's been sealed pretty tightly."

"A second ruin beneath it? That is highly unusual. As I recall it, did the surface ruins not possess a wealth of data and functional specimen of technology? Why would there be a second ruin beneath the ground?"

"It seemed like a refuge or a bunker when I went there," he said with a shrug. There wasn't any point in telling her now about the deepest level, as she would probably find it herself sooner or later.

She frowned at him, then. "Did you not say it was buried deep beneath the ground?"

"I did."

He finished adjusting the firing calculations and settings of the rifle. It was a regular commercial mass accelerator, functioning much the same as any other firearm did. A railgun provided the acceleration to a bullet, while various mass effect fields were used to great effect, including to compress and lighten the considerable ammunition block so that it was manageable, but there were other uses as well. One method of recoil control in common use was to raise the mass of the gun at the moment of firing, so that the recoil experienced by the user would be almost negligible. But this recoil control was energy intensive, draining the batteries quite quickly. Energy, which could have been used to power the railgun and making the bullet fly faster.

Here, he needed all that he could get.

Draining all support and stabilizing systems as much as he could, he set it to power the acceleration of the bullet as much as possible and then ramping up the output to maximum. It would overheat the rifle with every shot and drain the battery quite quickly, but that was simply necessary. _Can't exactly start shooting swords with so many eyes on me._

"What are you doing?" Liara asked from the back, as he opened the window again and jumped halfway out until he was sitting on the door with his feet and free hand on the inside of the skycar, holding on for support.

Ignoring her, he felt the wind through his hair as he took aim at an approaching drone. Making sure there was nothing behind it, he resolved to fire. Relaxing his arm, holding onto the rifle with just a loose grip with one hand, he pressed the trigger.

— **BOOM!**

The sound was deafening, and the recoil almost tore the gun from his hands as his arm was thrown completely upwards at an angle. But he held on with his other hand, rolling the rifle with the recoil to keep the force from pulling him out of the skycar's window. In the distance, the cloaked drone suddenly reappeared in a hail of sparks and shattered metal as it rained down from the sky.

"Saiga!" Tyra shouted, and he could feel her grabbing his leg as she saw him rocking back with the recoil.

Leaning back to look inside, he nodded at her. "It's fine, you don't need to hold onto me."

"B-but—!"

Ignoring her, he took aim at the second drone as he waited for the gun to cool down. Even with the disappearance of the first, they were not taking evasive actions. Rather, it seemed that they were merely compensating for the hole in the formation and were programmed to assume it was a fluke. Well, not that he was complaining about sitting ducks.

Taking aim at the second drone, he repeated the action again. The recoil and deafening sound were no lesser than the first time, but he had changed slightly how he held the gun, allowing him to control the recoil more easily as he rolled his arm to disperse the excess force again.

In theory, he was doing the same thing as he had learned in parkour. Turn linear momentum into a roll and bleed it off where it's more manageable. Here, where he could hold onto the skycar with his legs and one arm, it was actually quite easy.

This was one of the techniques he had figured out early on, when he had been trying to modify weapons to suit his needs in fighting supernatural beings. Normal guns simply did not cut it and the recoil from souping up such things was not kind or gentle.

At the sixth shot, he noticed that the battery of the rifle was running low. Pulling himself back inside the skycar, he reached for the pistol where he had another battery at the same time as he placed the one from the rifle into the skycar's power dock. That way it would siphon from the car's power generator and would be usable again in a couple of minutes.

But in looking out again as he was ready to continue shooting, he noticed the drones were pulling away.

"So, they can adapt. Someone must have a tightbeam communicator of some kind," he said wondering whether there was someone with a laser pointer trying to hit one of the drones to send it commands.

"Was, was that all of them?" Tyra asked, trying to appear as if she was not shaken.

"No, they'll be back."

"Oh." She blinked.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, as the gunships kept their distance and the drones kept a wide moving encirclement around him as he kept flying towards Serrice University. If he were to get lower, they would undoubtedly be all over him to force him to land. Which meant it was time for some creative maneuvering.

"Alright, put on your seat-belts. Both of you," Emiya said as he began to approach the University of Serrice parking hall.

"Uh, okay?" Tyra said, reaching over and strapping herself in properly. In the back, Liara looked up and with an annoyed huff nodded in understanding.

Much like the Automated Parking Systems back on Earth, the parking hall was actually a massive underground conveyor belt of a sort. You simply landed onto a specific spot above ground and the system would move it underground and spit back out a digital ticket for you that would allow you to reclaim it later. This method of moving a parked vehicle allowed people to save space and removed many of the vehicles from the roadsides.

In fact, parking on the streets without an exemption permit was a finable offense on most of Thessia's larger cities.

The system only worked because everything was automated. This meant that no one was supposed to be inside of the actual vehicle storage, since the space where each had was stored had been specifically minimized so that the maximum amount of skycars could be parked inside. In fact, the system would not turn on if it thought someone was inside of the parked vehicle, as there were no lights or ventilation down below.

Looking around, he could see numerous vehicles still moving around the area. The number of gunships following him at a distance had tripled in number and there were probably just as many orbital crafts keeping an eye on him. Simply put, as long as he remained in this vehicle, there was no way for him to give his pursuers the slip. Thus, the first step to disappearing was to ditch it and to break line of sight from the sky.

What better way to do that, than to go undeground?

"Well then, time for some tricky maneuvering." With a grin, he pulled into a sideways dive, going down and flying sideways into an alleyway that was too narrow for the skycar to normally pass through.

Immediately the pursuing crafts adjusted their course and speed to match him, several rising higher to keep track of him as he broke line of sight by diving down.

"Whoa, whoa! Watch out for the walls! Watch out for the walls!" Tyra shouted, holding on with tight fists to her seat-belt as her wide eyes looked at the building they were sandwiched by on one side, a mere arm's length away from her.

He rolled his eyes, coming out of the alley and leveling the skycar as he brought it in towards the parking hall entrance, where he always parked when he came to the University of Serrice.

It was nothing more than a flat space of ground, where there were several outlined white rectangles. By parking into it and connecting to the local signal, one could access the parking system. Depending on the external dimensions and the weight of your vehicle, the system would hand you an hourly fee for storing the vehicle. It was a useful and reliable system and most of the University staff and attendees used it as far as he knew, which meant that it had to store thousands of vehicles every day. It was a huge thing, having been rebuilt and expanded multiple times during the University's existence.

Through his cybernetics, he connected to it as he came into range.

 _They haven't turned off the power grid, so the system is still online. This close to the University labs and the hospitals, they must have hesitated. That's good,_ he thought as he at range accessed the system and opened one of the sixteen parking spot shafts. The insides of a rectangle space began to slowly sink, revealing that beneath the thick surface lay a dark underground space. Normally you were supposed to land and then exit the car before the skycar was moved underground, but by moving the platform already before he had landed he would be saving time.

Or so he had thought, until he realized he had been naive as he spotted something coming in at an angle from the sky.

By going through the alleyway, he had hoped to keep them off of his back long enough to be able to land down. But it seemed like he had been too shallow in thinking that just flying through some buildings would prevent them from firing at him.

This low to the ground, forcefully disabling the skycar would not hurt any of them too much. That meant they must have felt compelled to act against him before he managed to do something.

A pentad of drones came in through the cracks of buildings to his left as he hastened to avoid the incoming missile coming in from behind. It was too slow to be a kinetic bullet and too small to be a proper torpedo warhead, he noted _._ Looking at the side-mirror, he realized it was a modified homing missile of some kind. It looked like a stripped-down drone. It had cloaking and it was simply too fast to be outrun.

Realizing he would not be able to stay ahead, he turned down the mass effect field of the skycar at the same time as he reversed thrust and pushed them down so the high-speed drone would fly over them.

But it immediately adjusted course in response, hot on his trail and gaining.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled out the rifle and leaned out to shoot it out of the air. He barely got the gun out through the window, forcing himself into an awkward position as he pulled the trigger before it reached him. The recoil of the rifle tore it straight from his hands and it fell ten meters down to clatter on the street below as the shot hit the missile head on.

But it hit a blazing kinetic barrier, slowing it down for just a fraction of a second before it continued on as if nothing had happened. _They adjusted the kinetic barrier to only take one shot in response to my shooting?_ Nothing vital must have been hit as the impact only slowed it down for an additional half a second. The full second later a deep thunk of the drone hitting and attaching itself to the back of the skycar echoed through the chassis, as it magnetically locked on to their rear.

"Hold on!" He had just enough time to shout before the attached drone went off. As he had expected, it was an electromagnetic pulse; the skycar immediately died and went silent, all systems fried.

Worse yet, he did not go unscathed either. A wave of nausea hit him like a sledgehammer, and his senses swam as he felt like his head was being used as a blacksmith's anvil. The world turned into blur and static for a moment and the next, he could not comprehend anything as it grew worse by the second.

Grabbing onto the steering wheel, he tried to focus on his sense of touch, but it disappeared into sensory chaos an instant later.

Tyra's shouting sounded distant and queer to his ear as he grit his teeth, focusing on his breathing. _This must have been tailor-made against the cybernetics I have,_ he realized as he desperately held on to what little sensible remained to his mind, trying to ride through the worst of it.

He didn't feel the impact of landing so much as he reasoned it must have happened, as there was a distant and faded sensation of a heavy impact. The next second, his vision was replaced by a twisted waterfall of dancing sparks and the sounds of something grinding. The illusory shapes and forms dancing across his vision were distant and vague, as if they weren't a part of his reality anymore.

Realizing that his state was not disappearing or dissipating after what must have been several seconds, he jumped out of his body and opened his eyes. Immediately the haze cleared, and the world made perfect sense to him once more, confirming that something must have happened to his cybernetics just now. Looking around, he noticed that Tyra and Liara—while screaming and panicking as the skycar was sliding along the ground—did not seem hurt by the pulse as he had been. Dropping backwards, he kicked out and manifested just enough for his heel to hit the back of the car where the magnetically attached drone had latched itself. It shattered instantly, flying off with a good section of the back of the skycar's chassis.

Turning back, he placed an incorporeal hand on the back of his own neck and exhaled as he pushed magical energy into his own body and Reinforced himself as best he could in an effort to clear away whatever debilitation he had been struck with. _I might have to materialize and carry myself out, huh. But with all the eyes on me, it will be immediately noticed._

If his ' _Justicar ally_ ' suddenly appeared here, then those who had settled in to watch the sea and search for that obviously dangerous combatant would surely drop the search there and come running.

Dropping back into his own body, he pushed through the haze of confusion and sensory static that clouded his perceptions, yet it was to little avail. His senses were a snowfall static of indescribable colors and shapes, quite nauseating in their pulsating and writhing undulations. His senses seemed to have been entirely scrambled; being wholly useless and indecipherable to him.

 _Should I jump back out? No, if I reappear so suddenly and repeatedly, it will be too obvious. And they left behind all of the commandos and snipers, with only a handful of drones here; they're trying to find me in the ocean. If I reappear here, they'll realize they were duped and they will consolidate their forces on me again. Therefore…_ He had to handle this in his body, himself.

His mind set, he focused on the immediate means that came to mind. Pushing outwards with his magical energy, he ignored his lack of sight, hearing and touch as a headache of pure cacophonical chaos assaulted his mind from all metaphorical directions.

The magical energy in his body helped however, acting as a form of Structural Analysis that told him what his normal senses were unable to in that moment, even if it did not clear away the actual effects. Even through the haze, he could sense his own body through the magical energy, giving him desperately needed feedback.

_I'll have to do that, then'—Trace, on'—begin synchronization,_

The magical energy suffused his whole being and then bled out into the surroundings, wherever there was contact with his body. His hardsuit, the longcoat, the seat and the skycar all appeared into his mind's eye through the feedback of his Structural Analysis in the form of wireframe models. As he moved, they moved in his mind.

If he could not use his senses of balance, proprioception for feedback to know how his body was moving, then he would use magical energy with Structural Analysis to paint himself in relation to the ground beneath his feet instead. It was a roundabout and strange method, but it worked as he suddenly had clarity and reference again. The wireframe of the surrounding world and himself adjusted itself in his mind's eye in realtime as he consciously exhaled. _Breathing still works, as does my ability to move my limbs. I simply can't feel that it was working or that I was moving. That's fine, I don't need eyes or ears to fight._

He gripped his fist, causing the steering wheel to crack and shatter between his fingers. _We hit the ground and we've come to a stop._ _The drones are still coming, I need to take them out before they try something._

Another effect of the magical energy in his body right now was that he was finally performing to the level his body was actually able to. He was a Heroic Spirit; a being whose soul was above those of regular humans. Even if he had only managed to become one through the Moon Cell's assistance, it did not change the fact that his existence was more powerful than that of a regular human being's.

So much so, that normal life in hiding might well be impossible for him.

Thus, he had consciously been redirecting excess life force from his body into his spiritual core at all times for as long as he could remember. It served the dual purpose of keeping his true spiritual body at peak condition at all times, while also keeping his physical body within human boundaries. It had simply been a precaution he had taken as soon as he realized just how powerful his body could be. Now, that limiter was gone. In this state, he could probably go toe to toe with _himself_ , fighting at superhuman levels without any problems.

Well, until this body gave out under him. It was well and good to strap a jet engine to a tricycle, but you couldn't expect it to be able to handle that level of performance for any length of time once you turned it on.

Reaching out, he tried the door. But the disabled electronic systems meant that it was completely jammed. With an annoyed huff, he pulled back his forearm and simply smashed outwards with his elbow. The door gave way with a single blow caving it in, being torn straight off of its hinges and seals as it flew out from his Structural Analysis-fueled perception as he stepped out onto the tarmac. Through his feet his magical energy extended outwards into the ground, extending his perception until he could feel the ground all around him for dozens of meters.

Sight was useless, hearing was a cacophony of indistinct and unrecognizable sounds, his skin felt like he was being bathed alternatively in frozen needles and burning ants and he could taste the rainbow right about now, which was less than helpful at the moment. But he could still _feel_ the effect those drones' mass effect cores had on the fabric of reality, just like how he could feel other aberrations in the world around him.

 _Lost the rifle, pistol lacks a battery. Need a ranged attack, remember that I'm being watched._ His hand shot to his coat's pocket and pulled out the first of the chaff grenades he still had, loosing it with a mighty throw at the nearest drone. He couldn't see or hear the impact, but suddenly the warping mass effect field disappeared with a ' _hiccup_ ' of a sort.

Jumping back to avoid a swooping drone, he reached for his second grenade and dispatched the swooper the same as the first.

At the same time, two more drones came in from behind and he jumped away. But on landing, he realized he couldn't move. He could not see or feel anything, but through his Structural Analysis-wireframe on his body he could detect that something was on his feet and preventing him from moving. Spreading outwards his magical energy, he realized it was some form of hardened substance that the drones must have hit him with, like an aerosol superglue of some kind. The more force he exerted on it, the more it seemed to harden. _Ah, a dilatant. Much better than my stuff, too; I'd tear the hardsuit apart before this stuff gives way. Fine, that's not a problem._

He simultaneously reached for his last grenade to dispatch a third drone as he Reinforced the gunk on his feet and destroyed it utterly through a forceful insertion of his magical energy, freeing himself again as he intentionally failed. Three drones had been destroyed, leaving him with two more. But without any more grenades, it would be difficult to reach them. _Or perhaps not, if I let them come to me._

The gunk was still on his feet and he hadn't moved; for all appearances he was still stuck. _Come on, then._

The last two drones came swooping in from above, no doubt intent on spraying more of the stuff on him to immobilize him further. He smirked, bending his knees slightly. In various martial arts where breaking of tiles and boards was practiced, often times spinning jump kicks were held in very high regard for their flamboyant nature. Though he had never needed it before in a serious fight, he too had practiced diligently such moves at one point.

With his current condition—senses aside—such a move would not be difficult at all to perform.

The drone pair swooped right for him and he took a step forward, twisting his hips and turning around as he raised his leading leg into the air. With a mighty spring, he jumped up and tornado kicked the leading drone head on. It cracked and shattered at the impact, flying backwards and hitting the second one with enough force to knock it back half a dozen meters and down to the ground.

Recovering from the jump and landing, he sprang forward to stomp down on the last drone, breaking it completely as its mass effect field had not disappeared yet. He exhaled, turning his head left and right as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. _No more drones. But the gunships aren't that far away, can't sense anything else at a distance, but they can't be too far away either. Need to keep moving._

He ran back to the downed skycar and halfway there, he felt something resisting him. He blinked, slowing down and reaching out with his hands. Touching awkwardly, making sure that he was being as gently as possible, he realized he was touching an asari as his magical energy spread out to touch a fabric. _Tyra?_

Frowning, he realized that there was some kind of variation to the cacophony he was hearing. _She must be talking to me, right now. Can't understand a word she's saying..._

"I can't see or hear anything. Get back in the car—" he said, before pausing as he realized the lift he had initiated through a wireless hack had been rescinded as the elevator was rising up again to seal the entrance down into the parking hall. The range of the drone's electromagnetic pulse must have been very short, perhaps it only propagated through contact and affected his cybernetics through some other method?

Strangely enough, it did not seem that his wireless connectivity had been troubled by any of this, as he immediately realized as he reached out and stopped the elevator. Finding a connection to a nearby security camera, he suddenly received coherent visual stimuli again as he patched through to it.

Of course, it was from the point of view of the camera that was looking at him and Tyra who was standing in front of him, rather than from his own point of view, making it slightly difficult to handle. She seemed to be shaking her hands in front of his face and speaking rapidly, none of which he could see or hear. Liara was just getting out of the car, struggling with getting to the front seats to get out through the smashed front door.

Strangely, as he compared the visual stimuli of the security camera feed and his own sight, it seemed like suddenly the shapes started to make sense again. It was like he had been tumbling around in the middle of a huge wave, underwater and utterly in the dark when suddenly the waters were stilled, and light above returned to give him clarity of his situation. Shapes consolidated, colors began to recede from the bleeding out and by the second his sight started returning to him.

Tyra still looked like a vague purplish-orange blob, more than anything. "I can't hear a word you're saying, you know. Calm down."

That only served to make her more animate as she turned to shout something at Liara. ' _He—can't—see—what—should—we—do?'_

Emiya blinked, realizing that he could see her face through the camera which allowed him to read her lips as she spoke. She turned to him and began to speak again, but since the camera did not cover her face anymore, he could not understand her.

Frowning, he walked three steps until his back was facing the camera and forcing Tyra to turn to face it again. Moving a step to the left, he made sure that he could see her face through the camera now.

"Don't move, I can read your lips like this."

' _Huh—what—do—you—mean?_ ' She immediately turned her head to look at Liara, shouting at her again. ' _He—can—see—I—think—but—he's—not—making—any—sense!_ '

Exhaling with annoyance, Emiya rubbed his forehead. _We don't have time for this._

"Get the bags, we need to go right now," he said, grabbing Tyra's hand and dragging her as he walked to Liara.

Walking around her, he leaned into the car and grabbed his backpack and pulling it out. Strange vibrations assaulted him, causing the colors in his half-restored eyesight to bleed all over the place and to drip into his sense of touch. It seemed like all sensory stimuli had somehow been scrambled by his cybernetics. Not in the sense of his body being altered, but that the cybernetics being unable to decipher what was what as it acted in unison with his brain or when passing it along. _As if I'm watching reality through a twisted kaleidoscope._

It was similar to what he had read about what people would experience when they first installed cybernetics sometimes. But the effects seemed much more pronounced and potent than anything he had heard about before. _No, well. They made this stuff, so they would know much more than was made publicly known._

Emiya noticed Tyra was wildly waving her arms in front of his face again, just now. He frowned, his arm stretching out and turning her head towards the camera as he spoke. "Just speak that way."

' _Uhhh—okay—I—don't—really—get—it—but—something—happened—to—you—right?_ ' She seemed to be saying and he nodded as he concentrated on reading her lips.

"Yes. But it can wait, we need to go right now before they have time to return." He looked up as he spoke, though he could not see much beyond the effervescent blue. _So far, they've been quite cautious. But the longer we wait the bolder they'll grow._

She nodded, turning to look at Liara once.

With the skycar totaled, they would have to continue on foot. Well, given the distance they still needed to cross it wasn't a problem. Five to ten minutes, he judged.

Above, a gunship was beginning to make for them, high up in the sky as two pentads of drones were approaching from the north and west. If they stuck around for much longer, they would have to fight again. And without the cover of his house or the danger of his instant death from falling too high, the two asari with him were far too difficult to protect as it was. _Whoever it is in charge of this operation, he's been feeling me out and adapting to me. Can't stay here and keep playing on their terms._

"Let's go!" He shouted as he began to run.

Leading the way, he ran towards the parking spot that he had re-initiated.

It was already two meters below the surface, but that was fine. Tyra and Liara hesitated but for a second before they followed after him. They seemed to notice the gunship that was heading this way, as they continued glancing over their shoulders with obvious worry.

Arriving at the edge, he extended a hand to both asari. "Give me your hands."

They must have said something, but he could not hear or see it. He simply kept his hand out, waiting for them to obey. After a second, he saw them accept his hands. Nodding, he exhaled and grabbed both around the waists before jumping down into the dark shaft that was the underground parking hall. Above him, at his behest the opening sealed shut and they were plunged into complete darkness.

They must have been screaming, but he couldn't understand it as he landed on the still descending platform, bending his knees to absorb enough of the impact that the asari would not be hurt. Extending his mind through the cybernetics, he put the Automated Parking System's entrances into lockdown as he continued forcing the platform they were on to keep moving. As he let Liara and Tyra down, he kept a hold of them for support. In the complete darkness, they would not be able to see a thing while he had his Structural Analysis that worked still fine.

It wasn't like there were any lights he could turn on either, since this wasn't a place anyone was actually supposed to enter.

Slowly the platform came to a halt and then began to move sideways, like a conveyor belt. All around them, hidden in the darkness just beyond their sight, lay hundreds upon hundreds of skycars and shuttles. He had been using this system with his skycar so often that he had ended up investigating the whole system thoroughly, both as a spirit and through hacking. He knew the blueprints well enough that he could have navigated through here with his eyes closed.

Their destination? The east-side underground maintenance access. One of fifteen similar entrances, it would get them close enough to where he needed to get while offering concealment from their pursuers.

"The upper entrances are sealed, they shouldn't be able to follow us down here. At the end of the track, by the east side is a maintenance access that we can take the rest of the way. You can just sit down and wait for five minutes, it's fine. If you want to stand, keep your heads down, since the ceiling is low at places."

He spoke but was not sure whether they believed him. He just hoped that the power would not be cut off. It would be a pain to walk the whole way through in the darkness, but it wouldn't really slow them down too much since the distance wasn't that great. Well, for now he should focus on trying to restore his senses while he had some peace and quiet. Settling down into a cross-legged position, he began to focus on his breathing and calming his mind.

By the time they arrived, he needed to be in good enough condition to be able to keep moving, after all.

* * *

;

* * *

Tela Vasir groaned.

She had taken three shots and a dose of medigel, but it still felt like she had been hit head on by a speeding frigate. If she did not focus, she was likely to start throwing up again. If it was just the concussion, she would have grit her teeth and borne it with dignity. But her fury and humiliation compounded the injury to lengths beyond anything she had experienced in well over a hundred years!

 _What the hell was the house! Who the hell was that Justicar? How the hell is some human pulling off all of this crap?_ She grit her teeth as she tried to focus.

In response to her agitation, another wave of nausea hit her again and she had to focus on breathing to keep it all down.

That damned Kryik had pulled her back and taken command along with the STG contingent he had brought with him, telling her to handle the third party asari huntresses and the Justicar who had suddenly attacked them during the operation. Thirteen had been caught, all garbed in black hardsuits and heavily armed and the fighting had been long and hard outside of that blasted house, but not a one revealed their affiliation or purpose so far. This had been an operation geared for the live extraction of single human being, thus they did not have any facilities or equipment suited for interrogation of asari present.

Additionally, that Justicar had disappeared into the ocean without a trace. She had enlisted the Serrice Guard into assisting with the task of securing and scanning the coastline while the turian Spectre had taken the majority of the orbital satellites as he continued following the priority target, Shirou Emiya.

The Serrice Guard had some underwater sonar buoys for sweeping the coast since lidar and radar were horribly inefficient in the Serrinan sea, and they had already scanned most of the coast. But since too powerful a sonar could injure or kill sea life living along the coast, the equipment available was of lower potency than she would have liked. So far, they had found nothing in the ocean, the many crags and caves making it difficult to find anything. It was like that bitch had vanished upon submerging.

She ground her teeth, sitting up and pushing down the wave of nausea that hit her. She couldn't fight, but that didn't mean it was alright to be laying around. The Shadow Broker's plan had been shot to hell and now she would have to cover her tracks when it came to those two, before someone troublesome showed up and—

"Who the hell is in charge here?!" A loud shout rang out and there was the sound of something large being thrown aside and hitting a wall. It could have even been a person.

_FUCK._

Getting up, she listened wearily to the attempts of the local huntresses she had enlisted to stop whoever it was that was knocking on her door, but it was obvious they were having no luck with it.

Stepping out, she came face to face with an asari who had been in the process of barging into her room. "I'm in charge here—"

That's as far as she got as suddenly she was lifted into the air by her hardsuit by the strange asari. Tela blinked, realizing that she _recognized_ her.

"Matriarch Aethy—"

"If you're the one in charge here, does it mean I can flay you alive and break all of your bones for _how utterly you've managed to fuck up?!_ "

Tela blinked, realizing that she was being lifted off the ground through sheer physical strength without the use of any biotics. Licking her lips, she tried to think of what to say. Trying to cow this asari with her status as a Spectre would not work, trying to arrest her would only end up badly for everyone and—

"Where is she!" The Matriarch shouted at her. "Bring out Shiawe before I throw you out the nearest window and slap you with a singularity before you hit the ground!"

"Shiawe?" Tela parroted, suddenly utterly lost as to what was going on before making the connection. "The asari commandos we arrested?"

"Yeah, those. They're working for Matriarch Benezia, she can vouch for their conduct, so you better hand her over." The Matriarch said, shaking Tela once.

_Fuck's sake, this is like trying to talk to a krogan! What is wrong with her?!_

"Ah, eh, could you tell me what they were doing here?" She tried to ask.

"None of your business, now hand them over and tell me where the son of a bitch took Liara T'soni!"

"Eh?"

Suddenly, it felt like all the pieces fell into place. T'soni, T'soni, _T'soni_. She had been repeating the name under her breath for days, trying to figure out where she had heard it before. The asari brat who was stubbornly being reticent at every question. She hadn't thought to do a more thorough check of her identity until now, since there had been too much going on and the plan had been taking too much of her attention. It was only now she made the connection to Matriarch Benezia—formerly Benezia _T'soni_. And at the same time, she recalled the rumors of a pureblood daughter the famed spiritual leader had birthed, drawing a connection to this other famed Matriarch who had long been one of Benezia's staunchest allies.

In the moment, she knew _exactly_ what she had to do.

Turning to her subordinate who was hesitantly watching by, Tela spoke; "Release the prisoners and give back their equipment at once!"

"Huh, guess you aren't that stupid after all." The Matriarch said, nodding as she let down Tela.

She put a distressed expression on, reaching out with a hand for the Matriarch. "I understand that you must do what you must, Matriarch. But I ask that you not interfere or pursue the criminal we are after. Another Spectre—Nihlus Kryik, one of the finest turians in the galaxy—is already on their trail, and—"

"Like I give a damn about that, I'm going to—"

Tela smirked for just an instant as she knew the bait had been taken. "You can't! That man, Shirou Emiya, said he would kill the two asari he took hostage if anyone tried to interfere with him!"

The Matriarch stilled before suddenly her pupils widened. Slowly, but to a degree that simply was not normal, as the elder asari began to breathe slowly and deeply. Her fists were shaking, as small bursts of dark energy flared about her.

For a moment Tela Vasir was nervous that the Matriarch would go mad right here, but then it subsided. But only a tiny bit, the smallest fraction. All that energy was still there, just beneath her skin, waiting to be loosed.

"Not if I tear out his spine and kill him with it first, he won't." Matriarch Aethyta ground out, turning on her heel and stomping out. Small flares of dark energy whipped around her as she left, pushing aside furniture, asari and doors alike as she walked.

Tela rejoiced internally as she took support from a wall against a wave of nausea from the asarihandling she had been subjected to. _I was ordered to bring him back alive by the Council, but… If a mad Matriarch goes and kills him, that's hardly my fault. Well, any more than I've already fucked up. Best case, all of the blame is put on Nihlus._

Through her mind, a smirking human face flashed by. _That fucker won't know what hit him_.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya slowly exhaled, focusing on the sensation of his heart beating and the blood coursing through his veins and the expansion of his lungs with every breath. That much was easy enough to sort out from everything else, it was simple and unmistakable enough.

As expected, he was slowly growing accustomed to the chaos that was his sensory world. As he minimized his own activity and sat in this darkness, where only the periodical and predictable sounds of the surrounding machinery could be heard, and no light could assail him, he could very efficiently focus on trying to sort out what was really what. For example, the constant state of temperature flux he had been experiencing was not in fact related to temperature at all but was in fact something that was tied to his breathing he had realized. Perhaps it was the sense of touch one experienced when inhaling and exhaling, that had been crosswired and thus came out as a sense of temperature instead?

It really was a curious case of forced synesthesia.

But even if everything was a complete mess, that did not mean it was a hopeless situation. The human brain was a curious thing in its plasticity and adaptability. For example, if one were to wear a set of specialized glasses that turned the world upside down to your eyes, it was possible for a person to perfectly adapt to such a change within mere days to the point of normal ability. Similarly, when a major sense like sight was utterly lost, the brain would begin to adapt by allowing other senses to utilize the regions of the brain that were no longer in use for sight.

Given enough time, he was certain that his full sensory clarity would return to him, just as it had been before. It was something all patients who had undergone cybernetic enhancements of his kind— _certain exceptions aside_ —went through when they first woke up from particularly invasive cybernetization. It was just a matter of time. Time which he didn't have. He had minutes, when he needed weeks, he had seconds when he needed days.

Of course, he had gone through something similar when he had first returned to his body after his operation and that hadn't been a problem at all. This was different, of course. Where before things had been made as optimal as possibly could be by a team of galaxy-renowned experts to help him along, those very same specialists must have now turned their brilliance to hindering and inconveniencing him as much as possible without killing him. That this was a thousand-fold more difficult, that went without even saying.

Before, he had done it in seconds when most needed weeks. This was no different, even if the hurdle had been placed higher in front of him. Therefore, as long as he had the ability to interact directly with his cybernetics through diving, he was certain he could do _something_ with the time he had.

His usual _no mind_ -method of meditation and the utter darkness he was in did wonders in calming down the storm his brain thought it was in, enough at least to figure out what was really what. Though he had had to go deeper than he had in ages to find the peace that allowed him to start figuring things out.

It was like a puzzle, he thought distantly. _Recognize what a sensation is and figure out what its origin could be, then attach it to the proper senses and pull its effect out from where it shouldn't be. That should be the sound of Liara and Tyra breathing, therefore it should be something I'm hearing, not something that registers as flashing lights to my eyes._ Slowly, he divided up and organized the sensations he was experiencing and figuring out what they were.

Even so, there was still loads more he needed to do before he could say he was back to a hundred per cent. How much more of his sensory data was still similarly jumbled right now? Was he seeing what he should feel? Was he hearing what he should see? There was no way to tell without simply focusing on a particular sensation and linking it to something in the outside world. _I never thought I would have to reconstruct my 'umwelt' like this. Though, it does pose some interesting questions in that neither Structural Analysis or the sensations of strangeness in the surrounding world seem muted or disturbed at all. Does that mean they're wholly separate from the corpus? Magic Circuits as an organ run through the physical body directly to the soul, if I remember correctly. Does that mean something?_

He discarded that line of thinking, focusing instead on keeping an eye on the flow of information through the wireless signals. He supposed that it had similarly been spared the sensory scrambler treatment by virtue of being wholly of the cybernetics, rather than something that functioned with both cybernetic and flesh. Still, given how deep underground they were, it was getting difficult to actually keep a connection open. From his Structural Analysis he knew that the Automated Parking System worked mostly through physical wires and landlines, as the thick walls and floors would diffuse and weaken all commercial grade signals at even short distances.

It didn't matter, he could ponder more later. Getting up, he spoke into the darkness. "We're here."

Reaching out, he wirelessly opened the maintenance access they had reached and turned on the hallway illumination while keeping it contained so that no one would be able to pinpoint their location so easily. Light streamed out from the underground corridor, lighting up the dark platform they had been traveling on for several minutes now.

"Oh—was s _ca—-—o_ p." Someone said and Emiya blinked.

 _It's an improvement, but hardly coherent yet…_ Sight was little better, as every sound still caused the outlines of everything he saw to blur and vibrate, with colors bleeding and shifting constantly. He could recognize Tyra and Liara from each other now, at least. Touch and temperature was still shot to hell, but kinesthesia seemed to be working somewhat well already. The link up from his Structural Analysis allowing him to figure it out, piece by piece.

He noted it was much easier to see, now that every sound and touch did not cause ghostly hallucinations to run through and into his vision.

Getting up slowly, he focused on taking slow steps without having to rely on his Structural Analysis-born mental wireframe map of the surroundings and himself. It worked, but it was not very efficient thus he noted he should strive to stop using it as quickly as possible. Well, it was still more efficient than fighting in his Servant body. But if this was going to be a prolonged conflict then he needed to conserve his stamina.

Walking to the door, he stepped off the moving platform and crossed into the light. The subtle sensation of heat the lights gave off caused a curious buzz to begin playing in his ear, which he absently noted for later.

"Wh—-— _w_ e ?"

He turned around to look at Tyra who had asked him something.

"Shh, keep quiet," he said. He could not accurately gauge their reactions through sight yet, but their body language was somewhat understandable already. "Let's not get into another fight. We still have a short way to go."

They must have understood, as once he started moving out they kept pace with him. The labyrinthine maintenance access ways were a complete opposite to the pristine and spotless Serrice above ground. He actually found it rather telling of the asari in general, how it functioned. For the end user, it was a simple enough system; land your skycar in the neat little parking spot, get out and get your digital ticket. Then, when you wanted it back, you just sent in a request with the ticket and the Automatic Parking System would spit the vehicle back out. If you had a flight VI, you wouldn't even need to be physically present at the entrance for any of this.

However, under the surface, the system was a rather complex and headache inducing mess that had been re-built, re-modelled, given maintenance and expanded by dozens of different companies and firms over the centuries. This place had not had any single true designer or architect behind it, since it was constantly repurposed to suit whatever the latest fashion or fad was. As skycars lengthened due to change in popular demand, the internal dimensions of parking spots had to be changed which skewed the internal dimension entirely. As some new device or function came to the fore on the galactic scene, the image conscious asari would always strive to one-up one another and the other races by having that service in full display, requiring that the parking hall be equipped to match that.

If this were on any other planet, he was sure it would not be quite like this. It wasn't quite as bad as on the Citadel, with the Keepers constantly at work and modifying everything, but it was still quite a mess. The aesthetic demands of the asari, the rigidity and structure of the turians, the clever shortcuts and solutions of the salarians coupled with the penny-pinching ways of the volus, could all be seen in various parts of the underground complex. He was certain that in another decade or two, a human company would be hired to perform one service or another repair here, which would only further exacerbate the situation.

The asari prided themselves in their networking and connections, after all. Sooner or later, they would vote it as a fashionable and grand gesture of trust towards humanity, which would only further complicate the underground structure.

He had found five different blueprints for the APS; two of which the actual system used, but the fact was that none of them were even close to being correct. There were unused sections, hallways that had disappeared between service and repairs, parking number spots that had been merged, causing other spots to simply disappear in the process.

Of course, having explored this place before he had a vague idea of what was actually where. The hallway he had taken was from one of the early salarian expansions which had supposedly been torn down during a later turian refit of the north-eastern top octant. But since the volus—probably anyhow—in charge had not seen any real benefit to tearing down the hallway in comparison to the costs, it had been left standing even as it had been quietly erased from blueprints. The volus had supposedly come one point three million credits under budget, half of which he had been given as a bonus for the accomplishment.

In short, parking in Serrice was serious business.

They continued moving.

In a straight line it would have taken them less than five minutes to get through to the surface again from the point they entered, but due to the haphazard and chaotic nature of the maintenance accessways, it would take at least another ten by his estimates before they were there. The overhead lights helped with seeing around, but they also complicated his state again. It seemed like he was being tickled and doused now, at a periodic rhythm. The strange thing was, it felt almost like his skin was the surface of a still body of water, where periodically someone would cast in a stone in. The gentle waves, rippling outwards seemed to have no end.

It wasn't unpleasant, but he couldn't figure out what exactly the sensation was supposed to be, even as he put his mind to it. Nothing in his surroundings matched the sensation. Perhaps it was a small flicker of the lights he would have normally been able to see? Perhaps it was the machinery and automation of the parking system at work, vibrating through the floors and walls. At least it didn't feel like it was anything directly harmful and neither of the asari seemed to have noticed it. _It's probably nothing. Might just be my heartbeat throwing me off._

After walking for two minutes, he noticed something tugging at his arm. Stopping, he turned around to see Tyra wildly gesturing at him.

"Di—r—t _h_ -t—?" Tyra asked, looking around.

Emiya frowned, not quite able to tell what she was trying to say. "Can you repeat that?"

She paused, an unintelligible torrent of words spewing from her mouth. He understood roughly nothing, frowning at her. _Should I try Structurally Analyzing her? Maybe that would let me read her lips? I've never tried it and I doubt it would work that_ —

He frowned, turning around with his arms raised. A mass effect field was rapidly approaching; he immediately recognized it as a drone, like the ones outside. "Something's coming. Get back."

Tyra and Liara squared up behind him as he faced the hallway ahead from where the drone was approaching. But suddenly, it stopped. He blinked, realizing that another one was rapidly closing in from behind as well. Exhaling, he focused outwards while suppressing all other senses. _Six, nine, fifteen, twenty-five? They keep popping out of nowhere, as if they had a blueprint of the place? It's too quick for the drones to be mapping it out right now, too. At least, with these numbers. Was I duped by fake blueprints to think there weren't any accurate mappings of this place? Still, with this many… Did they bring all of their drones?_

This was a better place than above ground to be facing off against those drones, at least. With how constrained the hallways were, it would be easy to reach them and by kicking off of the walls and ceiling he wouldn't have to worry about being stuck in the air against his flying opponents for long enough for them to take advantage of it.

However… _They're not coming closer? What's their plan? And how are they coordinating? They were using tightbeams communications earlier, but here the corners would preclude such a method. There's not enough of them for an unbroken chain to be possible, yet this level of synchronization…_

He reached out with his cybernetics, sweeping the surroundings for any signal he might have missed. Much like omnitools, he knew he had a wide enough spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation that nearly anything should have been possible to locate. But as the tightbeam had revealed and as physical landlines such as the Automatic Parking System's own network showed, if he could not access it wirelessly then his cybernetics were mostly useless.

The lights went out and both Tyra and Liara jumped up in surprise as they were plunged into complete darkness again.

He blinked, realizing as the entire grid was turned off, as all of the wireless connections suddenly disappeared as well. He frowned, realizing that as the lights went out, the physical doors all went into lockdown as well. All of the entrances were now sealed, meaning he would have to find another way out.

"Wh-t's—-_-—on?!" Tyra shouted in obvious panic.

"Calm down, they're keeping their distance still." He said, hoping it sounded reassuring. In response, both of them said something, but he couldn't hear it clearly enough to make any sense of it. "Let's keep moving, grab a hand and follow me."

They fumbled in the dark, Tyra grabbing his hand and Liara's and they started moving in the dark as one column with slow and silent steps. He frowned as he noticed that the drone up ahead was keeping its exact distance from him, receding backwards slowly as they advanced while the one behind him kept moving forward. Neither had a direct line of sight on him either, which was the curious thing, as they were several corners away to his reckoning.

Picking up the pace, he kept a wary eye on both the drones and the two asari in tow as he tried to figure out what was going on. It was only as he arrived at his third corner in the hallways as he finally noticed something. Liara was slowing down, lagging behind as he seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

He stopped, Tyra almost walking right into him as he spoke. "Liara, what's wrong?"

They had only been walking for a few minutes, she couldn't have gotten that tired yet.

She said nothing for a few seconds, before finally falling over. He rushed forward, startled as he reached out for her to keep her from hitting her head on the floor. He blinked, pushing his magical energy into her as he realized she was limp in his arms. It required considerable effort to put your magical energy into another living being, especially if they were a sapient creature. It was not for naught that Reinforcement of another was considered the height of that particular spell, least of which due to the fact that one person's life energy would essentially be a poison to another person. It was almost like blood types or bone marrow transplants; if the types were wrong then the body would violently reject it, or vice versa.

Regardless, the results were not pretty if done forcefully.

But luckily, Structural Analysis was an extremely light spell. If Reinforcement was like pouring a liquid over a thing to soak it through—or in his case, like carefully skewering it with swords to form a lattice that worked like a supporting structure inside of a thing—then Structural Analysis like was brushing it with a feather in comparison.

Thus, he should not be hurting her unless he went overboard. Of course, that didn't mean anything in regards to the difficulty of overcoming her natural resistance to his od. He still had to use a three-fold amount compared to non-living matter to be able to analyse her.

She did not answer, and he realized quickly that she was unconscious. Her breathing was fine as was her heartbeat, at least based on what little he knew about asari physiology, anyhow.

Behind him, Tyra seemed to be swaying as well. He barely had time to put Liara down gently before the athletic asari drooped and fell over as well. He caught her, barely in time and set her against the wall as well next to Liara. Frowning, he considered what was going on.

 _They're breathing fine and their heartbeats don't seem disturbed, so it can't be oxygen deprivation from sealing up this space. The drones have been keeping a steady distance, are they spreading some kind of knockout gas?_ As he thought that, additional two drones came racing up to the nearest pair and switch out with them, allowing the two that had been keeping up with him to leave.

Almost as if they were switching out.

This would a problem, he realized.

Using Structural Analysis on gases or air wasn't something one could actually do with any real efficiency. It was simply the nature of magical energy in the air to dissipate into the World, if one attempted something like that.

He considered leaving them behind for a moment, before discarding that idea. _If they want to set me up while keeping me alive, this would allow them to take them out without me coming to harm. And I left my helmet at the car… At least there's a spare by the RX-5, but it won't help me here._

Exhaling, he focused on calming down his breathing and heartbeat. If it was a gas of some kind, assuming it did work on humans as it did on asari, then his previous meditation on the way here would work to protect him somewhat. Divers would sometimes hyperventilate on purpose when preparing for a deep dive without breathing gear, even going so far as to use pure oxygen tanks to quicken the process of raising the amount of oxygen in their blood. Similarly, his previous meditation had worked to raise the oxygen concentration in his blood enough, that right now he could probably hold his breath for fifteen minutes while moving. As long as he slowly and periodically exhaled, the carbon dioxide in his lungs wouldn't allow the acidity build up, which would make it possible to keep going.

 _I need to get them somewhere safe first._ He thought, crouching down to grab both and lifting them onto a shoulder each. It was a bit awkward, but he managed. He blinked as something fell on the floor, noticing that Tyra had still been carrying the bag she had taken from his house. It had slipped from her unconscious hands as he had picked her up.

Looking at it more closely with Structural Analysis, he blinked as he realized that all it contained were his i'usushij—his practice i'usu blades. _Why did she take these with her? Whatever._

Shaking his head, he picked them up as well and started moving out. Settling into a brisk jog, he made sure to not bounce around too much with the two asari on his shoulders.

As he moved, the numerous drones all around him kept pace with him with eerie precision, the closest two keeping an unerring distance to him regardless of his pace. He also noted how the strange _rippling-water_ on his skin sensation had intensified, along with some other kind of strange sensation. It felt unusual to him and much more uniform. It was like a continuously vibrating string, that kept humming at a low frequency that almost rattled his teeth. Like he was biting down on a guitar string that would not stop vibrating.

Ignoring it, he kept moving while scouring the surroundings with Structural Analysis. He needed to figure out what was going on and then get the hell out before he fell unconscious himself as well.

* * *

;

* * *

Nihlus Kryik sipped his tranask, exhaling at the chill bite of the turian beverage as he observed the various monitors. The starship's temperature was carefully controlled, thus unlike on Palaven the beverage felt almost a little _too_ cold. But drinking it any warmer was not acceptable either; there were simply some things one did not do.

It would help him focus, he rationalized.

All around him, numerous salarians were working in the mobile base they had set up in orbit around Thessia. The Special Tasks Group and he had worked together on numerous occasions, his flexible _get-it-done_ attitude that had always gotten him at odds with other turians making him a natural ally of the goal-oriented salarian special operations field outfits.

"Targets located, forwarding coordinates," a salarian behind him suddenly piped up. As a result, fifteen other salarians, all sitting by their own consoles received a data packet and begun to adjust their focus accordingly.

"Have you confirmed their identities?" Nihlus asked, taking another sip.

"Yes; Shirou Emiya, Tyra T'sanis, Liara T'soni all positively identified," the operator confirmed. "Bringing up on main screen."

A large screen was suddenly lit up, showing three figures walking through a well-lit hallway. This feed was only half of the wide screen, the adjacent one showing a three-dimensional projection of the map they had been able to make of the underground parking hall.

"Excellent. Run a security protocol Trinif; I don't want anyone spying on us or hacking in right now."

"At once, sir."

Trinif was one of several scenarios they had built up into the system. The starship they had taken to using was a black ops deep cover freighter, supposedly an elcor trade vessel that was waiting for permission to land with its precious cargo.

In actuality it was a mobile command base, set up for the express purpose of rooting out Redhax. Though it functioned through intermediaries and relays that in theory made it vulnerable to hacking, it had been deemed the safest option by STG analysts. Every function was fully isolated, with only shadow networks visible to any outsiders.

In theory the numerous links and relays made it extremely vulnerable to man in the middle attacks, but that had been countered through a utilization of onion encryption along with the use of all information coming in at least triplicate. At longer ranges, such would leave it vulnerable to light-lag when it came to combat, but in orbital distances it was deemed within acceptable parameters.

It also functioned as a failsafe and firewall, with numerous checkpoints set up to ensure that they would not be hacked directly. At no time was there a direct link between them and any of the drones, as everything was being routed and mirrored through numerous intermediaries and proxies in a labyrinthine mess. They even had two functional electronic combat AI set up to play 'defence' against any possible intruders if such were to be detected anywhere in the systems.

Supposedly researching, developing and fielding this entire operation required the budget of that was a not-so-insignificant fraction of the Special Tasks Group's operation budget. This was the degree which the Council felt threatened by this entity. Though Nihlus was secretly certain that the salarians had more than one unlisted operation that was capable of filling in for the gap in the budget.

They always had more going on than they were willing to share with you.

Nihlus turned to another salarian, flexing his mandibles as he did. "Analysis?"

The salarian kept quiet for several seconds, a clear sign of the effort the operator was putting in. Or the difficulty he was encountering in his current task.

"Analysis?" Nihlus repeated.

Finally, the salarian responded. "Inconclusive. Cyber-warhead was confirmed to go off, yet the target seems unhindered. Infrared scan shows pupil dilation functioning normally along with tracking of moving objets; eyesight confirmed. Hearing appears normal; able to react to sounds yet appears unable to understand speech. Own words slightly slurred, hinting at a loss of understanding sounds within certain ranges. Body control and movements completely ineffective, portrayed ability far beyond expected; no models able to account for results."

Nihlus nodded. "What is your estimate for his current combat potential, benchmark with previous physical prowess taken into consideration."

"Analysis of skycar wreckage still underway, possibility of mechanism or explosives used in removal of door not yet overruled. Prodigious mobility and physical ability displayed in dispatching of drones still unaccountable. Suggest avoiding direct confrontation, even unarmed and partially affected by cyber-warhead, possibility of taking target down without serious injury… Unlikely. Wear down and work with long-term strategies, situation permitting."

Nihlus grit his teeth, his mandibles moving to show his displeasure. The situation was not permitting a long-term operation where they slowly wore him down. Every second they kept this blockade up, millions of credits were being lost. This had to be handled by the end of _today_.

He pushed down his dissatisfaction and focused instead on getting everything clear in his head. "Initiate plan ' _Hades_ '."

The salarians around him looked up for but a second before they began working at an incredible pace. With the target located, they could cut off power now from the location. This would cause the doors and accessways to go into lockdown and cut off the lighting and ventilation systems. Unlike the space where the skycars were held, the maintenance hallways were much too cramped and simple for anyone to hide inside, even if they were a labyrinthine mess just as much.

With the targets located and the power cut off, the countermeasures would be initiated; the drones would close in and begin surrounding the target and hopefully they could end this without further conflict. It was quite lucky that the target had chosen to enter such an isolated and sealed location, several salarians had opined. But Nihlus felt something was off about all of it, though he couldn't quite say yet what.

A tense several minutes followed, as Nihlus continued to observe and slowly drink every few minutes. The tension on the Combat Information Center was palpable, though every one of them was a highly trained specialist and the cream of the crop when it came to their respective fields, none knew what would happen next. Still, they were all professionals.

Neither the Spectres nor the STG accepted half-boiled amateurs.

"Targets slowing down; one of the asari has fallen unconscious."

Nihlus looked up at the projected screen, frowning. According to the predictive models and simulations, Emiya should have been the one who would collapse first. That it had been one of the asari was troubling, as the human had showed an annoying proclivity for complete deviation from supposed baselines and profiles in ability and behaviour.

"Which one was it?"

"Liara T'soni, infrared scan point to a point two degree drop in nasal temperature; she is confirmed to be unconscious," the same operator answered.

The Spectre nodded, that at least was within predicted parameters. The less physically conditioned of the two Maidens was expected to collapse more quickly, however the other would be soon to follow. However, the fact that Shirou Emiya seemed wholly unhindered by the gas was growing more and more troubling.

"Emiya on the move, no observable effects from either gas or infrasound, both asari confirmed to be unconscious."

"Did he leave them behind?" The turian asked, his flanging voice distinct from the nasal of the console operator who was monitoring the drone operation.

"No, he seems to have picked them up and is carrying them as he is moving. His pace suggests he is running at a considerable pace," the salarian responded without looking up.

"Simulations suggest the gas will have trouble affecting him if he keeps moving this quickly, concentrations in the air growing too thin if he continues moving," another salarian spoke from across the CIC.

"Unlikely," another protested. "He is operating at a strenuous level, carrying two asari. Due to the increased oxygen intake, he will be falling unconscious sooner."

"According to predicted model, he should have fallen over already. Chosen gas has thirty-four point two one six per cent greater effect on humans than on asari, yet not noticeable effects observed yet. Cannot assume predictions are accurate."

Nihlus nodded, turning to the salarian operations officer in charge of this team; Jondum Bau. The tall salarian had a dark grey skin with large black eyes, fitting for his calm and controlled demeanour. He was the most recent Spectre candidate, and this was the third evaluatory mission they were taking together. If all things went well, the salarian would be joining him soon enough among the ranks of _Special Tactics and Recon_ operatives.

"Pull the three rear drone wings and place them ahead of the target. If he is moving forward, then keeping the gas concentration ahead is more important. Even if he were to turn around, it will not have dissipated, allowing us to reverse formation as necessary," Jondum ordered and the other salarians immediately moved to enact that order.

Nihlus nodded in approval, that way the amount of gas the human would be subjected to would be maximized. Of course, sooner or later the drones would run out and the formation would have to be adjusted for a replacement to be made. The chemical cartridges were highly efficient and densely packed; it wouldn't be a problem yet. But if it went on for much longer…

"We need to wrap this up quickly," Nihlus said and Jondum nodded as they observed the main screen.

From the orbiting spaceship a tightbeam shot out, forwarded by satellites until it found the STG's mobile ground unit that was set up as the relay for the underground drones. Of course, given how few drones they had, they could not have normally kept in contact like this with them operating underground.

But that was where Nihlus had come in. With his contacts in the Turian Hierarchy, he had been able to procure several thousand of the prototype miniature drones for use in this operation. They were too small to be seen by the naked eye at a distance over a meter and could move very rapidly. Equipped with sonar and lidar, they were designed for situations just like this; undetectable infiltration units that could rapidly map out and search underground or fortified locations. The sonar allowed them to navigate and search their surroundings while the lidar could also function as a tightbeam communicator. This allowed them to extend the command relay from the orbiting starship all the way into the underground parking system.

Additionally, the sonar had been re-purposed to act as an infrasound emitter that had been specially adjusted and calibrated to disturb and tire out a human being at a range that was just within the audible range for a human being. According to the specs detailed, it would not affect the asari at all, either. Nihlus found the implications of that slightly disturbing, realizing it meant that the STG must have been experimenting with human subjects in order to be able to develop such a specific and discerning weapon.

If such had been performed against the humans, what was preventing similar experiments from having been made against turians? Nihlus shook his head. He needed to focus on the here and now rather than anything else.

"Kryik, sir. Incoming transmission from Tela Vasir," a salarian by the side, handling communications and coordination with locals and the other Spectre spoke.

"Has she found that rogue Justicar?" The turian asked without looking away from the screen where he could see the human running in an infrared light.

"No, sir. They've been scouting in an increasing pattern but so far nothing has been found in the Serrinan sea or on the coast," the salarian conveyed. "She informs you that a Matriarch came asking about one of the asari hostages. She asks for you to confirm receiving this transmission."

Nihlus turned to look at salarian, flaring his mandibles. "Irrelevant, ignore such transmission from now on. We don't have time to deal with that, let her handle it."

"Yes, sir."

Nihlus turned back to his target, narrowing his eyes as he felt his trigger finger itching. He knew fighting smart was the way to go, yet he wanted to be on the ground. Even if he was a known eccentric among the turians for his flexible tactics, he still preferred a head on fight.

The salarians had already once completely failed against this man, with their careful calculations and plans. Perhaps it was time for him to try his talons against this foe? It has been his instructions that had allowed the cyber-warhead to successfully strike him, the kinetic barrier adjustments something he came up with through observation. Just as this human kept one-upping them, so too had he managed one such up on him.

He itched to try himself against such a foe, the predatory instincts deep within him rousing at the hunt. Humans were such soft targets, their soft bellies and vulnerable necks simply screaming at him as being easy targets for his sharp talons and teeth. Shaking his head and flaring his mandibles to dismiss those thoughts, he returned his attention to the screen.

Results came first, his personal desires a distant second. For now, he would continue as was.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled a sliver of a breath as he kept moving.

His heart was beating at a slightly elevated pace and his hardsuit was beginning to turn warm with the exertion. But it wasn't a problem yet.

The fact that he would not be able to shake off the drones this way however _was_ a problem. Even if he found a way out, as long as he had these drones keeping track of him, nothing would really change. They would just pick off right where they'd left when he'd gone underground.

He needed to shake them off before he could get out of here. For that, just moving quickly would not work. If they had enough drones for the long chains of tightbeam communication, then even if he broke off unexpectedly, they would surely find him again if he did not know how they were doing it. _No, the length of the tightbeam communication chain is too long with all of the mass effect signatures I can feel. There's something more going on._

He considered mirrors for a moment, before discarding that thought. Reflecting tightbeam communications would be just as difficult as positioning drones, without any of the mobility the drones would offer. He was sure he would have noticed something like that by now if that was the case. _Which means, there's something more at play here._

Keeping pace as he was, he would not discover anything. He needed to act out and take them off guard for a moment, at least.

Exhaling, he slowed down just a bit. He focused, observing the nearest drones as he did. They slowed down to match him. But there was a delay of a fraction of a second before they did. Given the distance from the nearest drones… _I can do it_.

Emiya had considered playing possum, pretending to have been overcome by the gas and acting in his Servant body once an opening revealed itself, but he did not want to expose himself or either of the asari to this gas for too much longer. He did not know what it was, after all.

He slowed down to a complete halt, exhaling completely as he set down both of the asari on his shoulders along with the bag and backpack, as if he was growing too tired to keep going and setting down to rest for a moment.

He was currently in the middle of a U-shaped turn of two right angles, at the bottom of the U, with a ninety degree turn both up ahead and behind, at a distance exceeding the distance they had been trying to keep at all times from him. He noticed that they had preferred to keep out of sight rather than attempting to strictly keep their distance, meaning that this was the optimal position to set up a trap.

Emiya inhaled slowly, trying to see if he could taste anything unusual in the air and hoping that he was not inhaling pure concentrated poison as he did. But for this next bit, oxygen would be important.

Feeling the renewed fire running through his veins, he looked ahead into the darkness. He rolled the ball of his foot against the ground, though there was no need to stretch since he had warmed up properly from his jogging previously. Coiling up, he relaxed and then…

With a burst, he began to run forward down the hall. Unburdened by two asari and bags, he could move much more freely now. It wasn't a matter of muscle or generating speed, not given how much power he could put out right now that he had stopped holding back. Rather, it had been a problem of how much he could move without jostling everything around.

Building up to a quarter of his full speed, he crossed to the end of the hall coming to the ninety degrees turn in the space of two heartbeats. The drone ahead had sped away as soon as it had been notified something was going on, flying up ahead to keep from his view just as the one behind him was adjusting to keep up. They must be predicting that he had decided to ditch his load and try running on his own. But instead, as he came to the corner he crouched and _jumped_.

He had no intention of taking the corner and running onward. Instead, he was going to jump off the wall and run to the other end at his true full sprint, making a 180 degree turn to catch the rear drone before it could turn and escape from sight. With the lag in reaction to his movement the drones suffered, if he made it just right he was sure to catch a glimpse of the rear drone.

Performing a half-flip through the air, he 'landed' on the wall. For a fraction of a moment, his momentum was sufficient to keep him against the wall and prevent gravity from having a hold on him. He crouched, coiling himself as he looked 'up'. Like a hundred-meter dash sprinter, he exploded off of the wall. With one, two, four steps he had already crossed the whole off the hallway to the other end in the space of half a heartbeat.

Inching towards the outer wall, he jumped and turned to run along the wall as he came to the opposite end's ninety degree turn, using the wall as a springboard to instantly turn the corner. There, he found his first glimpse of a drone again underground. It did not have a cloak activated and the usual bright panels had still not been activated, causing it to look like nothing more than floating disk in the air he could barely see a glimpse of in the darkness.

A tiny flying saucer, just as before.

But that wasn't what he was interested in. What bothered him was how they were communicating. This deep underground, they must have set up a more complex array to allow communication, the most obvious choice being a tightbeam relay or a connection to the landlines. And if his guess was correct, then right about…

_Now!_

The lag he had observed meant that a communique should be coming through to the drone he was seeing. And just for an instant, even with his clouded eyes and turbulent senses, he could see _something_ in the dark. A pinprick of light, something that could have been just a dancing illusion by his mind. But in the next instant the drone he could sense suddenly reversed its direction and began to rapidly fly away from him.

He didn't care about it at all; he had something more interesting already in his sights.

Emiya didn't stop, continuing running forward down the hallway with nearly no loss of momentum from the corner he passed through. He dived forward into a forward roll, his hand snatching forward and closing its fingers around something. As he came to stand upright and bleed out his excess momentum, he ignored the drone flying towards him as he had dashed past it, the thing so pitifully slow in comparison to him that it was almost painful.

Opening his hand, he looked at the tiny object between two of his fingers. With his eyesight still fuzzy and without a good source of light, he couldn't see all too well, thus he resorted to using Structural Analysis again.

Immediately he realized what it was; a miniature drone.

It was so small that most people would not be able to see it, if it was right between their feet even in full daylight. A marvelous machine of incredible precision and engineering. A second later, he realized it was the source of the rippling-water-surface sensation he had been experiencing until now. _Sonar? And it's also working as a tightbeam relay underground, allowing the bigger drones to keep moving in coordination._

As the larger drone approached him from behind, he grabbed it too out of the air and brought it up to his face. Through Structural Analysis he found the compressed chunk used for the aerosol. It would mix with the oxygen and nitrogen in the air to create the gas, he realized. Comparing the two drones side by side, he found the camera on the larger one and looked directly into it.

He smirked, then.

"Oh, was that all?"

* * *

;

* * *

Nihlus almost dropped his cylinder as the target suddenly moved faster than any of the systems could keep up. One second he was running down the hallway, the next he had literally simply appeared at the _other end_.

And as the salarian operators struggled to keep up and adjust the drones, he disappeared again. It was only two seconds later they found him again, as Shirou Emiya casually grabbed the drone out of the air and brought it up to his face.

There was a moment of utter stillness and silence as the entire CIC team looked up at the main screen where the feed from the drone had been brought up. They looked at the stoic human, who seemed to be looking down at them all.

And then, he _smirked_.

" _Oh, was that all?_ "

Nihlus had time to blink as the sound came through, before both drones were crushed and that particular feed was lost.

"Drone C-4 and m-D144 lost!" A salarian shouted and the Spectre blinked as he realized he was in a daze.

"Set all drones with secondary payload of adhesive to swarm him right now! Have all drones release all their gas payloads right now!" He shouted and salarians hastened to obey.

"Have you thought of a countermeasure for his neutralization of the adhesive? The tests are still inconclusive on how he managed to break free from it so quickly," Jondum Bau noted, looking down at the turian Spectre with inquisitive eyes.

"…No, but a good action immediately is better than a perfect action later. We've been made and he's planning something." The turian's mandible twitched in annoyance as he spoke.

The salarian Spectre candidate nodded. "Time for the ground team to move in? They're fairly close."

Nihlus inhaled slowly, trying to think but the smirk he had seen made it difficult. That wasn't the behavior of someone on the run. So far, he had been thinking of himself as a predator and the target as prey. But the sudden burst of speed had completely flipped his paradigms and he needed to adjust before he made a mistake that he could have foreseen.

"Yes. Have them go in with the hoses and try to corner him. He can't hold his breath forever, we need to wear him down quickly," Nihlus finally said.

Jondum nodded. "I'll coordinate the team."

The turian nodded before looking up. "Sitrep on the drones! Where is my swarm!"

"Drones closing in from both sides! Three lost so far, sir!"

Nihlus blinked at that his mandibles pulling back as he almost bared his teeth in surprise. " _Already?_ Coordinate and set them in as staggered columns until you have enough numbers to overwhelm him!"

He looked up at the main screen, a composite simulation created by the continuous sonar the drones were emitting. "Has the infrasound shown any effects so far?"

A salarian turned around to look at him, responding with a "No, sir!"

"Then turn it off, have all micro-drones focus on sonar support! I want perfect clarity for the combat drones!" Nihlus shouted. _That should enhance the combat VIs' ability to react._

"Yes, sir! Another fourteen drones down!"

Nihlus ground his teeth then, his tongue going across the insides of his incisors. Suddenly the main screen went dark and he blinked, looking around as he tried to figure out what was happening. All the salarians were in the zone as they moved their fingers at extreme speeds and precision, with several of them even directly plugged in to the system to enhance their reaction speeds.

Ignoring his revulsion at the intrusive cybernetics, Nihlus shouted again. "What happened! Report!"

"The ceiling collapsed, there's too much dust for the tightbeam to work! Drones within vicinity are unresponsive, sir! Long-range sonar still available but inaccurate! No position on target!" A salarian responded, looking up for just half a second as he spoke at triple the usual speed.

A definite sign of an excited state by the salarians, Nihlus knew.

More than one among them were taking out pills and small hypodermic needles, injecting combat stims and mental enhancers as they were picking up the pace. Though nominally in charge, it was obvious that the STG had its own designs on this situation that had nothing to do with Nihlus.

"Where is the ground team?"

"Advancing, ETA to scene ten seconds."

"Drones?"

"40% on-site still operational, dust is making communications spotty!"

"Analysis on dust concentration."

"Unnatural given building material, tampering by target probable."

"Counter-measures?"

"Assume related to personal apartment durability, suggest possibility of nanotechnology. Strong EMP, possible."

"Negatory, would disable too many combat assets."

"AI analysis suggests possible additional modifications on Shirou Emiya; prolonged inhalation noted. Lungs modified to produce or modify oxygen to give it suitable chemical properties. Rapidly weaken concrete, possible."

As the salarians begun to go into overdrive, Nihlus flexed his talons. This wasn't getting anywhere, he realized.

"Ground team on-site!"

"Visual re-established!"

Nihlus looked at the screen, noting that the headbob and height of the camera suggested a live-feed from a helmet mounted camera. The hallway looked like a bomb had gone off inside of it. There were dozens of broken drones laying on the ground, broken and shattered. The ceiling had collapsed, leaving an unusually fine coating of white dust everywhere and still in the air.

The asari were nowhere to be seen, nor was Shirou Emiya.

"He jumped up and moved out."

"Ground team to follow, equipped with EAD-gear."

The salarian ground team jumped, easily clearing the height of the former ceiling as the landed on the wall's top, the mass effect field generator combined with miniature jump-jets working just as intended.

Spreading outwards, the map displayed on the main screen expanded to show the space outside of the hallway. There were four skycars in sight, parked into neat little platforms.

"There, highlight it for the ground team," one salarian said, pointing out a spot where there seemed to be another broken wall.

"Check where it leads!"

"It's not on any of the blueprints! No sonar mapping done either!"

"How many drones do we still have?"

"Fifteen operational combat drones, 436 miniature drones in operative zone with battery for an additional half-hour!"

" _Pursuing targets._ " The comms from the ground team reported as the salarian analysts continued to try and predict Shirou Emiya's movements.

But it was beginning to be clear to Nihlus that they had been utterly beat as after a minute of the ground teams and drones searching, they still had not been able to find anything.

_Damn it, what the hell just happened?_

* * *

;

* * *

"You two feeling any better?" Emiya asked as he crouched in front of the pair of groggy asari.

With the fresh air, they seemed to be coming to again. And since he had decided to let loose a little, he had been able to cross a much greater distance than they had been able to before.

"Oww—-—my —a _ch-hur_ ts— - _—" Tyra complained something, throwing words his way in a constant barrage of unintelligible noises.

Liara seemed to be a little worse, simply groaning and rubbing her forehead. He had gotten them out of the access ways and into a spot where a rainwater grill allowed sunlight from above to stream down at them, lighting up their surroundings.

So far it seemed like they weren't following him. With Structural Analysis, he had a much more complete blueprint of the surroundings available to him than something like a quick sonar could produce. There were ways to cross through pathways, if one was willing to knock down a few walls in the process. Of course, the second wall he had so obviously broken through was just a red herring. He had in fact projected a sword and cut a square hole into another wall and gone through, after which he had placed back the cut-out section and used Reinforcement to repair the cuts.

The trick was to use a sharp enough sword that it could cut through the wall, but not one with such mystical weight that it cut the concept of the wall so deeply that it would be a pain in the ass to repair. The red herring hallway would lead his pursuers down a completely different direction as far as he could tell, leading them somewhere completely different.

Well, out of sight, out of mind. They weren't a problem anymore.

While he had been running through the parking hall, he had stolen an omnitool from a parked skycar while he was at it. It was being used as a simple navigation tool and a dash camera, so he didn't feel too bad about the theft. Especially since he left a credit chit with twice the value by his estimate behind.

He was getting it up to his standards right now, clearing away the unnecessary programs and clutter as he continued observing the two asari. _That should do it, for now_.

Turning on the microphone and speech recognition, he patched it through to his cybernetics.

"Guh, I feel like I got tackled by that Matron coach from Ulee again," Tyra said, spitting as she shook her head.

"What happened…? And, where are we? Is that Saiga?" Liara spoke, standing up slowly.

"Take it easy," Emiya said as he reached out to support her. "They were using a knockout gas, just breathe for now."

"Oh, well that is simply wonderful. I have never been drugged before," Liara complained as she did as told, breathing slowly and deeply. "Fujimura Saiga, you are the worst thing to happen to me, in all my life. Nothing compares to you, not the sandstorm that lasted two years, not the time I accidentally deleted my term paper and had to rewrite it from scratch in two hours, not the time I was nearly shot by a _varren_."

Emiya almost laughed at that, realizing just how much she had been holding back her growing irritation and annoyance at him before.

"Umm, Liara, don't you think you've been chewing him out enough already? I mean… I thought for the first five minutes that it was your right, but it's kind of… You _know_ , already." Tyra seemed to be grimacing, and in response Liara scoffed.

"It's all true. The single. Worst. Thing. To ever happen to me," she reaffirmed, ignoring Tyra as she exhaled.

For a moment, Emiya considered speaking up to let them know that he could hear now. Just for a moment. He was sure her reaction would be quite amusing. But then he decided that it would be more amusing to keep quiet and listen to what she had to say for now.

"If you're up to it, we should keep moving," he spoke, suddenly realizing that he was having some trouble speaking due to the omnitool picking up his own speech and feeding it back to him. It was like a speech jammer, in effect. Well, if he concentrated it wasn't a problem. "It's not far, you can rest once we're there."

Liara sighed, standing up. "Fine. Let's get this over with."

Emiya reached out with a hand and helped Tyra stand up. She smiled at him as she grabbed his hand, he could vaguely see. With the omnitool giving him back a reference to hearing, he could actively filter out a lot of the sensations again which worked to improve his sight even further. It was still ways off from being back to normal, however.

"I'll go up first, follow me once you can." He said, turning to face the ladder that led to the surface. He climbed up, until he reached the locked cover that was the only thing keeping them from the surface. With some effort, he cranked open the locking mechanism. Carefully lifting the metal cover of the asarihole in the ground, he looked out. _No one is here, as expected._

Pushing aside the cover completely, he jumped out and dusted himself. It was a rather secluded corner of the Serrice University, with plenty of cover from tall trees and surrounding walls. Satellites above shouldn't be able to pick them up with the cover overhead, he reasoned. There weren't even any security cameras here, he had noted before. Leaning down, he shouted for them to join him at the top.

They grumbled and groaned, but slowly managed to make their way back up to the ground. They treated the sun as if it had been a long-gone and dear friend friend for a minute before they would get back on their feet and follow him.

Putting back the asarihole cover and motioned for them to follow him once they seemed able to keep going.

"Huh, isn't this the University of Serrice? I thought we might come out on another planet entirely at this rate…"

Emiya blinked, turning around to stare at Tyra who had just spoken. Hiding his amusement, he led them forward, arriving at the back entrance as he had planned. Hacking his way in and suppressing the alarms, he led them in and locked the door behind them. _Good, the security guard did not notice anything._

The thick walls of the building seemed to isolate them completely, as just outside they had still been able to hear the sounds of numerous gunships and drones flying still outside. The seemingly unchanging insides remained as pleasantly cool and calm as ever before, the carefully controlled humidity and light levels feeling rather pleasant even to his relatively synesthesia-confused senses.

Turning around to glance at the two asari who were still following him, he noticed that Liara seemed to have already realized where they were going, her growing excitement and energy obvious.

Tyra by comparison seemed rather confused and lost, following in the back as she looked around at the numerous high cabinets and displays. She asked something and Liara answered in rapid words as they continued walking forward, but Emiya didn't bother listening as he worked on sorting out more and more of the crosswired sensations again.

Arriving at the personnel-only access door, he took out the digital access card. Bringing it out to the doorway he swiped it quickly, expecting the door to work as normal and almost running into it as the digital lock blared a red access denied warning back at him. He blinked, raising the card up and frowning at it. _Must have been that pulse, does that mean it works off of similar principles as my cybernetics? That's something to look into._

He repeated the card swipe, this time hacking into the system and opening the door as if nothing was wrong. Walking through, he continued towards the office.

Knocking once he entered, as waiting for a reply was meaningless given his current state. Even so, he could sense the panic and hesitation off of Liara as he simply strode in. Looking around, he couldn't see anyone around and he noted that the desk terminal was running a catalogue update. Which meant of course that…

Professor Baliya Haphia, Curator of the Museum of the University of Serrice, Matriarch and one of the foremost experts when it came to various cultural artifacts, was currently sleeping on the floor behind her desk. She really had no sense for tension or current events, the ongoing fighting and operations outside and below the museum in no way affecting her daily life.

As usual, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to PseudoSteak, Olive Birdy and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.


	22. Serendipity in Serrice

Emiya walked around the desk, crouching down to stare at the sleeping Matriarch.

"What is he—" Liara was about to say something as she walked up behind him, just in time to see as he poked Baliya's nose with a finger. A second later he was being pulled away from the sleeping curator by the incensed asari. "What are you doing?!"

He blinked, tilting his head.

"You cannot be serious! This is no way to—"

"I leave waking her up to you then," he said, turning around with a shrug before Liara could really get going. _Might as well make some coffee,_ he thought. Judging by the progress of the cataloging on the computer, he judged that she must have already gotten several hours of sleep by now, which meant that she would be waking up soon even without their efforts.

But without coffee there were no guarantees of any coherence on her part.

"Ah? W-waking her up? That, well—I understand. Not that you can hear me," she said as she realized he was leaving it to her then, determination and hesitation equally obvious as she turned around to look at the sleeping elder.

"Then, then, what should I do?" Tyra asked, bouncing up to him with an equally determined look on her face.

"Hmm..." He considered it as he looked at her.

She blinked, suddenly realizing something. "Oh... Right, umm, you can't hear me at all, can you?"

"I can."

"Wha—!"

He smirked and winked, then. "Don't tell Liara."

"O-oh! Yea-yeah, okay. But how can you hear again? What happened? Is everything okay? What happened down there? Why are they trying to find you this hard?" The flood of questions did not seem to have any end as she looked at him.

Emiya raised a hand to forestall any further, however. "Well, maybe I owe you two some explanations, but let's wait until Baliya wakes up so that I don't have to say it twice."

"Oh, okay! I'll help Liara then!" Tyra nodded and zoomed around him.

He huffed with some amusement as he could hear Liara begin to chide Tyra for being too rough in her attempts. He knew from personal experience that Baliya was a rather deep sleeper. Well, until she realized he was making coffee anyhow. That usually got her to accept that it was time to wake up.

Ignoring the collectively rather rowdy trio behind him, he set about in grinding the roasted coffee beans. He made sure to take it slowly and on the coarsest setting, drawing out the process as he glanced at the resting Matriarch. The slight twitch there, a minor inhale through the nose here. It was obvious she was waking up despite her best efforts.

"Professor Haphia, please wake up." Liara repeated for the _n_ th time as she gently reached over to shake her shoulder.

"I told you, she's not gonna wake up if we don't get a bucket of cold water. That always works on the biotiball camps when someone won't get up!"

"No, Tyra! You cannot simply—Hey! Wait! Listen to me, Tyra!" Liara shouted, getting up to haul back her excitable roommate who was running out of the office.

Emiya simply continued grinding the beans calmly. As the water came to a boil, he took out the French press. Noting with some disdain that it had not been cleaned since he had last been here, he took care of it as well. As he cleaned the press and some cups, he drank about a liter of water and swallowed whole three pemmican balls. He had been running around for a while, and since both his actions in his physical body and his use of magical energy was dependent on his body's ability to generate life force, it was doubly important to properly hydrated and fed.

Once he was down to fumes as it were, it would just be a downward spiral.

Each ball, swallowed whole, felt like a ball of lead in his gut. But mere seconds later he realized how hungry he had already become as they seemed to dissolve at an almost noticeable rate. He ate another one, just to be sure.

Finishing with the preparations, he poured the water in and put on the cap. It would have to sit for a few minutes before it was ready; generally he liked to wait until all of the coarse coffee ground had sunk to the bottom, but he knew she liked even stronger brews meaning he could wait as long as he'd like.

 _Perhaps I shouldn't be fueling her growing caffeine addiction like this,_ he thought as he noticed she was slowly rousing into the land of the living by the wafting scent of freshly ground beans alone.

Sitting up, Baliya blinked and looked around.

First, her eyes went to the terminal where she sat for several seconds in silence, looking at the completion bar of the cataloging process slowly filling up. Then, she looked around while yawning widely. Spotting Emiya she froze for a second as their eyes met.

"Oh, Fujimura! It's just you, huh..." She relaxed. "I thought there was someone else here..."

"Good morning, professor Haphia. The coffee will be ready in a moment."

Yawning, she stretched her arms and neck as she stood up. "Really? Thank you, you're—What are you wearing?"

"Hmm? Oh, this? I just returned from Dretirop," he said simply, brushing at the breast of his hardsuit with one hand.

The EMP had disabled it for the most part, but it still looked fully functional. Well, he was certain it would protect him from a few bullets, but with the kinetic barrier belt and internal computer fried he would have to get another one soon.

"...Oh, right," she said, nodding once as she scratched her back. "How was it?"

"Quite hot. There was a lot of sand."

She smiled, nodding at him. "Yes, it is quite often like that on dig-sites. But the finds they brought back were quite fascinating. Ugh, I have been working non-stop since they returned with everything. There's just so much of everything and I have to sort it out before we start with the testing, you know?"

He blinked, noticing how she seemed to be avoiding looking around too much, as if moving her neck was awkward or painful. Pushing off the wall, he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. "Hmm, you're tense. I've told you about your sitting posture before, haven't I?"

"Ahh, a massage? Thank you~ I feel alive again..." She sing-sang as she slumped down onto her office chair.

"You should ditch the chair, standing up while working is a lot better for you back and shoulders. Your posture is already terrible enough as it is," he noted as he buried his thumb in her shoulder blades to get at a particularly tight knot of tension.

"No way... I'd have to stand all day long then..." She complained as he switched to light chopping with the heel of his palm, moving up and down, which caused her voice to gain a staccato undertone to it as she spoke. "Ohhh, right there... That's go _o_ o _o_ od."

It was almost like chopping with a knife, only with the back as the cutting board. He had been roped into massaging others often enough during his life that he knew the basics at least, though more often than not those sessions had mutated somehow into pro-wrestling matches. Baliya, luckily enough perhaps, was not quite as active as that other mooch he could still vaguely remember from his youth.

The door opened then, with Tyra barging in with a large bucket in her hands that looked like she had pilfered it from a service closet. She blinked, staring at the two with obvious surprise.

A second later Liara caught up, panting and lagging behind the more physically robust biotiball player. "Tyra, you cannot..."

She too, stopped to blink at the scene before her.

Baliya blinked, swallowing as she suddenly stood up ram-rod straight. The two asari by the door blinked in unison, before their gazes turned to Emiya who was half-smiling at the awkward silence. "Oh, you're back? I managed to get her up."

He never stopped his rapid drumming-like massage, even as he turned to look at the two who had returned.

"Wha—" Tyra shouted, dropping the bucket she had been carrying.

"What are you doing, Saig—" Liara began to shout, her eyes wide and mouth hanging wide open, but...

"Wha—Wha—What are you doing!" Tyra burst forward jumping over the desk with one stride, completely muscling out Liara's surprise with her own.

Baliya took a surprised step back at the sudden intrusion into her personal space. "Who—Who are you two?!"

"That's what I should be asking!" Tyra shouted at the curator.

Baliya, taken aback by the sudden appearance of the two, froze over completely for a moment as Tyra stopped right in front of him, jabbing an accusing finger into Emiya's chest.

"I take my eyes off of you for one moment—and, and you!"

Emiya raised an eyebrow at her reaction. "Yes?"

She stared at him, the purple flush on her face receding as she crossed her arms and turned around with a huff. "I can't believe you."

"Umm, who are these people, Fujimura?" Baliya asked, looking around with wide eyes at the two asari.

Liara immediately straightened up. "Professor T'soni, I am Baliya—I mean, professor Bali—Haphia! Professor Haphia! I am Liara T'soni and I have read all of your papers! Your work on clarifying the various Prothean ages and pioneering of cross-referencing absolute dating techniques are incredible!"

"Thank... you?" Baliya blinked, turning to look at Emiya with a complete deer-in-the-headlight's look as she silently asked him who the hell he had brought over.

He smirked at her, raising a hand to gesture at Tyra first. "Professor Haphia, these are some friends I made in Usaru. I'd like you to meet Tyra T'sanis and Liara T'soni. They're a bit of a handful, but I'm sure you'll have no problems getting along."

 _Huh, even the diplomatic and charismatic asari can be tongue tied like this?_ He mused with some amusement.

"Ah, it's nice to meet you?" Tyra suddenly said, realizing that she probably wasn't making the best of impressions right now.

"Yes, it is... a pleasure to make your acquaintance?" Baliya spoke in a stilted fashion, equally perturbed as she looked at Emiya out of the corner of her eye, asking the silent question of who these people were supposed to be anyhow as the names had not told her anything.

"And well, they have something for you. Liara?"

"Huh? I mean, yes! I—No, where did I put it?!" Liara said, only to realize that she did not have the Prothean gun on her person. She began to look through her pockets, turning around on the spot as her panic was growing at the thought of having lost the Prothean artifact.

"It's on the desk, where you left it earlier."

"Oh!" Liara jumped forward, grasping the gunblade as she walked up to Baliya who was becoming more and more confused by the second.

Liara took a deep inhale, before presenting the gunblade with both hands to the Matriarch.

There was a second of pregnant silence, before Baliya finally reacted. Tilting her head, she took a step forward and leaned to take a closer look at the pistol without touching it herself.

"It's..." Baliya hesitated, running a thumb gently along the surface of the pistol's side.

"Yes," Liara immediately said, nodding vigorously.

"But the handle design is clearly of..."

"Late sixth age."

"But the condition and the..." Baliya frowned.

"Exactly, and..."

" _Yes!_ " Liara nodded again.

Emiya blinked as he looked at the two. _Huh, they're more in tune than I'd have expected._ He turned to Tyra who was standing by the side, owlishly looking at the excited pair of archaeologists. Their eyes met and they shrugged in perfect unison, as if saying that they should have seen this coming.

Shaking his head, he moved over to the coffee press. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Coh-feh? Huh? What's that?" Tyra asked, hovering over his shoulder, having placed herself deliberately between him and Baliya.

"A human beverage. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but..."

"Yeah, I'll try it!" Tyra immediately responded.

Nodding, he settled to prepare for all four.

"Make it double for me," Baliya remarked, glancing up for but a fraction of a second from the pistol she was looking over. "I think I'm going to need it..."

They stood there for a relatively quiet five minutes, as Liara and Baliya intently went over the pistol, with the younger asari heatedly whispering and pointing out features and characteristics of the pistol to the elder, who silently nodded and occasionally noted something herself which would without fail elicit an impressed reaction from the undergraduate.

Finally as he prepared and poured coffee for all, they sat down in a rough circle around a table Tyra had cleared.

"So... What exactly is going on?" Baliya asked as she sipped her coffee. The immediate effect, more of a placebo from the heat and taste than anything else, was obvious. She sat up straight, her body language turning far more controlled and composed. Clearing her throat, she spoke. "I had not expected visitors—I have been quite occupied with arranging and sorting of the various items discovered on Dretirop, you understand."

The shift in tone and words had a visible effect on the other two asari as they too, straightened up in response.

"No, professor, it is we who must apologize for suddenly intruding in this manner." Liara was immediately apologizing, her body language upright and direct as she faced her elder.

It was like a schoolgirl who was nervous about being scolded by her headmistress, he mused. Their first impressions had been rather informal, yet this quickly they had fallen into their usual habits. Or rather, they had overcompensated into going into an extremely awkward mood as the asari tried to maintain a sense of propriety.

"Yeah—I mean, yes. It is most unfortunate that we had to, uh, intrude on such a lacking notice," Tyra said. It was obvious that of the three, she had the least experience when it came to decorum like this.

"Of course. Then we must accept the circumstances as they come," Baliya said with an almost sage-like nod. "As you may know, I am Baliya Haphia. A humble curator and researcher here at the Museum of the University of Serrice."

Emiya raised an eyebrow at the contrast from her usual self in that moment, especially since it seemed to have such a great impact on both Liara and Tyra. He had seen her like this before, of course. Her public appearances were all like this, he knew from having looked some of her work up. The usual regal and _Matriarchal_ ancient asari act seemed quite natural to her, being something she was used to wielding. And it had taken her years to let up and relax around him to the point of her 'usual self' as he knew her.

While her slovenly and slothful self was without a doubt her truest nature, she was not a renowned figure for nothing.

A Matriarch was a Matriarch, after all.

It was somehow amusing to watch how all three who he had come to know relatively well, changed entirely in this moment. He was no stranger to protocol and propriety such as this, hailing from Japan as he did. But he had never been one to care much for such things, and somehow this awkward and stilted conversation was reminding him of times long gone.

At his quiet chuckling, all three eyes turned to look at him. He could almost physically feel the weight of group condemnation; the tangible peer pressure at work, trying to shame him into toeing the line. To a species as socially aware and sensitive as the asari, such things would be doubly effective.

Of course, he blew right past all of that.

"I came to ask for two favors," he said without further preamble.

"Ah," Baliya mouthed, blinking as her composure broke for a moment again.

Such direct statements were rare in polite asari company, usually. Such things were to be hinted at, to be skirted around until they whole of the matter was obvious even without it needing to be said aloud. It was quite similar to the concept of 'face' from Asia in a sense, where asking the question directly would be akin to saying that the other party lacked either the intelligence to infer the need for help or was too callous to offer it, if not directly confronted with the matter.

It was a facet of their nature as a race that prided in their ability to empathize, understand and cooperate.

Of course, that was among asari specifically. He was a human; they knew that and would take no offense. Indeed, he knew it was common for asari to speak in rather mercenary terms when dealing with humans directly, 'stooping to their level' as it were.

Give and take—equivalent exchange—supply and demand. These were concepts humans understood much more clearly, compared to the delicate and polite exchanges the asari prefered.

But the problem was that he had stuck them into a wholly new situation where two conflicting modes of behavior were clashing, especially in the manner which he had rather forcefully introduced the two parties. He was a human, necessitating a certain style of conduct. They were a pair of Maidens and a Matriarch, meeting for the first time. Something that also necessitated a specific style of conduct. There would be introductions, casual questions and artful asides aplenty, he knew.

They would probably attempt to fold him into that, at first. Since he had lived among the asari for years they would attempt to treat him as one for the sake of ease. But once it became obvious that he either would not or could not fulfill such a role in this conversation, he would be excluded from that rule and they would pretend as if he was not there unless directly talking to him, in which case they would revert to a more suitable mode of conduct.

It was like watching a mother struggling between keeping a rowdy and demanding child satisfied while at the same time interacting with her peers and trying to maintain a respectable figure. There was usually a touch of something intangibly awkward about seeing something like that in public. Outwardly the asari were a united front to all other races, but internally there were innumerable cracks and divisions like this.

He was in the heart of asari deep culture, in this moment. But he didn't have time for any of that right now.

"He's enjoying this, isn't he?" Liara spoke past him under her breath, still believing that his hearing was shot.

"I take what I can get," he opined and waited a second. As Liara's eyes shot wide and she turned to look at him, he merely gave a knowing smile that told her that, _yes I heard everything_ even if he had only heard half of what she had been saying about him. "But more importantly, I don't have all that much time."

"Huh?" Baliya blinked.

"I'm currently being chased by a Spectre, with the Serrice Guard and the Special Tasks Group assisting her. On the way here, my skycar got shot out of the air and I had to carry these two when they were knocked out by some form of gas attack."

There was a silent moment, as Baliya frowned and for a moment there was a spark of something in her eye. She turned to look at Liara and Tyra, but upon seeing their serious faces she turned to look back at Emiya. "How did that happen? Did you find Nirida?"

He shook his head. "No, that is still in the works. It's something unrelated to that, actually."

"Then, what is this all about?"

"Well, have you heard about a hacker called ' _redhax_ '?" He asked as at the same time he reached out to the terminals and omnitools in the room.

Baliya nodded hesitantly, as Liara's and Tyra's eyes shot wide open as they began to connect the dots. "No way...!"

Looking at Tyra who had spoken, he gave a small smirk as he used the sound synthesizers in all of the computers in the room to speak.

" _And, well. There's a lot of people who have taken exception to that. Though mostly I believe they're looking to either recruit me, or learn how I do what I do. Hence the softballing they've been doing._ "

All three asari shot up, looking around the room at the various speakers. Three heads slowly turned to look at Emiya who was still seated. He slowly raised his hands to give a shrug, as if saying _'what can you do_ ' at their behavior.

"I—I see." Baliya looked completely and utterly lost at that point, glancing between Emiya and the various screens around her. "But, what does that—any of this, I mean—have to do with me?"

He nodded at Liara and Tyra. "These two were pulled into all of this and they have nothing to do with it. Not beyond being immediate acquaintances with me."

Baliya blinked, turning to look at them. "But, what do you expect me to..."

"You're a consultant and friend of a certain Matriarch, one Councilor Tevos, I believe."

Tyra and Liara gasped at that, staring at Baliya.

"How do you..." Baliya blinked as she sat up straight. Then, she turned a suspicious eye at her terminal. "Have you been hacking into my..."

"There was a picture of you two on that wall," he said as he raised his thumb to point at a corner of the room. "Behind the boxes, I mean. I saw it when you asked for help with finding that one report, two years ago."

Her mouth went completely round as she blinked at him. "O-oh? I had a picture like that...? Uwah... Tevos would kill me if she knew I forgot about something like that..."

Whispering to herself in a quiet voice that only Emiya could hear, she got up to go fetch said picture, only to realize it was not there. Turning to Emiya, he pointed at the desk. "I put in on your desk back then. You never even noticed, did you?"

"Ah... Uh... D-don't tell her I forgot about it, she uh... Gets angry when I forget about her gifts like that..."

"That seems a rather common trend, huh," he remarked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's..." She coughed, clearing her throat as she sat down. She hastily moved on with the conversation. "If there are Spectres involved, I don't know what I could do to help. It is not as if I have any real power like that..."

"Tela Vasir, do you know her? She's the Spectre who is behind this," he said, amused that she was pretending nothing had happened just now.

"I—not really. You know that I do not pay much attention to outside things, Tevos is a friend and yes, she does ask for my help on occasion, but... What are you asking of me?"

"Just to keep these two here, until I've managed to sort things out," he said in a calm tone. "Nothing more. Just to keep them out of harm's way for a few days. I mean, it's not like you're going to be leaving the museum anyhow, is it?"

"Wait, you're leaving us here?" Tyra suddenly shouted, standing up.

"For some reason, they showed up at my house just before the Spectre made her move." Emiya went on, ignoring the outburst. "There's no reason for these two to be involved, yet that Spectre went out of her way to include them in all of this. I think she might be acting on her own here, that she might be corrupt or working another angle. I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem to fit."

With Tela Vasir taken out of commission for the moment, he was fairly certain someone else had taken them helm during the chase. He suspected someone from the STG or a local huntress, perhaps. Regardless, it seemed the they had no intention of harming the two asari he had had with him for the time being. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he knew that something about all if did not make any sense.

Baliya blinked, slowly nodding as she frowned. "But how can I help?"

He huffed at that. "You're _you_. That's all I need."

The Matriarch blinked at that, before turning to look at the two Maidens. Though the Matriarch's untouchable image had been quite effectively eroded, the two still sat up noticeably straighter under her gaze.

Liara in particular seemed like she wanted to ask a million questions right then and there.

Baliya sighed then, and he knew he had her help. "Very well, I shall... shelter them here for a time."

He nodded. "Thank you."

"Saiga, you can't just leave—" Tyra objected again, but paused as Liara had taken a hold of her arm, shaking her head at the standing asari.

"I'm leaving Thessia, soon." He looked at her and their eyes met.

"I..." She hesitated, looking away and breaking the eye-contact. Quietly she sat down again, eyes downcast and fists balled.

Noting that she seemed to have quieted down, he turned back to Baliya. "The second thing you can already probably guess."

"...That Prothan relic miss T'soni had?"

He nodded. "I found it on Mars and I need to know how old it is."

"Mars? But by the Citadel conventions, any finds in home system territory belong in whole to the race who inhabits the system. That is property of the Systems Alliance, I couldn't possibly—"

Liara jumped into the discussion then. "Please, professor. The site cannot be accessed through regular means if what he says is true. But, aside from his word there is no proof of it coming from Mars! Even if we were to return it now, they would not believe us."

Baliya frowned. "Do you believe it to be that important?"

Liara hesitated, glancing at Emiya who crossed his arms and sat silently. She nodded then. "I believe him, in so far as it can be tested. If he is right, then it could be the find of the millennia simply waiting to be excavated."

The curator followed her gaze, looking at him and trying to discern his thoughts. Finally, after several seconds of silent contemplation she nodded.

"Very well. It is not as if I will be able to let something like this remain, now that my curiosity has been piqued." Baliya stood up. "I don't know what you've gotten yourselves into and honestly, I don't want to even know. But I can't simply ignore an artifact like this when it has been brought before me. They can stay here while I investigate this relic, at the very least."

 _As expected of the shut-in collector; she's honest to her passions,_ Emiya thought while carefully keeping his face blank. Outwardly, he simply nodded.

"Thank you."

* * *

;

* * *

"Any signs?" Nihlus asked.

When no one answered, he knew that none were to be had. It had been an hour since they had lost track of the target and he knew that the longer they waited the worse their odds would grow.

The original assumption they had had was that Shirou Emiya was seeking to hide in the underground facility and to hack it once he had gotten to an exit. The worst case scenario they had prepared for was for every single skycar and shuttle in storage to be hacked and be sent flying out the parking hall. In the confusion of so many vehicles in the air, disappearing inside of one would be quite an effective tactic. For that reason, the Automatic Parking System's power source had been kept at a switch. The moment something unusual happened, they would shut off the system and in the confusion swoop in to look for him.

But he had been spotted trying to leave through one of the maintenance-ways. Did that mean he had been trying to escape through another route instead? Why had he taken the time to escape to the center of Serrice? It did not make sense.

Unless it had to do with the two asari he had with him.

With so much of their drone force taken out and with the scale and complexity of the underground complex, it was not looking good.

Previously the planetary quarantine had been acceptable due to an absolute certainty that the operation would be an exceedingly short on. A thorough precaution to keep the airspace clear in case the target attempted to flee or could bring in a support vehicle, to ensure that there would not be any uncontrollable factors at play and to allow the Serrice gunships to fight freely in the worst case scenario. As things took an unexpected turn for the worse, he was forced to extend the duration. The Council was certain to level complaints at him due to the monumental economical fallout of the extension, but as long as he could point to the ongoing chase he could defend himself.

But now that they had lost sight of him he no longer had anything to use as a shield. Were it any other world, a drawn out manhunt would certainly be his action of choice. But this was _Thessia_.

"Lift the quarantine."

Jondum Bau looked up, clearly startled. "Sir? But..."

"We'll not be able to find him as long as he knows we're looking for him. He can stay here for a month and hide. We _can't_ stay here for a month and keep watch. At least not if we wish to actually catch him," Nihlus stated, nodding to himself. "Thus, we must be proactive. We'll announce publicly that the operation was a success and fall back. Have the Serrice Guard stand down, but tell them to post guards at the public transportation facilities and to be on the lookout for accomplices. With travel restored, he will attempt to make a move."

"Do you think he would be arrogant enough to attempt something so obvious as using public transportation?"

The turian shook his head. "No, but we must make the attempt to appear as if we are doing something. As long as he thinks he knows what we are doing, we can act with impunity outside of that circumstance."

Jondum nodded slowly. "So he will attempt to leave on his own, then. But sir, won't he be able to escape?"

Nihlus shook his head. "Not if the AI are nearly as good as you people assured me that they are. The dossier said they would be able to scour through a hundred thousand systems in a minute. Or are they not sufficiently docile to be used?"

The salarian nodded, not wanting to disparage the STG's best weapons, though he still held obvious doubts regarding the change in plans.

"I see, we'll set a bait before him and force him to leave the city. With the satellite coverage and the AI, we will have a much better time of finding him the moment he can no longer hide underground," Jondum spoke.

"That, combined with the surveillance net created by the trailnet in all systems will allow us to monitor all extranet activity. Has the list of flagged search terms and sites been updated yet?"

"Yes, the operators will be monitoring for unusual activity while the AI are crawling through systems and looking for him. The Serrice extranet quarantine is in place as well for now. All outgoing traffic is being routed along the analysts," the salarian said, glancing at a team of physically plugged in cyber-operators who were busily working on their terminals at speeds that even he could not compare to.

"Good. But for now... we're going to Serrice as well."

Jondum looked up, rolling his eyes in surprise. "Sir?"

"Get the equipment ready, stun gun, rifle and all. We aren't going to find anything here." The turian flexed his mandibles, before he continued speaking. "Therefore, we need to get inside of his head. It's the essentials of hunting, to lead the head rather than to follow the tail."

Jondum nodded with understanding. "His apartment, then?"

"Of course," Nihlus said, revealing his teeth in a ferocious smile. "Where else but his roost, to know how he grooms his crest."

* * *

;

* * *

"You have all the necessary facilities here?" Emiya asked as he followed after the Matriarch.

He knew Baliya was an expert—it was why he had come here after all—but he hadn't known whether all the necessary facilities were here as well. Well, it made things easier since there would be no need to leave the campus grounds this way.

"Of course." Baliya huffed, though whether with indignation or with pride he couldn't quite tell from behind her. "The museum is not merely a place for storing and displaying items, after all. Especially one that is intrinsically so closely linked with the university; this is a place of learning, you know!"

Liara who was walking behind him added in her own piece, then. "Serrice is known far and wide for its museum. Not only because it holds so many items and pieces from all over the galaxy, but for being able to identify and analyze them with such precision. It would not be an exaggeration to say that almost half of what we know about the galaxy's pre-history is due to Professor Haphia's efforts!"

"I see," he said as he nodded. Glancing back, he eyed the subdued and quiet Tyra, wondering whether he had been too harsh on her for a moment before shaking aside that thought. "How does it work, then? Finding out how old the gun is, I mean."

"There are many ways of dating items, of course. It depends on what you're looking at and how much time and credits you are willing to spend on the effort," Liara explained. "For example, if you know that in a very specific time and place it was common to use very specific materials or techniques, then by recognizing those you can easily and quickly date and place an item."

"Indeed, this is called relative dating. However, for this gun I do not think such a thing will be enough. Such techniques are limited, and with highly advanced societies it becomes rather difficult to make any definitive conclusions. Especially for starfaring civilizations." Baliya stopped, turning to enter a section of the museum Emiya had never had cause to enter before.

"Therefore, we will be using something known as absolute dating instead. The university laboratory is one of the best in the galaxy!" Liara excitedly exclaimed, obviously being familiar with the place they were headed to.

"So it's radiocarbon dating, then." He nodded.

"No, that would not work." Baliya shook her head as she entered the lab. "Excuse me, I will be joining in unscheduled, apologies for the..."

Her words trailed off as she looked around the empty room.

Pristine white, was his first and only impression. White floor, white ceiling, white walls, white tables. It wasn't quite large, enough to fit twenty people working by the various terminals he noted. By each wall was a strange and unusual-looking machine, no doubt with a very specific and expensive function.

"Huh, it's empty? That's weird, it should be fully booked due to the Dretirop expedition returning... Oh well." Baliya shrugged, moving on without skipping a beat.

"Mind explaining why?" Emiya asked as he followed after her.

"Radiocarbon dating? I do not believe I have heard of that technique before..." Liara confessed.

"I am not surprised. It is one of the techniques humanity first used, I know. But on a wider scale it is simply too limited. Especially for studying the Protheans," Baliya said with a shake of head. "For one, it is only usable on organic matter, and it is quite sensitive to changes in the atmosphere. For accurate measurements, it requires that two specific carbon baselines be created, which can be costly and time-consuming. For planets that have long been inhabited and with sufficient records, this can be done. But for garden worlds with entirely unfamiliar ecosystems it is much too difficult." She shrugged, then. "That, and due to the half-life of carbon-14, it is of very little use in studying the Protheans in general."

"Hmm, I see," he nodded. "Though, it can be used for dating iron that has been heated using fuel created from biological material. It has been used extensively with iron age materials on Earth. Forged weapons and tools, I mean."

Baliya paused, raising an eyebrow at him. "Yes, now that I think about it, you're right. You're always knowledgeable about the strangest of things. Still, the oldest sample that can be used with radiocarbon dating is fifty thousand years, which the tail end of the sixth age aside, makes it rather useless for Prothean studies regardless."

"But the principles are the same?" Emiya asked.

"It depends. By comparing the amount of two substances in a sample it is possible to put a date to it, usually. For example with radiocarbon, one compares the stable carbon-12 with the slowly disappearing carbon-14 that is naturally formed in the atmosphere due to cosmic radiation," Baliya explained. "If one assumes both existed in equal amounts originally, then by comparing how much of the carbon-14 has disappeared then it become possible to say how old the item is. Usually, anyhow. It is not quite that easy, since one has to account for many factors along the way, but the principle is quite simple."

"For a pistol such as this, there are at least five main methods, no?" Liara noted and Baliya nodded. "Voltametric, magnetic imprint, thermoluminescene, radiometric and element zero dating."

"Indeed, those are the common methods. Though, they all work on very different principles. Carbon dating belonging to the last category. Take a seat," Baliya said as she began to turn on various terminals and lights in the laboratory. "Voltametric dating is useful for when the exact atmospheric conditions are known, as by comparing how well certain conductive materials are able to transfer electricity one is able to tell how long the item has been corroded. The poorer the conductivity, the older it is. Depending on materials, of course.

"Thermoluminescence is used on ceramic and minerals to discern when they were last heated. By heating up a sample and measuring the light emitted, it is possible to date the item. Of course, it is a rather destructive method, which makes it rather cumbersome to use."

"Like when glazed pottery was made, or when a certain soil was last affected by sunlight?" Emiya nodded.

"Exactly. Magnetic imprinting is quite simple and robust, simply being the records that various magnetic fields leave in metals. It is similar to how many civilizations use magnetic bands for storing information at one point or another. Every planet with a magnetic field is more or less unique, though this changes with time. It is not feasible to date an item purely through the imprint in a vacuum, but if you know a certain item is from a certain age and place and know its imprint, you can compare it to another item that might be harder to date and say they must have been made and used in the same place around the same time."

"Radiometry I already explained; it is the method of comparing the amounts of certain elements and isotopes that are prone to radioactive decay and comparing the amounts with what is known of various eras. It requires a very thorough timeline of the planets the materials have been taken from, which can be difficult with starfaring civilizations. The iridium might be from an asteroid, the frame metals from a moon and the rest of the materials from the planet it was created on. In the worst case scenarios, the materials are not even from the same system, which requires use to compare known trade routes and Mass Relay routes. It can quickly grow into incredibly complex levels," Baliya happily explained.

It was obvious that this was her passion and life, from the way she spoke. He was sure that when she said ' _incredibly complex_ ', what she really meant was ' _really interesting_ '.

"There are more methods, and generally we seek to use at least two methods for every piece. The first part of this process is to take the relic apart and discern what can be used for what methods. After that, we shall attempt to narrow down where it was made and only after that can we reliably begin to discern _when_ it was made."

Emiya nodded. "You need to know the conditions where it was created for the baseline."

"Exactly," Baliya said nodding. "Even if you use the exact same materials and methods, the location will leave a unique imprint regardless."

As she said that, she brought up a picture of Mars on one terminal. Beside the rust-colored planet lay columns and rows of information regarding the planet's current and past conditions. "I see... A very weak magnetic field and atmosphere. Well, assuming the standard Prothean life support, I can make some hypothetical baselines, through which..."

Emiya inhaled slowly, looking around. It seemed like there had been some kind of work going on here but that everyone had suddenly left. _Must be the evacuation._

As Baliya and Liara set about in taking a closer look at the pistol and trying to dismantle it, he set about in accessing the university extranet connection. Glancing at Tyra who was still quietly standing at the side, he closed his eyes. _Alright, to start with let's figure out what I can about Hosin and Roane._

It took him a few minutes but he finally found her. She was currently being held in a holding facility in Ulee, which was one of the largest centers of commerce on Thessia. Located at a higher altitude than most other Thessian cities and near the equator it was one of the easiest spots to get into orbit from. While mass effect technology had made it rather easy to get off of planets, when hundreds and thousands of ships had to get into outer space every day, every bit of fuel expended would make a difference. Especially on Thessia, with its strong gravity.

That actually worked out rather well for him, given that it was also where the Athena Nebula Central Bank lay, another place he had business at.

She was a criminal, of that there was no doubt. But he nonetheless felt the need to help her. She had been a rather harmless one, all things he knew considered. Eezo smuggling was by asari law a rather serious crime, though as far as he knew it was rarely punished with anything more than hefty fines and community service and a mark on your record. Certainly, something like that would make working difficult and it would remain a stain for hundreds of years, but she could live probably with that. He could not see how she had hurt anyone, given the sheer size of the eezo industry on Thessia.

But the impression he had gotten from Hosin's note was that things weren't quite that simple. The report filed to the Serrice Guard was little more than a note of holding, without anything pointing to the cause of the arrest.

As for the slippery quarian himself, he couldn't find anything about what had happened to the man or the asari child that had snuck onto his rental ship a few days prior. No arrest records had been made, no updates on the orbital stations official extranet site or on social media accounts. Nothing. _I'll have to assume he had some kind of plan which may or may not have worked._

Emiya blinked suddenly, frowning as he read the public announcement over Serrice networks. _They lifted the travel ban? That's..._

His attention was drawn to the two Prothean experts who were struggling with the pistol currently by a table under a bright light. Both were wearing rubber gloves as they tried to field strip the pistol by the looks of it, but weren't quite managing. Sighing, he got up and walked over to put on a pair of gloves himself as well.

"Here, let me," he said extending his hand with the palm up.

Baliya frowned at him, then. "Have you opened it before? This is important, it may have contaminated the insides if you have. There are tests which will still work, but..."

"I haven't," he reassured her. "It's in the same condition as I found it."

"He did however have it hidden away in his apartment wall," Liara noted, glancing at him sideways.

Baliya blinked before staring at him with slightly incredulous eyes.

"It's in exactly the state as when I found it," he repeated.

The curator nodded slowly, though it was clear that she did not quite believe him. Nonetheless, she handed it to him. Accepting it, he put his thumb in the slide release where the omniblade cartridge was stored. The two blinked as the empty container was popped out and placed on the table.

"That is..." Liara blinked as she picked up the omnigel cartridge. "Lubricant, perhaps?"

"It was for the blade the comes out from here, to here," he noted as he reached in with a thumb and worked the ammunition block loose, after which he could remove the rail slide off the top and get to the trigger mechanism and the internal computer.

"A blade? Why would there be a blade on the pistol?" Baliya asked. "Curious. Are you certain?"

"It's like a bayonet, and yes I am certain."

"...Did you use it?" She peered at him with suspicious eyes.

"No, I did not. Just take my word for it."

"Hmm..." Liara did not seem to believe him either, based on the knowing glances the two asari seemed to be exchanging.

He ignored them and set about in dismantling the pistol into all of its base components. Whether or not any of the absolute dating methods worked would have little to do with how he had pulled it out of a wall, he suspected. The question was, how faithful were his reproductions and how did this Noble Phantasm regard the hundred-some individual pistols that it original was? Was its age a composite of all the pistols he had seen, or was one chosen as a representative somehow?

Emiya had no idea and he was quite curious to know.

As he continued taking it apart,with great methodical precision and efficiency, as if he had done it a thousand times before and only applying just the right amount of force where dust and time made it necessary, Liara's and Baliya's surprise and awe at him continued to grow every passing second.

"You..."

"How are you able to do that so easily?" Baliya asked, peering closely as he took it down into ever smaller pieces. "I can see familiar design characteristics from common Prothean industrial methods, but I haven't ever seen a gun like this before... Are you sure you have not dismantled it before?"

"I know weapons, that's all," he said as he finished. The Protheans did not seem to use anything like screws or bolts, thus there was little need for any precision tools as could be necessary with modern firearms when it came to a complete strip down.

"I see..." The curator nodded slowly.

Taking a step back, he let them take over. At the same time, he returned his focus to his efforts in searching the extranet for useful information. As he tried to access the Ulee node to continue his search for Roane, he realized something had gone awry. It was just a subtle thing at first, but quickly enough he realized what was going on. _A man in the middle attack? No, I was directed to a shadow network?_

Baliya hummed thoughtfully as she began pointing out specific pieces as she spoke, more for Liara's benefit than his he suspected. "The silicate chips used in the computer can be dated using thermoluminescence usually, while the rails and capacitors can be usually dated with the a powerful enough magnetic reader. Of course, since one must know what kind of magnetic field it was used in to compare to the records, unless we know where it was made and used it becomes useless."

"Yes, I see. And with this surface rust, it should be possible to perform a non-invasive voltametric test to discover how much off the conductive materials have corroded." Liara nodded in understanding. "But unless we have an atmosphere sample, it will not be very reliable."

"Indeed," Baliya said as she looked at him with questioning eyes.

"Didn't think to take anything like that," he said with a shrug.

She sighed, nodding. "Well, it can't be helped."

As he prodded around the network, he gained more and more confidence that that was indeed the case. It seemed like much of the extranet traffic was being routed onto various mirror servers, created to look like the originals he was actually trying to access. It was not something as simple as merely copying and pasting a bunch of files and directories to make it appear the same on the surface, since hardware differences would stand out to someone keen enough. The STG must have brought out a ridiculously powerful computer of some kind and set up virtual machines to also look like the original machines the copies were being hosted on.

This was an elaborate and intricate honey trap set to catch him in the act, in other words.

A shadow cast by the original network, if one wanted to think about it in those terms. _Everything here is probably being monitored in real-time. Can't just disconnect; have to make it seem natural._ Most users relied on automatic searches and procedures, by manually going through directories as he was he already stood out from the masses and would raise suspicion. _Right, I'm using the university connection, I should use that._

Connecting to the shadow network's version of Ulee University, he accessed the local intranet and downloaded a publicly available lesson plan for the coming week before disconnecting from the network. It was an innocuous enough act to pass by the surveillance, he hoped. _Right, I'll need to actually fully dive in if I want to be able to look around properly without being traced down._

But with the signal problem in his brain, did he dare to do it here?

"Additionally, if we discover trace amounts of radioactive elements, we will also be able to use mass spectrometry. But unless there is very much of it, or the half-life is sufficiently long—in the range of hundreds of thousands of years and more—I doubt we will be able to find anything there."

"Prothean weapons usually do not have anything like that, do they?" Liara asked.

"You are right. Generally the quality control they employed was superb. But look here, see this?" Baliya pointed at the trigger mechanism.

"It looks different from the other metallic parts... A later replacement?"

Baliya nodded. "Just as we do today, the Protheans also performed field repairs with personal 3d printers—omnitools. While their industrial standards were top notch, omnigel is notorious for its ability to absorb trace amounts of other elements from the air."

Liara nodded with wide eyes, obviously taking mental notes as she listened.

Emiya listened with just one ear as he got back to keeping tabs on what was happening over the extranet locally. Though official channels were useless as usual and had nothing of actual substance to say, social media were at a constant buzz. There had been a level of censure at work with various posts and uploads being taken down in minutes, but he had still been able to catch glimpses of events through simply passively going through public websites. Now however that seemed to have changed.

Just as the quarantine was lifted and the Serrice Guard was pulling back, the information suppression and control that had been imposed on Serrice was also being removed. _Would the STG give up that easily?_

Something was going on. Which meant...

_I really should get moving._

He looked at the two asari by the table, excitedly going over the Prothean gunblade and discussing things at a rapid pace. Baliya may have been something of a loner and obsessed with her job to a rather unhealthy degree, but she was competent in a fight he knew. He had never seen her actually fighting, but her record was impressive nonetheless. She could keep those two safe and afterwards vouch for them, once things died down a little bit.

There was no reason for him to stay here then. _I can ask them later about the results. In fact by leaving I'll draw attention away from them, too._ He got up, turning to the door to leave.

"I'm going to get my backpack," he said simply as he moved for the door.

Liara glanced at him and giving him a dismissive wave of her hand, as if saying that he was not needed here. With an amused huff he left, the door closing behind him as he walked with brisk steps back the way they had come earlier.

In the office, he grabbed his backpack before pausing at the half-empty cups of coffee he had handed to Tyra and Liara. Setting down his gear he grabbed the cups and poured away already cold contents and then rinsing the cups before putting them back. As he did, he noticed his i'usushij again. They were little more than blunt training swords in the likeness of his favored blades, though he had gotten quite good with them nonetheless. _Well, might as well._

It wasn't like he had any weapons on hand, anyhow.

Emiya leaned down and grabbed them to test their heft and balance, examining the polish and shapes for any misuse since he had last seen them. They were fine, he noted before he spun them around in his hands, observing the internal structure with an application of Structural Analysis as he closed his eyes. _Hmm, they're a little bit anemic, since I made them specifically to be safe to use against others. Might as well beef them up a little..._

"—Trace _, on"—begin synchronization, begin projection,_

Expanding the internal structure of the hollow inside of the i'usuhij, he filled them with more eezo to beef them up. As they swelled in his hands, he cut off the excess steel and discarded it like so much ground out material excess material.

Opening his eyes, he looked them over and nodded with satisfaction. They were still blunt, but that was fine.

With a spinning flourish that ended with both blades in reverse grip in either hand, he with slow care slid them between his longcoat and hardsuit onto his back from below. The Van der Waals-strips on his hardsuit had not been affected by the electromagnetic pulse, meaning the patch he had applied on the blades easily locked into place on his upper back. With the hilts sticking down just above his waist, they felt decent enough on his back, and the longcoat hid them well enough.

He could draw them on a dime from a seemingly casual stance this way. It wasn't quite instantaneous projection, but it would do.

Grabbing his backpack and throwing it onto one shoulder, he nodded to himself. Giving the office one more look, he took his things and went for the door. But before he could pass through, it opened up before him and he stopped where he stood.

He blinked, meeting eyes with Tyra.

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda exhaled, eyeing all of the asari around her.

The hardsuit's helmet brought a sense of distance to them along with hiding her features, but she felt ill at ease nonetheless. They had landed on Thessia safely and unseen, arriving at the outskirts of Usaru. They had been picked up not soon after, their Injectors sequestered onto a larger ship and quickly hidden, as they were flown to the heart of Usaru.

Landing in an opulent palace, they had been greeted by a dozen asari clad in flowing purples and blues and guided in amidst song and dance.

If it had been meant to relax them, it had failed miserably. Kai Leng had almost gutted a pair of asari dancers as they attempted to shroud him in their silken sashes and Rasa had sped up her pace to walk past the guide to avoid being in the middle of the dancing entourage.

Miranda had had to remind them that they could ill afford offending their host, which had not helped any of their tempers at all.

"Matriarch Trellani will see you now," the asari before the said as she bowed deeply.

Miranda nodded and entered the chamber. Ahead and alone in the opulent room stood a voluptuous asari wearing a knowing smile and little else. _For someone seven hundred years old, she certainly has aged well..._

For a moment she wondered how she would age. She knew she would live in excess of one and half a hundred years, she had been told such many a time by her father's personal physicians. But how would she look in her dying days, she still wondered. There weren't any like her in the world, her sister aside. There was no telling how many of the performance enhancing modifications and tweaks would affect her later in life.

She was brought out of her musing as the asari gave a minute bow, causing a shimmering veil to appear on her body. All three humans blinked as they realized the Matriarch before them had been clothed all along, but that the material was such that it had appeared completely transparent for a moment. _She certainly does enjoy her theatrics._

"Welcome to the Usaru, dear friends," the asari spoke as she stood up. "I am Matriarch Trellani and I bid you peace and prosperity upon your greetings."

Miranda reached up for her hardsuit's helmet, taking it off with a hiss of the seals and a flourish of hands. "Thank you for receiving us, honored Matriarch, I am Miranda Lawson."

 _No need to introduce the help_ , she thought as she replicated a bow back at the asari.

"Please be seated, we have plenty of time to discuss over _uiia_ tea."

Miranda nodded and she sat down, dismissing Rasa and Kai Leng with a gesture. The real reason why she had been assigned as the head of this mission was quite simple; she was the only one with enough restraint to not destroy the tenuous alliance that had been forged with this Matriarch. Kai Leng had a proven record in combat while Rasa was an expert among experts when it came to infiltration and subversion.

But both had much too strong feelings when it came to the other races. A trait she did not share with either. Friend or foe, human or asari, it made no difference in the end. All that mattered was how useful someone could be.

As if thinking the very same thing, Matriarch Trellani gave Miranda small smile as they were seated. _Well, then... Let the negotiations begin._

* * *

;

* * *

"You're leaving, aren't you."

Emiya said nothing, staring down at Tyra who was blocking the doorway. Her tone wasn't so much a questioning one, as much as it was an accusing one.

"There's nothing more for me to do here, is there?" He raised an eyebrow.

She looked down, balling her fists. "Then, then take me with—"

"No."

Tyra blinked, looking up with wide eyes. There was shock and surprise in equal measure in them, as she tried to understand what he had just said.

"Why—"

"Because you would just get in my way."

She took a step back, tears welling in her eyes then. Yet, he did not feel moved by the display, since that was the truth. Stepping forward to walk past her he said simply, "Stay here. Tell Professor Haphia I'll be in contact at a later time."

He managed to walk five steps before she ran up to him and stopped in front of him. "Where are you going? Why can't you just stay here?"

Emiya said nothing as he stared down at her.

"If, if you're that guy redhax... Then you haven't done anything wrong! You said it yourself, they didn't want to kill you. And, and you're friends with that professor aren't you? She's a Matriarch and knows the Councilor, right? Can't, can't you just talk it out?"

"...I probably could," he admitted.

"Then, then!" Her eyes sparkled at that, he could see the rising hope and excitement at those words in them.

"But I won't."

She blinked, taking a step back as if he had struck her. She ground her teeth and it was obvious that she was growing agitated again. "But why not?"

"I see no reason to get involved with them. That's all there is to it."

Tyra shook her head, as if not a word he spoke made any sense. Then again, he supposed it wouldn't to someone like her. She was still young by her race's standards, barely out of her adolescence and with very little concept on independence.

Then again, it wasn't as if his reason for refusal was entirely logical.

She inhaled, glaring at him as she spoke. "Do you have some plan to get away? Like, like with the house and the parking hall? Do you really think you can just escape, just like that?"

"Not really." He shrugged. "Besides, as far as I know, they've called in reinforcements from the nearby systems. Since they've raised the quarantine on Thessia, they instead set a check by the Mass Relay, going through all leaving ships. Leaving Parnitha system is probably impossible."

"Then, then _why!?_ "

"I have things I need to do."

She opened her mouth, looking for words to say for several seconds before she closed her mouth with a click of her teeth. She looked away, her distress and confusion obvious.

"But, but can't you..." She inhaled, looking at him straight in the eyes. "Can't you just stay here?"

"No. Even if none of _this_ had happened," he said while gesturing vaguely with one hand. "I would still be leaving Thessia soon."

The silence stretched on for several moments.

"This is goodbye Tyra. I had fun, but all good things must come to an end," he said, patting her on the head as he walked past her.

As he left through the exit at the end of the hallway he thought he might have heard something, as he reached for the door he realized what he had heard.

Turning around, he was just in time to see as Tyra came running at him. Blinking, he side-stepped and caught her around the waist as she tried to tackle him.

"What are you...?" He tried to ask as she squirmed in his arm, turning around to stare at him with fierce eyes.

Emiya saw the slap coming a mile away, but resolved to take it without stopping. He didn't know what had caused this outburst, but he was certain he could weather through whatever she wished to throw at him to give her some peace of mind.

Of course, what he hadn't expected was the jolt of electricity running through his spine as the deceptively soft hand found his cheek. He realized only a moment too late, that she hadn't been trying to slap him, but to find purchase against his bare skin for a _meld_ as her eyes went completely black.

"What are— _you doing?"_

Immediately he pulled back completely, receding from his own mind and blanking out his whole being, becoming so transparent as to become one with the world.

" _Saiga...?_ " Tyra called out and he could make out her existence through the meld. " _Where are you...?_ "

At first he thought it might have been his cybernetics acting up, as he realized he could sense everything in double along with other ghostly sensations going through his mind. Almost instinctively, he reached out and realized he was seeing through her eyes. Reeling back, he pulled out and away and isolated himself wholly from any contact.

Focusing, he reached up with a hand and with careful slowness pushed her back and removed her hand from his cheek. The connection broke and he exhaled as he stared down at Tyra.

She seemed dazed and confused, before looking up at him with wide eyes with a tear rolling down her cheek. "It's... you're really like that on the inside too..."

He blinked, confused despite himself at that reaction.

"What?"

She looked up with murky eyes the seemed to be slowly clearing. "I... I wanted to be with you, to know you. But you, you wouldn't tell me anything, so, I—"

"Thought to figure it our for yourself more directly."

"Yeah..." She looked down, shaking her head as she stepped back half a pace away from him. "I... I know what you want to say—But, I _know_ you."

His eyebrows rose at that as he had no idea what she was talking about now.

"You're strong and kind, but stubborn and way too focused. I thought... I thought you needed someone to lean on, someone who could understand you..." She shook her head as she looked up at him. "But you're not like that at all. _At all._ It's like—it's like you can't accept any compromise or delay, you just keep going! I thought you were being too restless and too agitated now. That you were suffering with everything going on... But now I realize that this is your normal. It's _before_ that you were weird, when you were willing to just play around... just spend time with others aimlessly."

He inhaled slowly, narrowing his eyes at her.

"You're _empty_ , on the inside I mean. There's a hole inside of you..." She placed a hand against his chest, the palm pressing right where his heart was. "An emptiness that can never be filled, which keeps telling you to keep running forward. Constantly, without end. It's not that you won't stop, it's that you _can't_ anymore. It's like asking you to stop breathing..."

She shook her head.

"Not that this isn't enlightening, but where are you going with this? Did you really just try to force yourself on me for something like that?" He asked as he pushed her back from him. Standing at arm's length from her, he exhaled. "Well, are you satisfied with this? Whatever it was?"

"I... yeah." She looked up at him, locking eyes with him then. "I love you, you know. I know, it's just been... days? But, I know it's true. ' _Half a heartbeat to espy a hundred years' love_ ' as the song goes." He said nothing, raising an eyebrow which only made her let out a sad laugh. "And you don't care at all... There's no place for it in you, is there?"

Tyra shook her head, stepping back as she smiled at him. It was a melancholy, bittersweet thing.

He narrowed his eyes as he exhaled, wondering just how much had happened in that one instant. For one, he could feel his sense of touch and proprioception somewhat righting themselves from the contact with her.

And also...

He felt like he could understand her somehow. There was a moment of utter stillness, as _something_ about the asari as a whole simply clicked into place in his mind. It was the archetypal behavior patterns, which had still eluded him after years. Or just a hint of them, anyhow. Several illogical decisions he had not understood prior somehow began to make sense to him now. The long view on things, the understanding of others and the drive to help and guide through empathy...

Emiya shook his head.

"Sorry for being a bother." Tyra looked at him, putting her hands behind her back as she gave her best smile to him. "Goodbye, Saiga. Even if... No, I'm really glad I met you either way."

With that, she turned around and walked away.

He blinked, still reeling from what had happened. A part of him was angry, another was confused and a third was simply telling him to get over it and get moving.

Heeding the most useful line of thought, closed his mind and inhaled deeply. Holding his breath, he settled his mind and on the exhale blew out all of his conflicting thoughts. _Nothing to do with me, keep moving. Deal with it later._

Turning around, he left the museum.

Outside, Parnitha was starting to settle down the horizon already. In a few hours it would begin to get dark and as night fell, visibility would drop to zero without a light source.

That actually suited him quite well since it would make it more difficult for passive satellite surveillance to keep track of him. Making his way back to the underground parking hall, he moved by the concealment offered by trees and buildings.

While it would be quicker to move above ground it would also make an obvious trail for those trying to hunt him down to follow, which would negate the first layer of protection leaving Tyra and Liara at Baliya's.

Thus he made the same way he had come back to the underground parking hall. By now, with the help of the omnitool he had managed to sort out most of sight and hearing which made things easier, though most of his other senses were still rather difficult to differentiate between. He ignored the ghostly sensation of a brushing hand across his cheek. _It's enough that I won't need to constantly use Structural Analysis anymore, at least._

Though the planetary quarantine had been lifted, by no means was he through this,yet. Maintaining his stamina was still of the utmost importance.

Getting his way back to the asarihole, he removed the cover and jumped down, grabbing the ladder to halt long enough to be able to drag the cover back on. Since he would sooner or later reappear somewhere else, obvious questions would arise as to what he had been doing in the parking hall and where the two asari had disappeared. To counteract that, he had switched to pathways that could not be accessed without breaking walls, making sure to repair them after his passing so as to break his tracks. But even so, if someone stumbled here, they would surely start connecting the dots. Therefore...

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

Pushing outward with his magical energy he subtly changed the condition of the cover. By weakening the material's innate capacity to resist change, he was able to impart a patina that would have taken decades normally to occur. Just enough to make it an extremely tight fit, without making it obvious that it had been touched up. He hoped that would dissuade anyone down here from trying to look around topside too much, if they did come looking here. Then he simply dropped down into the darkness.

Landing on all fours, he exhaled and cycled his magical energy.

His eyesight was Reinforced and as he stood up he could see beyond the immediate range of the light pooling down from above. Not that he needed even that much. Even without Structural Analysis, he had already memorized the internal structure of this section well enough from this point to be able to move freely.

Setting a brisk pace, he started moving out.

* * *

;

* * *

"Good job."

Nihlus nodded as the porch door was opened by the salarian Spectre-candidate.

Jondum Bau nodded, giving way for the turian to enter the apartment. "Asari buildings are well ventilated. Had expected more dust, but appears he was a dutiful cleaner."

Nihlus walked in, eyeing the spartan décor and ascetic interior design with wary eyes as he answered. "Has the ground team managed to analyze the structure yet?"

"No. Difficulty getting samples making task difficult. Other means show no unusual features or materials for construction of house."

The turian's mandibles pulled back in a grimace. There was too much about all of this that did not make any sense. Looking around, he noted how the insides matched the footage taken by Tela Vasir's huntresses. He wanted to chew out the asari for failing to notice something as incredible as the house being a veritable fortress, but he knew that in all likelihood he would not have noticed anything either, had he been the one to look around.

They walked around going through every room, one at a time with weapons drawn and clearing them with slow and silent precision. As they did, it was growing increasingly clear how carefully this house had been chosen by their target.

"Did you notice it?"

The salarian nodded. "Windows everywhere. Should be structural weakness, but not. Gives him perfect awareness of nearly entire surrounding area. Does not match original blueprints, either. Self-modified."

"Yes. He built this place to withstand an _army,_ " Nihlus said as he turned to walk to the kitchen. Opening the fridge and pantry, he inhaled slowly. "Enough food to last weeks. He only used the bedroom, bodily needs disregarding."

Jondum Bau did not say anything, having concluded much the same. No matter how they looked at it, there were no answers to be had about this man. Only more questions.

"Who is this man? Where the hell did he even come from?"

"Sir?" Jondum asked, startled.

"Not talking about his records, we know that. But before the Systems Alliance Navy. He must have come from somewhere." The turian turned to face the Spectre-candidate. "You must know something, you have been investigating him for years now."

The salarian said nothing, rolling his eyes once.

Growling, Nihlus shook his head as he flexed his talons. "Fine, don't tell me."

"There..." Jondum said, before hesitating. As Nihlus paused, narrowing his eyes at the salarian, the candidate sighed and spoke in a low voice. "A few decades back, there was an incident."

The Spectre nodded slowly.

"A ghost ship appeared in the Antilin system. At first it was thought to be an asteroid of some kind, but upon closer inspection it was found to be a ship of some kind. Though it was quickly disovered to lack any kind of eezo core, causing the investigators to suspect it must have set forth from a system without a Mass Relay. Its power had long since run out, causing all of the ship's functions to cease working."

Nihlus listened without interruption, even as his talons itched to do something.

"As the ship was boarded it became apparent that it had no facilities for any kind of living beings. The ship had no life-support systems or other necessities for a crew. Yet it was obviously not any automated reconnaissance or scout ship either, as it was simply too overdimensioned to be something like that. It took the STG investigators some years to discover the true nature of the ship, after effort had been expended into decrypting the numerous computers on board.

"They found that it had been a last-ditch effort to survive by a civilization whose home system had been destroyed in a supernova."

"Wait, how...?"

Jondum hesitated, before leaning in to speak as quietly as he could. "The leading theory is that they somehow managed to upload their minds into the computers, hoping to use the numerous servers as some form of virtual world for themselves until they could escape their system."

The Spectre felt his blood run cold. "And you think Shirou Emiya might be a survivor from that vessel?"

Jondum did not deny it, though it was not a confirmation either. Instead, he continued speaking. "By referencing the heading of the ghost ship, it was noted that it could have also been headed for _Arcturus_."

"And if these aliens, the..."

"There is no official name, but the investigators have taken to calling them virtual aliens." Jondum supplied.

"These virtual aliens knew that they would run out of power, they would attempt to do something about it, wouldn't they? Something like sending a smaller, faster ship with the last of their power in hopes of perhaps letting some of their kind survive?" Nihlus supposed.

"It's possible, though so far very little proof has been found. But given what we have been able to piece together of their technology, we believe it might be possible."

Nihlus nodded in understanding, turning around. It did not explain everything, but it did give something of a clue for him to work with. "What can—What does the STG believe these ' _virtual aliens_ ' are able to do?"

"There were signs of a cloning facility of some kind, but it had malfunctioned at least a thousand years prior to the discovery of ship; radiation had spoiled all of the biological samples. The records we have been able to piece together... Well, you have seen the results in the past decades advancements of simulstim technology," Jondum said as he rolled his eyes nervously.

"Hmm... Why has the Council not been informed of this? At the very least, none of the material I had access to made any mention of this."

Jondum looked away. "They have, but insufficient evidence posits it as merely another hypothesis among a dozen others. This is merely the most probable theory according to the internal consensus among the Special Tasks Group."

"I see." The turian nodded slowly.

"There are..." Jondum hesitated for a moment. "There are certain factions which seem to believe it more strongly than others, though for reasons not bearing mention."

"Problematic factions?"

The salarian shook his head to denote a negative. "No, not as such. Simply... Some who are more _removed_ from the everyday operations."

Nihlus nodded, saying nothing. That would be the cyber-specialists then. Those who had taken their self-mutilation further than others, even beyond the common standards of the salarians. He knew of these internal divisions and he also knew there was little he could do about them. Certain salarians—male salarians—wished to push onwards with cybernetics research in hopes of transcending their mortal bodies. He could not fault them overly much, more than once he too had wondered at the most ancient of the STG's members keen insight and deep wells of experience.

What could salarians accomplish if their numbers could live beyond a hundred? Two hundred?

But it would not be. Something in their genome seemed dead-set on insuring that the quick-witted aliens would never see it on biological terms and among the Dalatrasses, anything which undermined their power and authority was a taboo of the highest order. Indeed, the Lystheni ' _offshoot_ ' of the salarians had become collectively persona non grata in all of Council space for crossing the Dalatrasses in this manner with their attempts to harness artificial wombs.

Nihlus shook his head, it was something to consider but for now...

Turning around, he continued walking around the house. He was noticing a certain pattern in the windows. Narrowing his eyes, he turned around and looked at the other windows.

"Now I see," Nihlus said as he arrived at the bedroom. This was the only window that did not look at anything outside. All the other windows looked at some angle or corner that an attacking ground force might use, but not this one.

Opening the glass door he walked onto the balcony and looked out. Before him, the Serrinan sea stretched out as far as the eye could see, with nothing else in sight until he walked out far enough to be able to see over the edge.

The turian revealed a ferocious grin, baring sharp teeth as he made a small satisfied laugh. "The marina, huh."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya looked around as the skycar slowed down and began to descend near the shore of the Serrinan sea.

He had managed to run through the underground hallways until he found another exit and then found a public skycab that he could take from where he had jumped out. The only unusual thing he had encountered along the way was the troupe of asari huntresses sweeping through the parking hall. In groups of five and armed with numerous lights, they seemed to still be searching for any signs of him. But they hadn't been any trouble, given how much space there was and the fact that they were walking around with brights lights in the darkness.

As he had hopped into the skycab he had of course spoofed the internal cameras and set it on a slow course towards his true destination while keeping his eyes open for anything. His faith in his superiority in cyber-warfare had been waning as of late, but it was still better to take the risk with a skycab than to try to walk out in the open and be spotted by a satellite.

As the cab landed, he paid the fare and jumped out. Having projected a large-brimmed summer hat he had seen some asari wearing to protect from the sunlight, he hope it would be enough to keep any satellites off of his back so long that he managed to make it to the RX-5.

Ahead he could see numerous low buildings and huts, dotting the beachfront and built along the long strip of golden sand. It looked quite alike many of the paradise beaches on Earth, especially with the setting Parnitha giving everything a golden-brown hue. Turning towards the front gate to the piers, he looked out. There was not a soul in sight. Usually, even this late into the day there would be hundreds if not dozens of beach-goers still around.

Setting out, he walked the rest of the way as he kept his eyes open. So far, he had managed to avoid getting spotted or into a fight along the way, which was good. Of course that was mostly due to the fact that the Serrice Guard had pulled back and the drones had disappeared from the sky. He didn't buy it for a second that they had given up on the search, but it did seem that they knew better than to overplay their hands. A quarantine would have required him to wait it out, sitting in hiding somewhere for days or weeks until he could find a safe way out.

But he suspected that was time he did not have if he still wished to pursue the trail he had figured out for finding Professor Henell. He had to first get to Ulee, for a variety of reasons now.

Walking through the gate, he entered the marina he could see from his bedroom balcony. Countless ships and boats of varying sizes, styles and shapes were moored by various piers. Asari by nature had a connection to the sea, he had noticed and noted many a time before. Which led to the prevalence and popularity of using various seafaring vessels, from all over the galaxy. Curious and socially conscious as they were, asari had ships of all kinds of designs here.

Lately, human surfing boards had been a huge boom, especially windsurfing and supposedly there were efforts for creating biotically powered versions already in the works.

Leaving Serrice once he had been made would be difficult, he had always known. To justify taking the risk of living here, he had meticulously planned out and prepared for various eventualities once the truth had been revealed. Including means of getting out from Serrice. By air was no good, once he had been made and they knew what to look for. Air control was too tight and he would be far too vulnerable to starships and satellites. By land was also difficult, due to the limited roads in a society that had always been able to use advanced hovercraft.

That left him with just the sea. The asari did not in general have advanced naval forces due to the immediate superiority of their hovercraft in most conflicts, and there were very few restrictions out at sea for his free movement. As long as he found the right ocean current, getting to whatever city he desired would be a simple matter. Though Ulee was some 700 kilometers away as the bird flew, he should be able to get the by sea without too much trouble.

Emiya slowed down, coming to a complete stop as he exhaled.

"Beautiful sunset, isn't it?" A turian wearing a black hardsuit with red highlights spoke as he walked out into the open, some thirty meters away. His dark scales were highlighted by an intricate pattern of white paint on his face and a pair of green eyes seemed to be glowing from his deep-set eyes.

Emiya nodded, glancing at the setting sun as it dyed the Serrinan sea a molten red. They turian spoke in standard turian, so Emiya thought it appropriate to answer in kind.

"So it is. Thought a few days back that I really should go fishing some day while I still had time for it. The clear sea reflects the night sky and stars with incredible clarity. The fish come to the surface and their scales glitter with the moonlight like a hundred stars more, too," Emiya said, shrugging. "Or so I hear, anyhow. Pity, I won't have time for it now."

"Are you so sure? Is there no room for talk between us; must we be enemies?"

Emiya smirked then, looking at the stranger. "What's this? A turian who is willing to negotiate before shooting? I thought those were just a myth."

The turian laughed despite himself, his mandibles quivering with amusement.

"I am an, ah, how do you say it... something of an ' _odd bird'_ among my kind _,_ you, yourself? Will you disprove the myth of human inability to back down and admit fault? We can still work this out, I believe."

"Unfortunately, I've made it a point to make stubbornness my most outstanding characteristic," Emiya said with an amused smirk, noting that something about the way the question had been asked seemed strange. "So I will have to refuse."

"Ah, I see." The turian nodded. "The very same stubbornness that let you cling to life as you hurled yourself through the dark of space from your broken ship?"

Emiya shrugged, saying nothing to that. _He's fishing for a reaction to something he's saying._

The silence stretched just to the point of awkwardness, and the turian admitted that he would not be getting an answer. "What of the two asari you had with you. I don't see them anywhere."

"Well, I wonder."

The turian's eye twitched at that, before letting out a sigh of annoyance. "Very well, then. Shirou Emiya, Saiga Fujimura, ' _Redhax'_ , whoever you are... I am placing you under arrest by the authority bestowed upon me by the Citadel Council."

"Oh, what for?" Emiya asked with some amusement as he raised a hand to his hat. "For all the dust you have kicked up today, I can't seem to recall exactly for what crime I'm being persecuted."

"That can be decided later," the implacable turian said. "At a more suitable time and location."

Emiya nodded, inhaling and then performing a lighting fast pirouette as he spun on one foot in place, taking off his hat with a flourish as he did.

The turian blinked, taking a step back.

There was a moment of utter silence as Emiya reached into the hat and pulled out something. Holding it between two fingers, he let out an impressed whistle. It was a metal cylinder about the size of his index finger. Looking up at the turian, he flicked the tip with a finger, causing a sharp needle-tip to shoot out and spurt a clear liquid into the air.

"Armor-piercing tranquilizer dart shot from a silenced sub-sonic rifle from behind, while you acted as a distraction. And if I'm not entirely off the mark, the gunship in the distance is bringing in your reinforcements. You certainly did come prepared, even if you might not have expected to find me here," Emiya said as he tossed aside hat and dart over his shoulder. "But what now? Don't tell me that was all?"

"You... what are you?"

"Hmm?"

The turian ground his teeth, then. "No matter how I look at you, you aren't human at all."

Emiya shrugged as he took a step forward, beginning to walk towards the turian. "Does it really matter?"

The black armored figure took a step back, his arm shooting for his waist and pulling out a shotgun. "Hold it!"

"Well, what will you do? I'm unarmed as you can see, but are you fine with killing me? I can tell, it's just you two here right now. Do you really think you can take me on with those odds? Might as well let me pass and try your luck later, no?" Emiya spoke with a smirk as he continued walking slowly towards the turian.

"I can't do that. You've disrupted too many lives with your reckless vigilantism."

Emiya had to chuckle at that, as he looked away. "Right, ' _disrupted',_ huh."

The turian did not seem to understand what he was getting hung up on as he held his ground, raising the shotgun and drawing a bead on Emiya. "I said hold it!"

Emiya didn't bother so much as slowing down, walking right past the hesitating turian. _If you can't even muster the courage to look me in the eye then how do you expect me to take your demands seriously._

However, one step after passing the turian by, Emiya sensed _something_. Not quite killing intent or bloodlust, but a form of determined intent nonetheless. His arm reached for the small of his back and finding the left blade instantly, drawing it out as he spun on his foot and turned around.

The blade flashed, cutting down a wire and causing it to become tangled around his sword in mid-air as their eyes met. _A mid-range stun-gun?_

There was a quiet crackle an instant later, as the turian had pressed the trigger on the stun-gun, not having realized yet that it had been struck aside. The steel blade conducted electricity just fine, causing the eezo inside to react a bit peculiarly as the various functions warred inside, but he held on with sheer force as the hardsuit protected him from shock.

The turian realized he had failed half a second later as his eyes shot wide at the blunt sword in Emiya's hand. He jumped back, dropping the stun-gun and turning around to jump again. Emiya had to blink as he realized the turian's hardsuit was equipped with a jetpack, as a second later the alien was flying away by the combination of a mass effect field and small thrusters to give him lift.

Emiya considered chasing after the turian for a moment, before shaking his head and swinging his sword once to clear it of the spooled wire. With another twirling flourish, he sheathed it on his back again under the longcoat and turned to leave.

He made perhaps fifteen meters before he realized that someone was aiming at him, as the hairs on the back of his neck rose with the realization of someone directing hostility at him.

With no time to dodge, he tried to raise his arm to cover his head as suddenly a sledgehammer-like blow struck him in his ribs before his arm had even made it to shoulder-level. All the air in his lungs was forced out of his body as the combination of his longcoat and the hardsuit's protection kept him in one piece.

His body was thrown backwards from the impact and he lost his balance, but rolling with impact he managed to recover and jump for the concealment of a corner.

Emiya exhaled, gingerly feeling at his ribs. _That was definitely with strong intent, did they expect a kinetic barrier?_

It didn't strike him as that turian's work. The sniper who had been in hiding acting on their own? No, it was from a completely different angle. _In that direction, the nearest vantage point would be the apartment block where I live. The reinforcements? No, the gunship is still coming from that direction._ It was difficult to tell, with so little information to go by, but he judged that a third party was joining in. Listening deeply, he closed his eyes. _Can't hear anyone trying to approach. Acting alone, or can they suppress sound?_

He exhaled and ignore the pain, pushing outwards with his magical energy into his hardsuit and the longcoat to feel it out with his Structural Analysis. The hardsuit had taken a good hit but was mostly fine, having dispersed most of the blow over his body. On the other hand, the fibers of the synthetic weave and all of the diamene layers had taken a real beating from the shot, frayed and broken by the impact. _That's fine, it's why I made the damn thing._

With a second exhale, he pushed outwards and repaired the image of the weave, causing the longcoat's side to return to its former pristine state. Layered light defense that could be repaired when he had the chance to breathe, that was what he had originally settled on as his mode of protection in life.

"I really should have brought that damn helmet..." He cursed under his breath as he got up and began to move out again. The pain that should have been radiating purely from his ribs was being spread out into his other senses as well, causing him to hear a tingling, wind chime-like sound as he started running.

Moving from cover to concealment, avoiding open ground and moving in a predictable manner he kept moving towards the marina. Weaving between small sheds and benches and tables, he moved through the various restaurants and shops that faced the beach. It wasn't much more to the rental shop.

As long as he could—Emiya froze in his tracks as he suddenly felt something coming from the distance. He frowned, realizing it was a mass effect field. It wasn't large, not compared to any ship he had been onboard. But somehow it was _deeper,_ in a way he hadn't felt before. As if...

His eyes show wide open as he burst into a full sprint. He knew this build up sequence; it was a common move in i'usu. A biotic used Charge to cover a large distance which built up a lot of internal static which they dumped into their Barriers, allowing them to soak up ludicrous amounts of damage, followed by an omni-directional blast of force in all directions using all of that pent up power.

He had just managed to make twenty meters when the deep _thum_ of something impacting against the ground with the force of a runaway starship, which could not only be heard but _felt._

Then, a second later the burst of pure force went off behind him.

Emiya was nearly thrown off his feet as chairs, tables, potted plants and entire walls were sent flying by the flash of brilliant blue behind him. He rolled for cover as he slowly inhaled. They called it a _Nova_ and with good reason, the biotic power truly worthy of the name of a sudden explosive appearance of a new star.

He blinked as he realized something was _off_ , then.

In i'usu it was a common enough maneuver that he knew it by heart by now. It was risky, but extremely strong if done at the right moment. The Charge could bridge the distance between two combatants instantly and unbalance even a guarded opponent, with the follow up Nova exploding with such power that few would be able to remain conscious through it, much less standing and ready to keep fighting.

But since it was an _explosion_ of power that drew upon one's biotic barrier for power, it inevitably left the user drained and without protection for a moment after the charge. He had experienced it often enough to know the timing; side-step and strike them down in the moment just after the charge to abuse that weakness.

 _Something is different,_ he realized as instead of dissipating and vanishing, the pent up biotic force of the Nova seemed to suffuse the air around him in a large bubble, with the center of the Nova as the middle.

He blinked, realizing how it was familiar. It was just like how biotic chef's sensed through their fields, meaning. _Even if she can't see me—_

Emiya jumped to the side and an instant later a large slab of stone—that had been a restaurant terrace floor tile, he noted absently—was sent flying through the spot where he had just been. He judged that it must easily weigh over twenty kilograms and had to have been going at the speeds of a full speed biotiball, as it shattered in the distance behind him. Standing up, he came face to face with an asari who was slowly walking out of the large crater she had formed with her explosive entry. Even through the tendrils and flares of dark energy dancing across that furious face, he could recognize a Matriarch immediately.

"Where is _she?_ "

The sheer anger in that voice, along with the depth and distortion to the sound from the mass effect fields around her made him pause for a second.

Then, he huffed as he made to shrug.

"You're going to have to be a little bit more specific than that," he said as he dropped the backpack onto the ground. It would just get in the way now. "Since there's about five and a half billion ' _shes_ ' around here."

In a split second a second slab of the terrace floor was ripped loose and sent flying like a spinning frisbee straight at his legs, aimed to shatter both of his knees.

He jumped up and over it, but a third was coming directly for his chest while he was in the air and unable to dodge.

His left arm shot to his waist and the blade was drawn in a reverse grip as he pulled it up in front of his torso at a sharp angle, laying it against his right forearm for support. The slab of floor tile impacted and slid off of the i'usushij, flying to the side at an angle and impacting against another restaurants large windows with a loud clatter as he landed.

"Mm, no. Can't say that rings any bells," he said as he tilted his head while crossing his arms while still holding onto the curved blade in reverse-grip. "Try saying it with _words_ , that usually works."

"You bastard!" She glared at him, almost frothing at the mouth.

In the blink of an eye the Matriarch had punched out four times, sending out four bright blue orbs of biotics at him that flew at him with incredible speeds. He recognized them as a _Pull & Throw_ double combo immediately, something designed to pull him off his feet and then send him flying off at into the distance with a concussion in the best of circumstances.

Most could do a single pair.

The Matriarch had thrown a double and was setting up a Shockwave to follow in their immediate wake. Jumping to the side, he hooked up a chair with his blade and threw it in the way of the first Pull, as at the same time he jumped behind the cover of a marble fountain just in time to hear the second Pull and Throw impact against it and fail to move the heavy stone. He knew biotics could curve around cover, but only when used at an angle; here should be safe from the attacks. The chair was sent flying over his head at breakneck speeds a moment later as the Throw following the first Pull sent it flying. He didn't stay there, as he knew the Shockwave was coming right after.

Jumping up and running for cover, he could hear as the marble fountain was torn into pieces and sent flying all over the surrounding area by the Shockwave.

Before he could got out from the open, he felt the familiar build up of force again. _Another Charge,_ Emiya thought as he turned on his heel and flipped the sword in his hand before throwing it out into a spinning arc away from him. Bending his knees, he inhaled and then sprang straight up.

A second later the Matriarch came Charging through the spot he had been standing in, running past below him and hitting a wall behind him with enough force to send the souvenir shop it belonged to flying in pieces away from her.

At the top of his ascent, Emiya kicked out with his leg at full extension causing him to spin around as he drew the second i'usushij from his back and sent it flying straight for the unguarded back of the Matriarch who had yet to realize she had missed. At the same time, the left hand sword he had thrown first was coming around in a curving flight path to hit her in the open flank.

The two thrown i'usushij would hit her at ninety degree angles to each other.

Though the basic shape was similar enough to his favorite twin blades, in fact they were quite different in design. The right blade was essentially unchanged, but the left blade had a subtle change made to its blade and center of balance. Through lift generated by the wing-like airfoil design on the left i'usushij and through the gyroscopic precession, when in flight the blade would curve back towards him at a specific angle, dependent on the rotational spin it had been imparted comparative to the forward speed.

In effect, it flew like a returning boomerang.

The right blade hit the back of the Matriarch first, impacting against the biotic barrier without doing any harm to her. Or so it should have been, given that Emiya had thrown it in mid-air with not solid ground to take support against for his throw. But as it impacted against the Matriarch's back, it hit her like a rocket-propelled sledgehammer, sending her two steps forward as it drained most of the biotic barrier's power.

A second later, he hit the ground and burst forward like a rocket.

The asari was turning around, causing her back to be turned towards the incoming second blade that was curving right for her at this moment.

Their eyes met the moment before it struck her and he could see his own smirk reflected in them right before she flinched at the impact at her back. The curving left sword was much slower, but it was enough to drain the last of the Barrier, causing a halo of blue sparks to shatter off of the asari's form.

She had just enough time to open her eyes from her flinch to see him jumping up to give her a spinning jump-kick to the chest, which sent her flying back into the small shack she had moments before blown away with her Charge.

Landing again, Emiya crouched and grabbed the left blade and taking it into a very specific and unusual grip the he would normally never have taken. Sparks were coming off of the blade, as it seemed ready to discharge a bolt of electricity any moment now. _Good, both internal capacitors are charged!_

He struck out, parting the air with the flat of the blade as suddenly the air shimmered around the i'usushij. A crackle of lighting shot forward, licking the ground as the capacitor discharged.

The Matriach rose up just in time to see him, as the blue bolt exploded forward and struck her in the chest and made her weightless. Her eyes shot wide open at the realization that she was floating in the air now. But he wasn't done yet; the return swing which was performed with the same very specific and unusual grip reversed followed immediately after, causing another blue bolt to shoot forward like a javelin. It hit her right where the first had, sending her flying into the distance over dozens of small houses and huts at breakneck speeds.

The good old one-two combo with Pull & Throw was a classic for a reason. It just worked.

"And that's a _home run_ ," he mused as he picked up the right hand i'usushij and put both back between his coat and hardsuit. Though he knew that she was still completely fine and uninjured, having sensed that she had been able to regain control and exert her biotics before she hit the ground, and that another ten or so asari were coming for him from the direction of his house at a considerable pace. Additionally, the gunship was getting dangerously close. _I should keep moving, getting tangled up with too many fights will be bad._

A second later as he turned around and moved a step, a sniper's round missed him as it flew through the spot he had just been in. Zig-zagging he ran back to grab his backpack before turning up a notch to sprint towards the sea. Disappearing between the various shacks and huts, he snuck away from sight even as he could hear the Matriarch returning for round two.

Running on the beach at such speed that he was sending entire plumes of sand up several meters into the air with every step, he ignore the glowing red Parnitha as it was glowing its last for the day. Getting into the sea, he continued running as the water splashed all around him. Bending his knees, he leaped the remaining fifteen meters onto the floating beach hut.

Backhanding the door window, he opened it and entered as quickly as he could. Closing the door behind him he dropped everything on the floor.

Tossing aside the longcoat, he began to tear off the hardsuit as quickly as he could.

Looking out through the window he tried to see if he was being followed, but so far no one seemed to be on his tracks. Getting naked, he tore open the back back and up-ended its contents on the floor. Turning around, he looked at the row of lockers on the one side of the hut. Finding the ones he wanted, he grabbed the i'usushij off of the floor and smashed the locks. Pulling out a waterproof waistbag, he took only what he needed from the various things on the floor before throwing it aside by the corner.

It was designed such that once he was underwater it would settle between his legs to minimize his drag profile as much as possible. The backpack would have made it impossible to move in comparison as if nearly doubled his drag profile.

Reaching into another locker he pulled out the spare hardsuit he had left there and used Structural Analysis to instantly perform the seal and material checks as he began to hastily put it on. It was just a light design, with a set of features he thought would be useful, with the core design on energy efficiency. Snapping on the last of the seals, he grabbed the waterproof waistbag and put it on. Looking down at the floor, he decided that he would have to leave the longcoat behind, along with most of his food and drink due to the size of the waterproof bag.

He glanced out one more time, scanning the immediate surroundings before he crouched down and promptly ate the rest of his pemmican supplies and emptied another liter of water on the spot.

Rounding up everything he had brought with him that he would not be taking, he stuffed it all in the backpack and closed it tightly. Grabbing the pair of i'usushij he considered them for a moment, before with a shrug placing them on the back Van der Waals-strips like before. The seawater would play havoc on them, but he might as well take them along.

Standing up, he went to the last locker and took out the first RX-5.

Yellow, about the size of a fire extinguisher and twice as heavy, it was essentially a very expensive toy called a sea scooter. Making use of no mass effect technology, it was nothing more than a portable propeller that you strapped to your arm so it could drag you along under water.

And it was his ticket out of Serrice. The two of them, anyhow.

He pushed one onto his right arm and the other to his left, adjusting the internal straps to his hardsuit's forarms, leaving his hands and finger free to move. Crouching down, he took the hardsuit's helmet and put it on, along with taking out the fresh batteries set charge in the locker. The batteries cost three times as much as the scooters and hardsuit put together did, each. And he had two for the scooters and one for his hardsuit here. As the helmet's heads up display booted to life, he noted with satisfaction at the battery charges displayed.

Couldn't go wrong with two months of operation time in low power mode.

Reaching in for one last thing, he grabbed a belt with extra oxygen capsules and put it on his waist. It was for his hardsuit, for when he needed to switch. He had specifically chosen a design capable of hot-switching oxygen capsules this time around, having learned from that one trip he had gone through with issues before.

Emiya did a double and triple check of everything, before he finally let out a sigh of satisfaction. Turning around, he opened the floor hatch that led straight into the sea and tossed in the backpack. Checking that he hadn't left any obvious signs of his passing beyond the broken locks, he nodded. Not that it would matter much, given that he was probably still under live satellites surveillance right now. Shrugging, he jumped in after the sinking backpack.

It was time to say goodbye to Serrice.

* * *

;

* * *

"Where is he?" Nihlus ground out, stomping up to the seated Matriarch. "Where _the hell is he?_ "

She looked up slowly, the fire in her eyes still alive by died to little more than crackling embers. But the turian did not back down, clenching his talons as his mandibles flexed.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be here right now, _turian_."

He exhaled slowly, nodding as he tried to gather his thoughts. He had just pulled back, only for the Matriarch to come barreling with her own commandos. The turian felt like his head was about to explode as everything was about to go very wrong, very quickly, right before his eyes.

Only for human to almost effortlessly beat back the one thousand year old asari warrior. Almost as effortlessly as he had called the turian's own stand. _Stop thinking about it, it didn't mean anything. Focus on the mission!_

Yet, those piercing eyes staring back at him from the other side of the shotgun's sights would not leave his memory. Burned in as they were. Nihlus was rattled, he knew it. But he couldn't accept it.

"Do you realize what you are doing?" Nihlus asked, leaning is so closely he could have bitten her nose off. "Do you realize just who you are obstructing here? I am a Spectre! Sent here by the damned Council itself! Who the hell do you think you are—"

"That bastard killed my _daughter!_ " Aethyta roared as she suddenly stood up. "I don't care who or what you are, no one... No one! No one... is getting in my way until I've..."

Nihlus inhaled slowly, then. "I am placing you under—"

" _Sir, we have satellite on him! He's running north of your position, headed for the beach!_ " Jondum's voice broke off his line of thought, then.

He shook his head, taking a step back as he focused on the mental exercises for focus and clarity he had trained a thousand times before. Exhaling, he turned on his foot and started running at top speed as he followed Jondum's instructions.

Finding the floating beach hut, he arrived a minute after the gunship had brought in a full squad of STG operatives who were scouring through the hut. Using his jump jets, he leaped all the way to the hut and entered, pushing past two STG operators stationed by the door.

"Where is he?"

The salarian officer of the squad looked up, rolling his eyes before pointing at the open floor hatch that showed the dark waters below.

"Where is _he_?!" Nihlus shouted.

"He's gone, sir," a salarian replied.

"Then find him! He can't be far!"

The salarians looked at each other. "Sir, he's underwater and it's too dark."

"Parnitha below horizon, visibility below water extremely poor."

"Extreme diffusion of radar and lidar, requires specific sonar equipment."

Nihlus growled, grabbing the nearest salarian. "Then fetch the gear they were using earlier!"

"Pointless. Could not find rogue Justicar during day time with better preparations. Suspect underwater vehicle capable of hiding from scans, picked up both. No hope of finding him now."

"Damn it!" Nihlus exhaled slowly, before lashing out with his talons and hitting a locker as hard as he could. _I had him within an arm's length!_

Unnoticed by the turian, the salarians exchanged silent glances. One of their number looked up from an omnitool and subtly nodded at the officer.

In response, they smiled in unison for just an instant.

* * *

;

* * *

CODEX:

**5\. [ Unnamed i'usushij practice blades ]**

Simple blades made in the likeness of Kanshou and Bakuya by Emiya in his efforts to understand how eezo functions. However in his efforts to experiment with the i'usu biotics he ended up modifying them considerably. He personally believes them to be half-baked works in progress still.

They function along the same principle as many natural biotics do, by using a minor current to create a minor mass effect field which ends up pulling a greater charge into the eezo core, which can then be charged in a capacitor and be used again. The exact way this occurs is still not wholly understood, but it has long been noted that the natural bio-electricity the asari body produces does not account for the power their natural biotics can exhibit. By reproducing this phenomena, ancient asari smiths were able to create a layered blade with an internal capacitor that allows it to store up the static build up that occurs through use of mass effect fields, to power up even greater mass effect fields.

The right-hand blade has a rather simple function that had yet to be considerably expanded in any way, along with having a wholly unaltered external shape. It's sole enhancement lies in using the Lorentz force to produce a current into two nodes of eezo in the blade, that are activated to create a slight field which acts to further empower the field to create a feedback loop. The final output of this current is forked into two simple eezo formations that cause the blade to accelerate forward.

The eezo formation is specifically designed to only activate when the blade is thrown in a way that causes it to spin, with the mass effect fields working to give the spinning blade a boost in rotational and forward speed. In effect, once loosed in a throw this blade will speed up as if propelled by a rocket and strike with much more force than merely the throw would impart on it.

The second blade that was designed for the left hand is much more complex in design. The primary function is set to simply create a small mass effect field that feeds charge into a pair of capacitors, with the physical build made to act as a left-hand boomerang—though it can still be used as a normal sword great without issue. When thrown, it will grow slightly lighter while also building up a charge like any other eezo core in use. Once a sufficient build up has been accrued, the secondary function is letting the capacitors discharge into the eezo formation inside the blade using a specific types of movement to connect the two. These movements are not used normally within swordsmanship, thus to accidentally trigger the effect would require sheer dumb luck. The stored functions are the two of the simplest of biotic powers, known as _Pull_ and _Throw_ and are used in conjunction for great effect.

With practice, throwing them in rapid succession is possible to create a very quick one-two biotic combo.

The left hand blades design is made as a rough copy of a more complex i'usushij blade stored in the Musem of the University of Serrice—the Serri'usushij as it is commonly called—designed with somewhat similar ideas in mind as far as Emiya has been able to decipher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Tactical Tunic for proofreading.
> 
> This was a weird chapter in that I wasn't really sure how to handle Tyra. Like I've note prior, drama and character interactions are my biggest weakness, so any feedback on that account would be greatly appreciated.


	23. DO NOT FEED THE LOBSTERS

The darkness was absolute.

Emiya could not see a single thing no matter where he looked or how he tried to focus. A hundred meters; ten; a single arm's length ahead?

It did not matter; it was all equally obscured and unknowable. There was nothing beyond the dimly glowing HUD that could be seen in this world of the deeps. Though he had long since turned all of those off as it was simply more expedient to directly monitor everything with his cybernetics. That, and the dim lights had become increasingly blinding as he got more and more used to the darkness of the sea. Through the suit, he could distantly feel the slight vibrations of the RX-5 sea scooters that were propelling him through the sea at a clipped 20 kilometers an hour. It was not a speed with which he could effectively get to Ulee, but it was enough to get him out of the immediate surveillance zone around Serrice.

Once he was far enough away, he could kick it up a notch and really start working it. But not quite yet; just to be safe.

In the void that surrounded him, it seemed as though nothing existed beyond himself. He could hear nothing but his own breathing and heartbeat, as the rushing water against his helmet turned to white noise in his ears and began to fade with every passing minute all but lost already to his perception. His sense of touch was equally muted, the pressurized and normalized state of his hardsuit keeping him safely sealed away from any of the abyss' cold touch. Even his sense of smell and taste seemed to be confused by this state, as the oxygen from his suit seemed to take on a curious odor and taste; he found himself breathing through his nose and tasting the air as if he was sipping an aged wine and trying to oxygenate the beverage by the act. He would have been more worried if he hadn't been able to just write it off as an after-effect of the drone EMP attack he was still sorting out in his head.

Though eventually he had to judge that it was merely his brain becoming bored and trying to find _anything_ interesting to sense, rather than a lingering malaise from that event. Nonetheless, this state of affairs and slow travel left him with plenty of time to think and look back at what had happened so far.

Stifling another yawn, he focused on keeping his eyes open. It had effectively been _days_ since he had last slept; the return trip from Dretirop, meeting with Hosin, returning to his house, the subsequent siege and escape...

There hadn't been any time to rest and his body _was_ still only human. _Later. Can't stop or rest yet._

He tried to focus on what he thought relevant; Tela Vasir; the STG; the turian and the unknown Matriarch who had suddenly appeared and tried to attack him. Were they all connected, or were they various factions at play against one another? If he could play them off one another, it would give him more openings and options to work with, he knew. Yet his thoughts inevitably were drawn back to Tyra. He could feel the touch against his cheek again and for a moment he almost tried to brush it away through his helmet with a flare of some unknown emotion.

It wasn't quite anger, but there was definite annoyance in his heart.

After all, he had felt like he had _understood_ the asari a little better now. It wasn't that they were too alien before, it was that he hadn't been able to see them for how _similar_ they were to humans, too distracted by the various factors at play in molding their peculiarities. The human concept of femininity didn't quite apply to them, but at the same time many of humanity's feminine archetypes fit them to a T. It felt like he could understand many of the seemingly illogical choices and decisions he had seen in the past week a little bit better, by framing it in that protective-mother-warrior _ethos._ It wasn't like he could understand the asari as a whole now or that he knew the way, but it was a definite seed from which a whole understanding of their logos could— _would_ sprout one day.

Which was exactly what he had _not_ wanted. It was the very opposite of his carefully laid plans and efforts, having something like that simply dropped into his head was making a mess of everything.

"Damn it, Tyra..." He grumbled, even as he knew how she had felt. How many scenes and tales like that had he seen in passing?

For the asari who predominantly mated outside their own species, how much hardship and struggle did they have to face to succeed? Certainly, they were attractive and alluring—but they were also exceedingly alien and overwhelming.

It was an unusual inversion of sorts; the asari may have looked female, but it was they who predominantly had to woo their partners proactively. This 'courting' was just as complex and varied as most all things the asari did; it began with understanding and probing, moving onto befriending and seducing, and when that failed onto more overt signs of affection. And finally moving onto outright melding with the other, when nothing else worked.

Humans wrote, enacted and enjoyed epics of various kinds. But oftentimes it was conquest, exploration and success in the face of overwhelming odds that appealed to most. Be it by wit, luck or sheer fortitude, the act of heroic spirit seemed to manifest the logos of humanity to such an extent that it spoke to the soul of all who witnessed it.

It was why humanity so enjoyed sports and competition; to see others _rise to the challenge_ , to meet head on with the impossible and to surpass it through blinding brilliance. The asari also had something like that; something similar, which spoke to the very core of their being.

Wasn't that the premise of that one vid he had seen? The ' _Antilin Affair_ ', or something?

He vaguely remembered it, having watched it through his cybernetics while tinkering with one thing or another some years ago. It was nominally based on actual events that had happened a long time ago, the kind of historical romance that shaped the future of the galaxy for decades and centuries afterwards. A young asari meeting an equally young salarian Dalatrass out in the Antilin system, where the salarians were struggling to build up a new colony. The emotional and vibrant asari Maiden who had come as an ambassador's daughter, playing off with the to-the-point and serious salarian female leader of the new colony, the budding friendship slowly growing into something more, until the Dalatrass—burdened so greatly by her duties and the necessity of using her gender for crafting alliances with other clans through breeding contracts—broke off the friendship.

The vid was a long one, where all of these various stages of asari courtship were showed in great and realistic detail—according to the various critics at the time of its release at least, though it was still considered a classic several hundred years later. And it showed perfectly that last stage of almost forceful melding; the one desperate, last ditch effort that had become the classic climax to any great asari love story.

Melding with them as goodbyes were made, to bare their whole self and cut past all that lay between two souls to declare with their whole being;

' _I love you!_ '

Of course Tyra would do something like that, he realized now in hindsight.

Her entire damn culture glorified the act of falling in love with a member of another race and managing to overcome their differences to arrive at a mutual understanding, more than anything else in the entire galaxy.

_No wonder professor Baliya called me 'maidenbait', when I tried to express my annoyance with tiresome neighbors,_ he thought with annoyance afterthought. _I must have seemed straight out of a story to some; a lone member of a new race, alone and closed off. Silent and sullen, simply begging for someone to open up to... Or something like that._

Emiya shook his head, closing his eyes at the growing headache he could feel pulsing in beat with his heart. With some annoyance, he simply flicked off the pain receptors and felt as his mind cleared again.

He should have seen it coming a mile away yet he hadn't, having closed off such thoughts thinking them nothing but a hindrance. Perhaps that was the root of his problem; just as he had now compartmentalized his annoyance away, so too he refused to deal with anything that was not directly related to his... _What can I even call it? My 'quest'? 'Mission'?_

He shook his head. Here he was paying the price now for all that.

This seed had been lain by a _living asari_ ,willingly handing him the key to understanding her race. He didn't have any Protheans lining up to do the same thing with their race, now did he? The plan he had been working by was to begin by using the i'usushij—the various asari swords in the museum—as his 'seed'. To _learn_ _how to learn_. That way, he could learn how to do it more easily with the gunblade.

But his carelessness and one asari maiden had shattered that plan well and truly, now; he had come into too close a contact with an asari; his mind had been given a cheat-sheet that would make learning the rest a much simpler matter; his _sample_ had been **_contaminated_** _._ He may well have to start all over on some other planet, seeking to learn their logos from the beginning again.

Five years. Five years he had spent on Thessia. Every day working on trying to crack the asari logos, with very little to show for his efforts. Had it been wasted? Was it all for nothing, now? He couldn't quite say. But if he _had to_ say right at that moment what he thought, then...

Emiya shook his head, focusing on his present surroundings once more, instead of dwelling on his aggravation. He had made mistakes but dwelling on them at this point was meaningless. And that damn headache was pressing at his temples again, despite his efforts to ignore it. Taking a long breath, he forcefully repressed the throbbing in his head.

For the _n_ th time, he wondered whether he was in the right heading before he repressed that urge to swim to the surface to make sure. On a still enough ocean, anything popping up to the surface could be spotted hundreds of miles away with lidar, and if the area was being monitored with orbital surveillance he might be spotted, depending on the cloud coverage. He had to stay beneath the water for as long as possible.

Without the RX-5s's internal sensors that could accurately map out heading and velocity as it superimposed it against the inertial navigation system and mapping, he would have no means of navigating this deep underwater. It wasn't a standard program either; he had had to copy and apply some old human submarine software to work here. There weren't many ways around the problem of navigating underwater; radio and light-signals simply diffused too quickly in water to be of any use and there weren't any maps of the Thessian seafloor that he could use as the asari stayed the hell away from the deep waters. Hell, at this depth even if he vacated his body he would not have to worry about any signal escaping his cybernetic parts, even if a ship capable of intercepting it were to be right above him by the surface. Water was just that troublesome.

With just his human senses he would not even be able to tell up from down, much less which way he was actually headed.

The fact that it was night did not help either, but he knew that at this depth it would not make one iota of difference whether it was day or night. Judging from the pressure sensor, he knew he was some half a kilometer below the surface. At this depth, he was experiencing more than fifty times the atmospheric pressure he was used to on the surface. The crushing pressure of all that water above him was dangerous in more than the mere mass of the liquid pressing into him, too.

On Earth, at 40 meters depth in water the amount of nitrogen in 'air' being inhaled would cause one to become intoxicated—almost _drunk_ —and the deeper one went the worse the effects would become. The Raptures of the Deep, the Martini effect or simply Narcosis, was something that occurred with most if not all gases short of helium. At 60 meters depth, oxygen itself would become highly toxic and could even cause seizures. At the depth of a 100 or more meters, pressure would become such a major issue that it required slow decompression for hours for someone to safely return to the surface.

The deep sea was _dangerous_.

And that was just on Earth; on Thessia the higher gravity and amounts of eezo made things even dicier. Worse yet, for all the love the asari held for the sea, very few had any interest in deep sea diving—for good reason, he knew—which made the amount of information available to him of the dangers he might face ever scarcer.

With such a hurdle, he had certainly hesitated when first considering using the Serrinan sea as his escape route. But once he considered how unlikely pursuit would be, he accepted the risks and set about in making it become possible for him to dive away.

Of course, he was cheating as usual.

Wearing the hardsuit he had left behind for a day just like this one, he was essentially diving in a small pressurized personal submarine. All those problems with diving at various depths and having to depressurize slowly to return to the surface? No longer a thing he had to worry about at all; the hardsuit kept him completely sealed and safe. The hardsuit had even been modified to be able to withstand the pressures of the extreme deep as well.

_Another one?_ He frowned, coming to a halt with a mental command to the pair of RX-5s on his forearms.

Some four hundred meters ahead, a cataclysmic shift suddenly occurred and he had to reverse thrust to avoid being sucked in. It lasted a whole minute, before the waters calmed once more. He exhaled as he began to move out again, trusting his ability to sense the shifting to keep him safe.

_The asari aren't dumb to stay the hell away from here_ , he thought again. _Without my ability to sense mass effects directly, I would have never dared to come here._

As he had left Serrice, he had followed the bottom of the long beachfront for a good five kilometers before he could properly submerge to depths where he felt safe from surface scans. Of course, they had used small floating buoys to try using sonar, but he had been able to evade them with relative ease by following the contours of the seafloor. The bottom of the Serrinan sea had been quite shallow, fifty meters at most for the majority of the way until it started deepening. After that, it was akin to running into the edge of cliff as the bottom vanished into darkness deep below.

Since then he had stuck to the half a kilometer depth, thinking himself safe there.

Early on he had been able to see the moon and stars with some clarity along with plentiful fish and plant-life, but as he had sunk through the threshold into the ' _Twilight Zone_ ' of depth, all signs of plant-life seemed to disappear. No doubt due to the vanishing amounts of light that could shine through the water above.

Emiya had been moving out for well over an hour by now. At this depth and distance from the shore, he reasoned it would be safe to pick up his pace. Simply put, he had been taking it slow until now to remain undetected. Though radar and lidar turned mostly useless at this depth, sonar remained _very_ effective. And there were two methods of use for sonar; active and passive.

Active was similar to how lidar and radar worked, and how certain species of bats could 'see' in the dark. By bouncing forward a sound and listening to the returning echo, it was possible to fairly accurately judge what was ahead and how far away. Passive sonar was essentially simply shutting up and _listening_. Since water allowed sound to propagate faster and at places further, it was a very good way of keeping track of one's surroundings. Additionally, by shutting up one usually could also avoid others who might be listening in at the same time.

Simply put, if he went too fast he would be loud enough that anyone with an ' _ear_ ' in the water would be able to hear and locate him, making his means of escape worthless. There was no point in escaping to the water if someone could simply fly over the water and keep tracking him with a sonar until he decided to get out of the water, after all.

But he judged it was time to finally kick it up a notch and get some distance. The sea scooters could handle it, but he still needed to make one more modification.

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

Exhaling, he focused on the right-hand RX-5 until he found the propeller. As he would be setting it to higher rotations and no longer needed to worry about the sound it generated, its shape would have to change accordingly. Propeller design could not achieve everything with a singular design; speed, power and sound. There would always be a cost equal to the benefit each form could offer. Thus, as it was time to switch from silence to celerity, it had to change.

_That, and if I simply kick up the rpm in this form the cavitation will shred the propellers in no time. I need something that can handle the rotational speed,_ he thought as he began to change the shape, number, alignment and angle of the propellers with his magical energy. It was quite easy, something he had originally found surprising. But what was a propeller, but a blade meant to unevenly part gases or liquids? He even had a nice collection for reference in his reality marble, even if he never bothered to bring them out.

As he repeated the exercise with his left-hand RX-5, he exhaled and cut off the connection.

_Alright, let's see how well these perform,_ he thought as he resumed his journey. The sound was surprising and overwhelming for a moment, though not nearly as much as the sudden increase in velocity was; his arms felt like they might pop out of their sockets for a moment as his body resisted the speeds at which the pair of sea scooters was pulling him forward. The inertial navigation system could not keep up as it seemed to cap out at four times his previous velocity, which meant he could only judge his heading for now.

At some point he would have to surface and refer to the stars to confirm his position and heading again. Well, what would be, would be. Making himself as flat as he could he imagine himself momentarily flying through the air before he shook his head. _Well, flights of fancy from boredom are good in a sense, it means nothing is_ —

— _CLICK_

Emiya paused as suddenly felt like someone had slapped him in the back of his neck. He blinked, realizing with sudden surprise that he had been pinged just now with an active sonar pulse. Which meant that someone had been listening around with passive sonar until now and he had been found. _But I made sure that Serrice had no vehicles capable of deep sea exploration! How did..._

He focused, throwing aside his jumbled thoughts as he analyzed the situation.

Consulting his inertial navigation system, he proceeded to sink another 200 meters as he continued moving at more than 80 kilometers an hour. Running Structural Analysis, he made certain that the whole of the hardsuit was able to handle the pressure with each descending meter. He had not yet Reinforced it, but at this rate it might just become necessary as he continued descending into the sea.

—CLICK

As another 'slap' hit him, he cursed under his breath. _Fine, change of tactics—Trace on, begin projection,_

Creating a sound absorbing shield of anechoic tiling—a sound absorbing design that worked by having numerous small voids inside of a polymer material, all designed to absorb sounds of varying frequencies at different depths—he turned off his RX-5 and let himself slowly continue sinking. Taking cover behind his makeshift shield, he continued slowly monitoring his depth and how well his suit was handling it as he waited. As he began to cross the one kilometer depth mark, he decided that he didn't want to take any risks.

While carefully Reinforcing his hardsuit, he began to swim by kicking with his legs while using the massive shield as a rudder of sorts. The hardsuit had attachable flippers at the feet and the sound shield he had made was large enough that it should cover most of the sound his feet made, so as long as they didn't get close enough for a visual he should be safe.

Of course, this was much slower than the use of his RX-5 sea scooters. But such was an underwater game of Marco Polo.

He counted at least four additional pings that would have revealed his position again, before he finally spotted something approaching. First he could sense the approaching mass effect field above him, some four hundred meters to his left and above. As it continued to move around in a spiraling search pattern and come ever closer, Emiya finally could begin to see the thing with his eyes.

It had numerous lights on all sides, which was all he could see at first. But as it went past him, he could finally recognize the vessel for what it was; a salarian starship. _The STG made something like that, huh?_ _I really underestimated them. At this rate, it's just a matter of time until they find me._

Well, he wouldn't make it easy for them.

Continuing to slowly sink, he swam onward at a sedate pace. The starship-cum-sub occasionally moved past him still some hundred meters above, as it continued to look for him. It continued pinging around, he realized as he saw a school of dead Thessian fish slowly rising upwards. _A powerful enough sonar is lethal to aquatic life. Just how strong a pulse are they using?_

Well, sooner or later they would start looking elsewhere. Though how he would keep moving fast enough to escape them was—

Emiya blinked, realizing with growing horror that _something_ was building up at his exact location. Or rather, in a region of the sea that stretched on for hundreds of meters in all directions from his position; the very things he had been seeking to avoid for all the time he had been submerged. _I need to get out of here right now!_

Kicking aside the shield he turned on the RX-5 and began to kick away at full speed to support the sea scooters' acceleration. It wasn't even in the direction he had been traveling in before, but rather toward the direction that would most quickly get him the hell out of the _danger zone_. No one sane came to these deep waters and there was a good reason for that; there was an incredible amount of fine eezo particles in the ocean, more than in all the mines the asari had been working for millennia even. Eezo which was highly conductive and receptive to the electrical charges the oceans induced in dynamo-like interaction with Thessia's magnetic fields.

Simply put, the various seas could use biotics on a scale that boggled the mortal mind. Mother nature was top Matriarch, even—or rather, _especially_ —on Thessia.

The salarian starship instantly noticed him as he began to hastily move away from where he could feel the incoming mass effect field building up. It was like the slow rolling pressure of an incoming typhoon against his sense of the world; a humongous and swirling thing, almost alive in its own right as it sought to manifest itself in the world as a massive storm. The salarians turned around and began to make chase and were quickly beginning to catch up. But he paid no mind to that, counting the seconds as he could feel the build up of the truly massive charge that was being created by the Serrinan sea itself feeding into a mass effect field of a size beyond anything short of the Mass Relays behind him.

It was like the ride up towards the highest peak of a roller coaster, only rather than an exhilarating ride down all that would await him would be a biotic storm like nothing he had ever experienced or particularly wished to experience.

Emiya kicked forward for his life as he realized what was forming behind him. A ' _whirlpool_ '; a massive phenomena where water would begin to be sucked as a mass effect field formed below the surface, that began to make the water's mass increase causing it to fall towards the bottom and thus pull more water from above to fill for what was being pushed downwards. At least it did not seem to exceed the Voaszia Critical Threshold, meaning it would be a relatively minor whirlpool, as far as such events could be called minor. But if he was caught in it, it would drag him to the bottom of the sea in as if he had been flushed down a drain.

An experience he had no intention of going through.

He was already a hundred meters beyond the outer edge of the field itself, but he knew that wouldn't be enough since it would begin guzzling water soon to fill in for all the water it would be spouting down. Once it had enough to form a self-feeding loop he knew he would be safe, but for that he still needed to be at least over a kilometer away.

The further, the better.

He swam at full force, pushing the RX-5 to their utmost limit as he accelerated beyond anything the machines had been rated for, even after he had tinkered with them. IF he had to keep this up for much longer they would overheat and begin melting down, surely.

— _CLICK_

Behind him the salarian starship was catching up to him, but it was obvious they had not realized what was going on yet. If they had, they would not bother with trying to find him with their sonar but rather would be using that prodigious speed they had displayed before when they were looking for him to get the hell away from the whirlpool.

_Shit, it's already started sucking in water!_ Emiya pushed magical energy into his body, Reinforcing it even beyond its normal limits as he tried to swim away. It wasn't enough to continue advancing at the speed he had before, but for the time being it seemed to be enough to keep away from the massive mass effect field behind him, his velocity enough to keep from being dragged in.

The salarians seemed to finally realize something was going on, as suddenly they were slowing down despite their best attempts at catch up to him. They were still above him, behind only some hundred and twenty meters. But it was close enough to the edge of the _black hole_ -like whirlpool to affect them much more than him. He was near the half-way point of the whirlpool, where it would be pushing water downwards, where as the salarian starship-cum-sub was much nearer to the top of the whirlpool where it was sucking in huge amounts of water.

That height difference was more than enough to negate all of the massive engine output of the starship and slowly start dragging them in. The RX-5 were running at full blast, the shaking of the propellers enough to make his teeth rattle as he continued to kick forward at all his might to keep from being pulled backwards. _Just a little bit more... Just a little bit more!_

Suddenly the current pulling him backwards eased and he began to shoot forward at nearly full speed again. The whirlpool had formed underwater, but as it reached the surface of the water and managed to bring it down, it would stop pulling in adjacent water directly as it began to spin instead and pull the water in at an angle, much like an emptying drain or sink. With that, he was free from the majority of the whirlpool's pull.

He realized only a second later that the salarians had not been so lucky; they had been taken in by the whirlpool and suddenly become airborne as a deep chasm had been pulled down into the Serrinan sea with them inside of the emptied cone. It was a massive hole into the ocean, swirling waters emptying out through like a hole in the bottom of a sink.

Only the bottom of the whirlpool was some kilometer from the surface of the water. _And this isn't even a big one,_ he realized with some latent horror as he tried to re-adjust his heading. The mark of a large whirlpool was that it also included a warp field from having surpassed the Voaszia Critical Threshold. After that, it would be like a snowball rolling down hill, only growing more and more potent as it fed off of its own movement.

Had that been the case, he doubted he would have been able to get away at all.

Emiya slowed down as he realized the salarians did not have enough time to recover. _It's a starship, can't they fly away?_

He could sense as the vessel was caught by the whirlpool and pulled down into the depths. Shaking his head and figuring he had gotten lucky, he turned to leave. He would have to surface to check the stars to adjust his heading once he got far enough away from the whirlpool for it to be safe, which would leave him at risk of being found. Though it was probably too dark for satellites or orbital surveillance to find him, on a relatively still sea radar and lidar could be used to detect anything above the surface of the water. He would have to find a spot with high enough waves that he would not be discovered.

It was only as he began to pick up speed that he noticed something.

_The mass effect field disappeared?_ He blinked, slowing down with a mental command to the RX-5s. Peering into the darkness, as if effort and frowning could pierce the veil of absolute black before him, he tried to sense for the starship's eezo core. It was nowhere to be found. That could only mean something had happened; no one would willing turn off their engines at the bottom of the sea, right?

_How deep were they pushed? Did they hit bottom? Is their hull strong enough to even withstand that kind of pressure?_ He hesitated despite himself. He could almost imagine what would happen to a starship once it was pulled too deep. Depending on how strongly the ship was built without the support of mass effect fields, they might still well be alive down there. Or it might have been instantly crushed. Perhaps the hull was merely leaking massively at the moment and they still survived. Or maybe they were simply re-booting the engines and were completely fine. It wasn't like he had time to be leisurely, but at the same time...

"It's not like I can just abandon them, either."

Emiya exhaled, fogging up the helmet's insides as he sensed the truly massive whirlpool in the distance. It was like an underwater tornado, pulling everything down and slamming it into the ocean floor once it was through with it. A monster that could not be opposed, only moved around and avoided.

Sighing, he began to approach it again as he continued to go even deeper. The lower he was in comparison to the center of the mass effect field that was generating the whirlpool the safer he would be, as it was only pulling in water from above itself.

Soon enough he could _see_ it. It was a shining blue spire that seemed to reach out of the dark depths, connecting seafloor and surface in a pillar of light. The flaring blue light of the dark energy emissions were staggering in their beauty, sparkling and shifting with otherworldly undulations that were almost hypnotizing. He had to stop and admire the thing for a moment, though soon enough his awe was replaced with a healthy concern and respect for the thing as he moved to avoid it. Hardsuit or not, his mortal body would be cracked open and crushed in an instant if he was pulled into that whirlpool.

Shaking his head he began to descend towards the bottom, letting the sea scooters pull him deeper and deeper. If the starship-cum-sub had been pushed down, then it couldn't be too far from the bottom of the whirlpool he reasoned, the increased mass would have surely made it sink to the bottom of the sea. He could only look around blindly, groping in the dark as without the ability to sense its mass effect field, he was effectively completely blind here.

He turned on the headlights on his helmet, testing that it worked and how far it was able to light his surroundings. Powerful and illuminating, they provided some 3000 lumens of light at the cost of tripling his power consumption. Satisfied that the light worked and that he couldn't see a damn thing anyhow, he turned it off again.

The sea scooters continued pulling him down, but after a moment he noticed something was wrong.

Emiya stopped, realizing that the RX-5 were beginning to struggle with the depth. Reversing his heading he pulled up some fifty meters as he examined the two sea scooters for damage. There was a crack along the inside of the frame, where the swooping lines of the aesthetic design created a structural weak-point for compression. _They're fine, but the frame can't handle the pressure at these depths, huh._

He hoped that the starship was made more robustly than the RX-5, since he wasn't even anywhere near the bottom yet. Checking the measurements he noted he was already at some two kilometers below the surface, yet the bottom was nowhere to be seen. _...Weren't the military submarines of my time rated for half a kilometer usually?_

The designs of a starship that sought to escape the trappings of gravity and a submarine that sought to withstand the massive pressure of the underwater had two utterly opposed design philosophies on paper. How could something that was usually made to be as light as possible possibly be sturdy enough to handle these depths?

_Should I give up? They're probably dead already..._ Shaking his head, he removed the two sea scooters from his arm and tied them together with a projected rope. Noting that he probably wouldn't find them if he simply let go, he also projected Kanshou and attached it to the rope's end. With that, he turned on the internal ballast tanks. They filled with a lighter-than-water gas as a pair of balloons popped out of their frames. Letting go, he watched as the sea scooters and sword vanished upwards, pulled upwards as their density was overwhelmingly lesser than that of the surrounding water. Only a second later did he wonder whether the whirlpool might pull them in and destroy them anyhow, as the whirlpool widened near the top.

Sighing and deciding that what was done was done, he turned around and began to look downwards again. Deciding that the easiest way to sink was to simply sink, he projected one of the great 10 meter long bronze swords from Norway and grabbed the hilt with his arms as he set to stand on the crossguard.

The massive blade began to sink rapidly, parting water with the point of the blade as he continued to pick up speed. Exhaling, he closed his eyes and focused.

_'—Trace, on'—begin synchronization,_

Given that the sea scooters couldn't handle the pressure at these depths it was obvious that he should be worried about himself as well. The mental image of being crushed like a ripe tomato by a massive hand ran through his mind's eye unbidden, though he knew that he could probably survive even without his hardsuit for a few minutes.

Pushing his magical energy with care outwards, he took the utmost care to Reinforce the hardsuit in every manner he possibly could. From the outer layers to the inner lining, the seals and joints, the oxygen supply system and the metallic wireframe that resisted the pressure of all the surrounding water and kept the internal pressure normalized. This wasn't the place for a quick hack-job; this was the time and place if there ever was one to take all the time in the world to make sure his work was flawless.

With a slow, almost shuddering exhale he faced the abyss below him. He chuckled then, realizing that the root for the word 'abyss' stemmed from the Greek word for 'bottomless' with a sudden flash of recollection. And it was also the word used on Earth to describe the ocean four kilometers below the surface; abyssopelagic layer. _I hope I won't have to go that damn deep._

Then again, given how quickly he was sinking on top of his huge bronze sword, he might well have already reached such depths minutes ago. For now, his hardsuit was holding and he had enough air to keep breathing for another six hours.

Something flashed in the distance, a dancing pinprick of light that disappeared as soon as he spotted it.

Emiya blinked, shaking his head as he wished he was able to rub his eyes for a moment despite the helmet. Frowning, he peered into the depths below. He wasn't certain if he had seen some deep sea creatures that created light to lure in prey, or if he had seen some flare of dark energy created by eezo and oceanic induction or if he was simply beginning to see hallucinations due to some side-effect of going so deep. He performed a set of slow breathing as he continued to sink, ignoring the occasional flash of ghostly lights in the corners of his vision.

"Just _prisoner's cinema_ ," he said with a scoff. "Nothing more."

He turned around suddenly, blinking as he felt like he had suddenly heard someone whispering behind him. Frowning as he reached up, he blinked as he wondered at the resurrected sensation of someone touching his cheek.

_It's nothing_ , he thought as he cycled his magical energy and focused on what was below him. Turning on his headlight he peered down, but as he saw nothing he turned it back off to conserve his power. A second later he thought he might have seen something large swimming above him as he continued to sink in the darkness. ... _Was that just some huge sea creature? No, I must have imagined it. Nothing that big could survive this deep down._

He waited, realizing that he was nervously tapping his fingers as he continued sinking. Pointedly forcing himself to stop, he exhaled. Turning on the light again, he blinked as he realized something was rapidly coming up below him. It was the bottom of the sea. Checking his suit with Structural Analysis, he was satisfied that it was still holding up to the pressure.

Surprisingly, it wasn't difficult at all to move either. He would have expected the pressure to have made it more difficult to move at the bottom of the sea, but apparently it wasn't. Jumping off the sword before it sunk into the bottom of the sea halfway the length of the blade, he looked around as he slowly sank next to it.

He landed beside it with some ease, looking around with the headlight in all directions. There didn't seem to be much of anything this deep down, he noted as he began to move around.

There was just the white, featureless bottom of the ocean floor that stretched as far as his light could reach, along with the small particles of something floating in the water as his movements kicked up things from the bottom.

Taking the rough direction he knew to be the rough direction of the whirlpool's center above, he started looking around. Strangely enough, it didn't feel like he was swimming at the bottom of the sea despite everything. The fact that he was swimming aside, it felt like he was simply moving along on a dark winter night, given how white and smooth the ground beneath him looked and given how little beyond the immediate range of his light he could see.

More than anything, it simply felt _timeless_ down here.

In the dark abyss of the seafloor, nothing was moving beyond the seafloor he was kicking up with his passing. The only thing he found of note was the sensation of something in the distance, just beyond his range of detection. _It's not a mass effect field, but..._

Before he could focus on it, it seemed to disappear. This happened several times, even as he continued looking around with slow and methodical care. Until finally...

Emiya paused as he heard a sudden sound. Tilting his head, he frowned. It sounded like someone was hitting a rock; a high pitched _click_ like two stones being banged together. The kind of sound that would travel effectively through water due to its high pitch, echoing in your bones as it passed by. _That's not sonar... Can't be good,_ he thought as he picked up his pace and tried to find the source.

Swimming faster and slowly finding the source of the strange sound, he found the salarian starship. He halted, looking around with the headlight as he beheld the starship stuck in the bottom of the sea. It looked to be in relatively good condition, even if parts of the ship seemed to be leaking, judging by the bubbles of air escaping slowly through dozens of small cracks. _What's making that sound...?_

Moving around he came to a complete halt as he beheld a lobster-like creature behind the sunken vessel. It was standing on the bottom of the sea, facing the ship by the looks of it and prodding at the hull with its limbs. Even under the direct light, it appeared a white-ish hue that made it difficult to perceive against the bottom of the ocean floor. Twice his height and six times his length, it was a strange creature, especially given where he was. _Something that large shouldn't..._

Emiya blinked as he realized what was making the sound; it had a pair of club-like appendages against its torso that it snapped forward with monstrous velocity, as it tried to crack open the salarian starship's hull.

"Oh, wonderful. A car-sized mantis shrimp," he noted with a dry tone.

The creature hadn't reacted to the light at all yet, but the moment he spoke it turned towards him, small beady eyes turning in his general direction. _Does it see on some other wavelength, or is it some other kind of sensory organ?_

Looking up at him swimming above it, it immediately backed away from the starship and raised four of its frontal limbs to threateningly wave at him. There was a series of clicking sounds, as if it was trying to warn him off.

"Sorry, but I can't let you have these guys," he said as he reached for the two i'usushij at his back, sinking down to be level with the creature on the sea floor.

_Fighting underwater, huh. Might have to project a trident or harpoon. Slashes and cuts just don't work as well,_ he thought as he kicked off the sea floor and swimming backwards a pace as the creature moved forward, trying to threaten him. _It might also be necessary to project weights onto my ankles to help keep me grounded..._

The sea creature clicked at him, its forelimbs twitching in synchronization with the sounds. He looked at the various limbs, noting and trying to figure out what to expect from the thing. It didn't seem willing to back away, some territorial instinct or underlying aggression making it face him head on. At this angle as it was 'standing upright', this creature could strike at him with three pairs of limbs, he judged. The top-most pair looked like some forms of spears or harpoons, making him think they would likely be used for piercing attacks. The under-most pair were the club-like arms that were launched off of the creature's belly, much like a mantis shrimp's from Earth.

It was the middle pair of arms that worried him, as they did not seem to have any obvious purpose. No claws or appendages that could be used to manipulate objects, nor did they appear to be feelers of any kind. The whole creature seemed impossible; it was too large for one. In the ocean at these depths, all food would be coming from above and falling down. That meant that nutrition was scarce, as every other thing above this creature would have chance to eat first. Moreover, how could it support such a large frame? And for another, animals usually only had one means of fighting, sometimes two. What possible advantage could there be to having multiple limbs capable of harming another creature, when the complexity or the organism increased manyfold with each additional unique limb.

It almost struck him as intentional, somehow. As if the creature had been _made_ to have multiple means of fighting as redundancies.

Emiya shook his head as he moved a little bit closer, trying to make the creature back away.

However it reacted to the show of hostility instantly by shooting forward one of its spear-arms. Like a bolt of lightning from the clear sky, it almost ran him through in that instant. The water made it difficult to parry and he more swayed out of the way using the resistance his swords offered to the water than anything else as he avoided the attack.

_Yeah, as expected this is a bit difficult._ Before he could recover, the second spear-limb shot forward.

But this time he was prepared; his right-hand blade shot forward to bat aside the limb as the left-hand blade came in a reverse grip to grab onto it from the other side, locking the limb between the two blades. Pushing with his right hand as he pulled with the left sharply, he felt _something_ give way as he tore free the entire limb from the creature while swimming backwards out of its range again. _How hard is this thing's shell? No, better off with blunt force than trying to pierce through it, huh._

It clicked madly, thrashing with its legs as it charged after him. _Damn invertebrates; not enough sense to know when to back off,_ Emiya chided as he reacted. The club-arm came smashing in at him from below and as he blocked it, the impact felt like a shotgun slug against his arm.

Just as he moved to strike at the club-arm's first joint, he saw out of the corner of his eye as the middle arms shot forward. Pulling back, he set up to guard against an attack. But unexpectedly he was suddenly pulled down and hit the sea floor with an impact, as if he had fallen from a great height, his flippered boots sinking into the soil without much resistance. It was as if his weight had suddenly tripled.

_Biotics?!_

The spear-arm came for him again and Emiya roared inside of his helmet, cycling magical energy as he jumped aside while cutting with the i'usushij at the spear-arm's second joint in passing. The tip of the creature's remaining spearing limb pushed into the ground at the same instant as his blunt blade smashed into the joint and broke something on impact.

Kicking around, Emiya tried to avoid the club-arm coming for him again, but stuck in the water as he was with little purchase he could only block it head on. Taking the impact he could feel the blade bending a little under the impact as he was pushed back. Turning around in the water he kicked off and swam a dozen meters away before looking back.

Getting himself back under control, he looked at the creature as it continued to rush at him, following him intently. _Sheesh, this thing just doesn't give up. Fine, I'll settle it with one blow._

Inhaling, he looked at the thing as it moved to rush in at him again. He sank to the sea floor again to be level with it, his boots hitting the soil again as he stood straight.

The creature made a clicking racket as it reached him, moving immediately to attack.

The club smashed forward from below, and he jumped off the bottom of the seafloor to avoid it; the range of motion unable to go above parallel with the seafloor due to the creature's carapace and range of motion. The spear-arm tried to shoot out at him, but the shattered joint made it only wiggle uselessly as Emiya went over the creature's head, kicking his feet in unison as he pushed forward and over the creature's head in a slow front flip. It tried to move in time, but it was too late as he was upside-down behind its head, lashing out with both swords in unison and drawing an X as he struck out.

With nothing to take leverage against, swords were very difficult to use effectively when submerged in water. If you tried to perform a regular overhead strike, the motion of striking down would have such resistance from the water that your feet were likely to come off the ground. The motion would in fact push you back so much that most of the strike would go to waste. To counter that he simply used a breaststroke-like motion to cut outwards with the i'usushij, using the two opposite motions to draw leverage from and pull himself forward at the same time as he struck. The crack of the blunt blades against the creature's carapace echoed through the water, much like its club strikes had echoed from hitting against the starship's hull earlier.

The creature wobbled for a second as it tried to move, before it fell over like a puppet with its strings cut as Emiya completed his underwater front-flip, landing on the carapace covering it's tail-end. _That about does it._

To survive in these depths, an animal had to be extremely densely built, without anything like compressible lungs in their body. That meant that the shockwave from a strong blunt impact would travel inside of the creature extremely well, causing massive damage to its internal organs in the process. Just like how this creature bludgeoned its prey to death, so too had it been killed by sheer brute force shaking its insides apart.

Turning around the water, Emiya exhaled slowly as he moved to put back the two blades onto his back. _Where the hell did this thing even come from?_

Looking around, he couldn't find anything it could have possibly fed on anywhere around here. Creatures of this size would need a lot of sustenance to keep going, much less grow to the size it had. It couldn't be a natural creature of this ecology; herbivores of this size had to constantly eat while carnivores needed to feast on herbivores to survive. It must have sustained itself on some completely different method. Hell, it could have been some ancient mythic beast of asari past for all he knew. Swimming down, he moved to take a closer look at the creature.

Giving it a solid hit on the head again to make sure it was really dead, he lifted it over and inspected its carapace more closely. It had sixteen limbs all in all, with the six frontal limbs he had noted earlier included. Though the top-most, spearing limbs were completely broken as a result of the earlier fight.

Emiya blinked, turning his head around and peering into the dark abyss of the ocean around him. The headlight did not penetrate far, the diffusion of the water meaning he could barely see for fifty meters in the depths. He hoped his light wouldn't bring in any more of these creatures or its like. _No, it seemed blind to the light. Sound will probably attract them more effectively._

Then there was the matter of the strange undulations he could sense in the deep, around him near and far. Though so diffuse that he could not quite identify what they were as they quickly disappeared, they were undoubtedly still there. It felt like mass effect fields, but at the same time they didn't. It was like the feeling one got when one walked near a massive electrical conductor; the hairs on one's body standing up, even as it was impossible to quite sense what was going on directly. There was something going on out there, but he didn't have the time to go exploring right then and there.

Shaking his head, he ignored it and turned to the starship-cum-sunken-oversized-paperweight.

Swimming over to it, he placed a hand against the hull and ran it over the material. He couldn't quite feel anything through the hardsuit, but the material seemed like nothing he had ever seen before. Then again, with expensive mass effect field generators it was possible to compress and create very strong materials that he wouldn't have ever heard of, so it hardly surprised him.

Pushing forward with his magical energy, he used Structural Analysis as he closed his eyes.

_Most of the internal space is flooding into, but it's pretty slow. The engines are all dead, but it seems like there are survivors. They must be using hardsuits for life support. As they've locked themselves in the engine room._ Rooting through the starship, he moved along the outside of the ship. _Hmm, the floating emergency beacon is a wreck and can't be let out so they can't even call for help. Well, for now, I'll seal up the leaks with Reinforcement..._

With all the water above and around them, no radio- or tightbeam could possibly penetrate with a call for help to the surface. The salarians inside must have realized this, as they seemed to have resolved for death already. Not a one among them was moving around much or trying anything, simply sitting in the sealed up inner-most compartments of the engine room.

It seemed like they had tried to fix the engines and create a mass effect field, but had realized it was too far gone to be repaired and had given up already. _I should take a closer look first._

He stepped out of his body, looking around with caution as he tried to see if the conditions here at the bottom of the sea would affect him. _Good, nothing so far. Need to put my body somewhere safe where it won't drift off._

Putting himself against the starship's hull on the seafloor, he phased through the side and entered it.

It was partially filled with water from the leaks he had closed and completely dark. Looking around, he noted that it was an access way between the bridge and ladders to the other layers. Walking around, he noted that nearly all of the electronic equipment was completely ruined, with cracked and shattered equipment lying on the floor or floating on the water everywhere he went. Counting as he went, he found four dead salarians who had been left to float in the water. Shattered bones and blunt trauma seemed to be the common factor between them.

There was a small cargo hold, too. It was more of a airlock with various forms of underwater equipment like diving suits and drones, that could probably be fielded while the starship was submerged. The external airlock had broken, thus it was entirely filled with water. He guessed much of the equipment wouldn't be rated for depths such as these and would probably be broken already.

He found the rest of the salarian crew huddled in the engine room. It was a tight fit but as the room had the strongest walls and doors, it remained the only one that had not been even partially submerged. It looked like most of them had injuries and broken limbs of some form, but none of them seemed to be in a critical condition. They were quite good at first aid, he noted. Additionally, several of the panels and walls had been opened up to give them access to the systems and wires. _They must have tried to get something working but have given up._

Only one salarian was still working on something, but it was obvious he was growing distressed by his lack of progress already.

Stepping back outside the starship, Emiya returned to his body. Exhaling, he sat up and turned around to run a hand over the hull of the starship. Technically it was his fault they were here, at the bottom of the sea. They had come chasing after him and in that pursuit had been put into danger. But it wasn't that. He wasn't going to save them out of some sense of guilt; he would have come down here even if they were completely unrelated.

He realized he was smiling as he stood up. Shaking his head he wiped the expression off of his face.

"Time to play hero."

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda sighed as she walked out from the meeting, back into the guest suites where Rasa and Kai Leng were waiting for her.

"Well?" She asked as she crossed her arms. "Have you found him?"

Rasa looked up and after a second shook her head.

"I gotta say I like the man already," Kai Leng said with a smirk as he lowered his legs from the table and sat up straight. Nodding towards Rasa, he continued speaking. "She got into a few lines and we've been keeping tabs. Our man is giving them the slip at every opportunity."

Miranda said nothing, simply nodding once as she moved to sit down to think about what she had discussed with the Matriarch in whose abode they currently were.

Simply put, the asari wanted more power.

Which given how the Thessia direct e-democracy worked was much more difficult to achieve than simply stating it. She had realized quickly enough that she was being tested, when she noticed that the Matriarch was not simply telling her what to do.

Human-asari relations were generally very simple and to the point, but here it seemed like Trellani wished to maintain a sense of asari decorum. Glancing at Kai Leng and Rasa, she understood why she had been called in for this assignment the way she had. Neither of those two would stand for being played around with the way Trellani was.

But it wasn't like Miranda didn't understand the underlying message.

She had designs into which Cerberus fit in well and neatly, Cerberus had design into which she fit in neatly and well. Quid pro quo, 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine'. But there was a catch. The kind of help the Matriarch needed was sensitive and delicate in nature.

' _If you cannot decipher the truth of my words then how could I possibly rely on you?_ ' the message seemed to be.

And it made sense.

They had been brought in under careful watch to make sure no one had seen them, meaning that Matriarch Trellani still wished to keep her alliance secret. Given how the Thessian democracy prided itself on its transparency, would she really wish to bring in a wild band of humans to burn half a city down?

Miranda shook her head, inhaling as she focused on what she had been told.

The asari all had equal power in their democratic governments. In theory anyhow. In practice several among them had a _de facto_ -authority that far exceeded that which was writ in law. Simply put, a single Matriarch's words could sway the opinions of swathes of younger asari. There need not even be a good argument behind such words, as the cult of personality that many of the eldest had accrued regularly proved far more powerful than logic or reason ever could.

_Perhaps the reason why individual asari are so easily swayed to causes is due to this eschewing of de jure-authority. In their direct democracy they do not vote upon policy makers or who should be in charge. Rather the over presence of de facto-authority figures has made it so that as a society they are prone to following charismatic individuals on a cause. It would explain how the Illusive Man managed to acquire Matriarch Trellani's support in the first place,_ Miranda mused.

Of course for every Matriarch who could change the course of history by their lonesome with a carefully phrased opinion, there existed thousands of ' _lesser_ ' Matriarchs.

Those who had not managed to excel in anything of note, but were still considered authorities in their own _de facto_ -right. For the asari age meant wisdom and experience. When all other things were stripped away, _age_ was what mattered most. In nearly every election and matter of vote, if one wished to predict the outcome one only needed to look at _one_ number to make exceedingly accurate predictions regarding the future outcome.

Sum total of added lifespans on either side.

On the two sides where asari argued either for or against a case, the side which possessed a greater collective age would nearly always stand victorious.

Trellani may be a Matriarch, but she was relatively young still. A mere 780 year old Matriarch had relatively little power among her peers. A fact that she had noticed within decades but had found little recourse for. She had been someone who had excelled always, from babe to Matron she had always been the best as quickly as she could.

But in political discourse, none of her efforts seemed to matter. Simply, because she was not the oldest to speak.

Miranda shook her head. In theory the system seemed fair enough; all had an equal amount of time, given no outstanding health issues or other life-threatening crises. Being the oldest asari Matriarch was not a stable position, given that even among their long-lived species the generation gap was not that substantial.

What Trellani asked for was simple enough, though it required the greatest of caution from her nonetheless. It was the reason the request had been made in person with no electronic devices anywhere near them. Why such roundabout and probing words had been used to make the whole of the matter understood.

_She's telling us to 'clear the way' ahead of her. To make some space by making older Matriarchs either disappear or become so disgraced as to no longer matter._ It wasn't even that difficult a matter, given Cerberus' organizational specialization and information network.

She looked at Kai Leng who she knew had been eyeing the various asari around them for the whole day with a glint in his eyes. Some of them had taken it as interest or curiosity, but she knew he was eyeing them up as enemies more than anything. To that man, there lay nothing of worth beyond humanity.

"What?" Kai Leng asked, narrowing his eyes at her as he noticed she had been staring at him.

Miranda sighed again. _I suppose that makes him perfect for that job, then._

* * *

;

* * *

_Alright, this should work,_ Emiya thought as he eyed his work.

The corpse of the sea creature had been hauled up on top of the starship and was being held in place by the two i'usushij that had been stabbed through its corpse into hull. Rather than piercing through the starship, it was more like the blades had been welded into the ship, a feat accomplished through his Reinforcement once he realized it was necessary to anchor the beast to the ship. He had run some numbers in his mind and had noted that the starship-cum-sub was actually rather small all things considered. Perhaps it was expensive to create such dual-purpose vessels, but the ship was essentially a small destroyer.

Which was a good thing, considering he would have to lift the whole thing up from the bottom of the sea to save the salarians.

He had gone through several ideas, before settling on this one. He had thought about something like projecting numerous ping pong balls inside of the starship, but given that it hadn't been able to float even without the hull breaches, he didn't think it would work. The ratio of airspace to weight was simply too skewed, it seemed. Additionally, he would have to leave behind thousands of ping pong balls which would raise questions in the salarians and drain him considerably of his magical energy. Alternatively, he thought he could use an ice-sword to freeze the water around the salarian starship until it began to rise up towards the surface. But that had the similar problems as the first plan in terms of how many questions it would raise. Additionally, there was no way to make sure that the ice did not crush the ship or freeze the salarians inside too.

And it wasn't like he could simply pick up the ship and swim to the surface either. He was strong, but he wasn't _that_ strong.

He had considered entering the ship to fix it so that it could rise up under its own power, but on closer inspection it seemed like it would take hours or even days to fix all of the damage inside and no doubt the air supply would run out in that time.

Finally he had settled on using eezo somehow. If it could bring something down, it could lift it back up. Probably.

Just as whirlpools and waterspouts could pull down or push up water, by the laws of buoyancy as long as the mass per volume was less than that of water, then it ought to rise to the water's surface. Emiya wasn't really sure what to think of the fact that he was relying on properties that Archimedes had extrapolated in his plan, but he was fairly sure the man himself wouldn't have cared one whit for the salarians' plight.

You needed two things to create mass effect fields; eezo and an electrical current. Both of which he had access to, in fact.

The problem was trying to figure out how to get the eezo in the water to work for him. This deep down, the concentration of eezo and salinity were very high, but that did not mean that he could simply create mass effect fields out of nothing. If you wanted a _useful_ mass effect field, you needed eezo that was aligned so that it would create a specific effect. Something which was in short order in the ocean, he had noted.

The fine eezo particles in the ocean were all in disarray, meaning that simply running a current through the eezo would not necessarily contribute in any meaningful fashion.

So he had to find a deposit of already aligned eezo to use. The ship's core was one, but cracking that open would be a little bit difficult. In the silt and soil of the seafloor, there was doubtless a great deal of eezo to use as well, but the same chaotic alignment was still a problem. With enough time and electricity, he could probably get it sorted out.

But he had neither in excess currently. He finally almost gave up and decided to simply project some and leave it at that, even if it would be exhausting and force him to leave behind an obvious and questionable source of eezo to keep the starship afloat until someone could come and rescue the salarians, something he had wanted to avoid. But he had realized that there was another source of eezo he could use, one that wouldn't draw as much attention to _him_.

The mantis shrimp-like sea creature had used biotics, meaning it must have considerable eezo deposits stored in its body that were aligned enough to be used effectively. He could not even imagine how the creature must have metabolized and ordered the eezo from its surroundings, given that the fine particles were so small that it was almost impossible to see them with the naked eye.

But it had, _somehow_.

Analyzing the creature more closely, he had figured out how he could use it. Starting from its middle pair of front arms, running all the way back along its carapace, lay nearly perfectly aligned eezo particles that created a functional eezo circuit. Meaning that as long as he could supply electrical current, he could use the carcass as an eezo core.

So, needing electricity he had pondered taking his hardsuit's power source. But that seemed like a terrible idea, given that he needed it to _breathe_. He couldn't generate any usable current through any other means, so he decided to see if he could use something on the ship instead. He had broken through the airlock into the water-filled cargo hold of the starship and looked around until he found something he could use. Most of the gear had been crushed by water pressure already, but there were several salarian hardsuits similar to his that could mostly withstand the water pressure.

Taking two dozen of the suits' power sources, he had put them in serial connection electrically and hooked them up to the two hands of the creature. It had been able to make him heavier during the fight, thus it only made sense that it should also be able to make the starship lighter as long as he reversed the current. He had some trouble with the seawater short-circuiting the eezo circuit at first, but with some creative Reinforcement he was able to sufficiently insulate the whole thing to make it work. He had to test around a little bit to figure out which way was the positive direction, but quickly enough he had figured it all out.

"Nothing to it but to turn it on."

Looking around, he nodded after making sure that he hadn't forgotten onto the hilt of one of his swords that was stuck to the hull, he inhaled slowly. Then, he flipped the power-switch _on_.

Nothing happened.

"...What?"

Emiya frowned, turning it off and on again. _The circuit works just fine, but it's not raising the ship. With all these batteries in series and the amount of eezo in the creature, it should be more than enough. If a human being can lift a skycar with just the eezo in their body and the use of an amp, then this should be enough to lift the ship..._

Which meant he was forgetting something. He turned off the switch and frowned as he tried to analyze the situation. This really wasn't his area of expertise, thus it could not be helped if problems such as this arose occasionally. The important thing was to not get too distracted by his attempt not working and to instead work out a solution that would work. Swimming off the top of the starship, he went around and circled the bottom where it was in contact with the ground. It did not appear as if the ship was stuck anywhere, nor that the bottom was acting like mud. The fine-grained sediment seemed loose enough that simply grabbing a handful would be enough to— _Hmm?_

He blinked, realizing that his hand at the bottom of the ocean floor seemed to almost be stuck. He hadn't actually touched the seafloor until now as he had been swimming around instead. It was like something was sucking him in, or _pressing him down_.

"Something about the difference in matter? Water pressing down on something that's in contact with another matter, like some sort of surface tension...?" He pondered out aloud, not quite certain but starting to figure it out. It was like how carrying something underwater was easier than actually pulling them out of the water; a phenomena he had experienced first-hand while jumping into waters to save someone who was drowning. _So, the eezo circuit might be enough to actually lift the ship but due to this 'surface tension' it's got an initial resistance..._

But what could he do? If he tried to lift the ship by force he would probably just end up pushing himself down into the seafloor sediment up to his hip—superhuman strength did not quite matter when he couldn't quite leverage it against anything. It was the same problem as with the sea creature and trying to use his swords. Perhaps he could project some swords and put them flat against the ground to act like strange snow-shoes? _No, that's probably not going to work either._

He closed his eyes and crossed his arms, inhaling as he thought. _Think of it like a physics problem; the mass of the water above must be pressing down directly onto the ship. I need to get it clear the ship off of the seafloor for buoyancy to kick in—probably._

Opening his eyes he turned to look at the ship. It was quite dissimilar to the angular human starships and the sleek asari vessels he had seen, nor did it look like any submarine despite ostensibly having been designed for underwater use in mind. Perhaps it was the result of salarian aesthetics, but the ship almost looked like it could fly aerodynamically. With hovercraft technology it was not quite as important to be able to fly through aerodynamic design-supplied lift, but perhaps with the focus on submerged operations that had been a concern. Noting the mobile fins on the starship, he nodded. _I shouldn't try to life it up and fight against the water pressing down directly, instead angle the fins and push it forward so it rises by itself against the water._

Nodding, he swam around the ship and forcefully turned all the fins upward and locked them into place. Checking that everything was in place he got back up and turned on the eezo circuit and the mass effect field expanded around the salarian vessel. Swimming back down and behind the ship to where he could push it forward most easily, he exhaled.

"The things I do..."

Pressing his hands against the hull he began to swim forward. He felt somewhat ridiculous as he kicked with his feet, moving water with every motion. It was like trying to push a car with just one hand. Or not quite, he realized. With the mass effect field at work, it was more like he was trying to push an empty cardboard box that had a car atop of it, pushing it down against the ground. It wasn't that he was trying to move the car's mass, but rather something that was being pushed down against the ground by the car's mass. It _moved_. Just a tiny bit at first, but as the initial resistance was overcome it became easier to move.

Slowly, it picked up speed. Little more than an acceleration of a fraction of an inch per second squared, but it was still there.

He inhaled with measured breath, noting that the hull was holding still despite the relatively small area he was pushing against. Given how small his hands were, him pushing through it rather than pushing it forward was a very real concern. But the mass effect field was enough; the force necessary to move the ship through the water in its lightened state was less than it took to push a hand through the hull. Still, this would not be enough. He would plateau in speed before the vessel would begin to rise up, even with his superhuman strength.

_If I just need it off the ground and I have forward momentum, then maybe a ramp of some kind?_ He exhaled, focusing ahead of the starship as it slowly moved. _Low friction surface, long blade with a distal taper that allows it to work as a ramp. Should be possible._

_"_ —Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

It was something that had never existed before; something he had simply created for this moment using schematics and materials in his mental landscape. A teflon-coated blade a bit more than the length of the starship with a very distinct distal taper that went from a needle tip to a half a meter by the crossguard. The coating would help get the ship even with the ramp resisting its advance forward. He would try to glide it off and get the whole starship off the ground that way and hopefully it would be enough.

The nose of the ship reached the tip of the giant sword-ramp ahead and slid onto it with ease as his acceleration suddenly rose and continued rising. _The teflon-coating is working, good._ Kicking into overdrive he began to swim at all of his strength as he pushed forward the salarian ship. As the ship was completely over the sword he could feel how the angle had changed; the nose of the starship was pointing up now. If he had enough speed he could launch off the sword and get wholly clear of the ground for long enough that buoyancy would kick in.

The front of the ship was now clearing the end of the blade and coming upwards with nothing but water beneath it as he continued to swim. Sweat was pouring down his brow as he could feel his legs and arms burning with the effort. But as half of the starship was over the end of the ramp he realized he hadn't had enough speed; the starship was beginning to tilt and fall back downward. It was slow, but he could feel how the nose was dipping and the rear where he was pushing was starting to rise up. Like a seesaw, the starship was starting to kip over the highest point of the ramp. _Even if I keep pushing forward the ship will just hit the seafloor again!_

But Emiya had one more ace in his sleeve, however. As the ship was kipping over on top of the sword, now only a smallest bit of the bottom was not supported by the water. He could feel it; as more and more of the ships bottom was getting clear off the sword and water hit the hull, it felt like the ship was becoming lighter. It wasn't, but with the water below pushing upwards it was starting to balance out the weight of the water above pushing down. If he could get the whole ship surrounded by water so that no part was touching the bottom, he _knew_ that it would start to rise.

Thus— _dismissing projection, halting all processes,_

Instantly the teflon-coated sword-ramp beneath him and the ship disappeared. Water rushed in and for just a moment the whole of the bottom was free of anything. It was the moment of truth as Emiya grit his teeth. And a second alter the ship buckled and began to rise. And _fast_. He barely had time to catch onto the hull and not be left behind by the rising ship, almost losing his grip even as the ship ascended out of the bottom of the sea at breakneck speeds. Like a rocket shooting out from the depths, or a balloon released from the bottom of a bath tub. He climbed forward, one step at a time as he had to fight the rushing water to get up. He needed to get back to where he had set the damn sea creature against the hull. By the time he had gotten there, he must have ascended well over a kilometer from the ocean's depths. He took a moment to grin at his success as he looked around.

_Yeah, this is working pretty well!_

Of course, he still had to worry about that damn whirlpool above them. If he went straight up, he would just get pulled straight back down. But that was easy enough to handle; with the ship rising upwards and the resistance of water against it, he could make it rise at an angle to the surface. By manipulating the eezo circuit, he could turn around the starship as it ascended. It had been built somewhat aerodynamically, thus he could use the whole thing like a rudder or fin which would give him control in what direction it moved. He couldn't make it move downwards or remain at a flat trajectory, but as long as the ship was ascending he could manipulate which way it would be moving. Sensing the whirlpool, he made certain to steer clear of the damn thing and other similar oceanic induction phenomena as he continued ascending towards the surface while holding onto the sword lodged into the starship.

Despite the mass effect field making him lighter, the rushing water and the acceleration made it feel like he had actually grown several times heavier as a net result. If he hadn't been holding onto the sword's hilt for support he would have probably been dislodged the moment he had plugged in the power supplies into the creature.

_As long as this keeps up, getting up should be no problem,_ he thought. In fact he would be getting up faster than he had fallen down, even. However...

He had a sudden premonition, realizing that even as they hit the surface-level, they wouldn't be _stopping_. No, the starship would probably be pushed at least a dozen meters off the water's surface and then come crashing back down from all the momentum.

_That would probably kill everyone inside. Change of plans, then._ He thought as he climbed up enough to reach the creature and the hooked up hardsuit batteries he had stuffed inside of its carapace. The rushing waters made it feel like he was trying to climb up a waterfall, but he pushed through while gritting his teeth. _I need to pull the plug before we hit the surface and set it on a weaker current._

Of course the trouble there was that he had no idea how deep he was at any given time. If it was during the day, then the presence of sunlight would help, but given that it might be a cloudy night up above that wouldn't work right now. Cursing that he had decided to rely on the RX-5's barometers until now, he projected Bakuya into his right hand.

Closing his eyes, he sensed outward as he tried to find its partner that should have been on floating somewhere on the surface of the Serrinan sea. His arm stretched out and began to point to where the husband-blade lay with the white wife. Nodded, deciding that this would work for showing him his depth; once his arm was nearing parallel it would mean he was at the surface.

Except...

The damn thing was pointing nearly straight down. Which meant... _The damn whirlpool sucked it in!_ Meaning his RX-5s had also been sucked in and were now at the bottom of the sea in pieces.

_Oh for fuck's sake!_ Cursing in his mind, he dispelled the black blade at the bottom of the sea. Reaching to his waist, he took out an air capsule and held it in the same hand as his Bakuya.

"—Trace, _On"—begin projection,_

He created a simple balloon along with a string. Holding it, he forcefully popped open the air capsule causing it to begin spewing oxygen everywhere in a curtain of bubbles that completely obscured his vision. Manipulating the object blindly, he put it against the mouth of the balloon and let it fill until he could feel it tugging to get free from his grasp.

Tossing aside the air capsule, he tied the balloon shut and tied the string around Bakuya's handle. Letting go, the sword and balloon shot past his hand and began to rise at easily three times his own ascending velocity. It would surely reach the surface first, since lighter-than-water though the starship may be, it would not be enough to catch up to the balloon.

Projecting Kanshou, he repeated his earlier process as he kept moving away from where he had released the wife sword. The white sword should be far enough away from the whirlpool, but he still wanted to have the salarians even further away so that they wouldn't be pulled in again. Additionally, the further away the two blades were from one another horizontally, the more accurately it would tell his relative distance from each other laterally.

As he noted Kanshou was starting to level out, he pulled the plug on the eezo circuit. Immediately the starship slowed down in its ascent and then began to slowly sink again. Hastily working, he unplugged the whole thing before removing a single power source and connecting it back to the sea creature's limbs again. A mass effect field popped back into existence, but it was too weak and could only slow down their descent. _So_ _I need less than 24 but more than 1 power source. That's helpful,_ he thought. Pulling the plug again, he set three power sources into serial and connected it again. Dissatisfied, he repeated again with six of them.

This time the vessel began to rise again, but at a much slower pace than originally. _Good, this way it won't fly into the air or anything._

In twenty seconds he broke the surface of the seawater, blinking as he could suddenly see the moon and stars above again. It was so bright that it was almost blinding to look around, despite the headlight he had been using. Somehow, the contrast of the dark waves and shining stars made him feel like he hadn't seen the surface in days as he looked around. Shaking his head, he turned to the remaining power sources.

Plugging them in series increased the voltage which increased the lifting capacity of the eezo, but sooner or later the power source would run out. Plugging them in parallel would keep the same voltage as individual batteries, and mass effect field output, but would instead increase how long the whole thing could keep running. So, with an additional 18 power sources still un-used, he might as well increase how long the eezo circuit could keep running by plugging the rest into the circuit in parallels of six.

It wouldn't be funny if the starship sank before someone could come to help them once he left, after all.

Satisfied with his work and certain that surveillance would find the starship sooner or later and someone would come to pick out the poor salarians, he decided it was time to move out.

He extended Kanshou in his hand and reached out through it. Finding the partner sword, he _pulled_ as he drew back the black blade. Ten seconds later the wife blade came spinning through the air towards him as he had dispelled the balloon and string. Catching it out of the air, he swung the blades to remove all the water on them, before performing a flourish to sheathe them on his back on the Van der Waals-strips.

Only to realize that they weren't sticking at all. Emiya blinked as he looked at the swords. With a sigh, he dispelled them. Glancing at the i'usushij, he decided to leave them since they were holding the creature's carcass onto the hull of the starship for now. _This much should be good; I managed to do all of that without wasting too much magical energy or time._

"Still, with the RX-5s gone it looks like I'll just have to go the rest of the way myself," he muttered as he looked up at the starry vault shining down at him.

He blinked, realizing that he still had the headlight on and any surveillance satellite was likely to have spotted him by now just due to that.

Turning it off, he sighed and shook his head as he kicked off the flippers from his feet onto the starship's hull. They would merely get in the way.

Crouching down, he inhaled as propped his feet against the hull of the ship. Swimming would be too slow, so he might as well run the majority of the rest of the way even if that would leave an obvious trail to follow. He did not possess any special skills or talents that allowed him to float on water, but that was fine. For a human being to run on water, they generally needed to be capable of running at somewhere around a hundred kilometers an hour.

He smirked, figuring that if he was being watched he might as well give them a proper show.

After all, something like a hundred or two kilometers an hour was _child's play_ for a Servant.

* * *

;

* * *

Nihlus Kryik sighed as he took another pill and drank it down with a grimace.

The fact that he needed to rely on combat drugs to keep going was starting to weigh on his mind. He knew second-hand how the combat focus tranqs could play havoc with the body stims that kept him awake. The turian wouldn't be able to sleep properly for days now. He felt a sting of annoyance at the various salarians around him; Jondum had excused him nearly two hours ago and soon he would be back, fully rested and combat ready.

The salarians only needed a handful of hours of rest a day, whereas he would need a good six or seven hours at least. That much downtime wasn't acceptable, he told himself. He needed to remain focused on what was going on right now, coordinating the various starships flying around and dropping floating sonar buoys and trying to find any clues of Shirou Emiya's whereabouts. _He should be starting to feel it, too. No matter what he is, he can't keep going forever without rest. I should be able to outlast him, at least._

As a Spectre, Nihlus had gone through a complete physical after which a tailor-made program was made for him. He could stay awake for a whole month using the right cocktail of stimulants and drugs with a minimal drop in performance. Even so he dreaded having to detox after the mission's conclusion, it was never pleasant and the longer he went on the worse it would get. The things he did for this job...

"Sir, you need to come see this..."

Nihlus blinked as he walked up to the salarian. As he hovered over the shoulder of the STG operator, he noticed something off with the salarian, though on the surface nothing seemed strange. For a moment, it seemed like— _No, he is hiding something._

As a Spectre, Nihlus was expected to be able to operate everywhere in the galaxy, including salarian space. Which meant that it was necessary for him to be able to cold read their body language. He knew the various ' _I have a secret'_ -signals the race possessed. This one was one that told of a great secret that the salarian did not wish for him to discover at any costs. _I'll play it dumb, then. I can figure out what he's trying to hide on my own afterwards._

"What is it?"

"Ah, well... The surveillance satellites by the Serrinan sea picked up movement. It's not very clear, but we can follow it with some image quality enhancement algorithms."

Nihlus perked up, all previous thoughts forgotten. "Show me."

"Yes, sir." The salarian pulled the feed to the main screen of the CIC.

Nihlus inhaled sharply as he felt his mandibles relaxing in utter shock at what he was seeing. _Is he... running on water?_

"That's—" The turian frowned, remembering the sudden movements of the man when they had come face to face. _Is there no limit to his physical potential? It was listed that he could rend steel with his bare hands in the original reports, and the movements he showed before were clearly beyond the normal... But this is something else entirely._

"Wasn't the leading hypothesis that he had some underwater vessel? Why is he surfacing now, did he run into a whirlpool or something?" Nihlus pondered out aloud, noting how stiff the salarian seemed at those words. Shaking his head and clearing his mind, he looked at the operator. "Where is he headed?"

"Too early to tell, but the nearest settlements are Inid, Trelle and Ulee, sir."

"What's going on?" Jondum Bau asked as he came hastily up to the turian Spectre.

Nihlus nodded at the salarian Spectre-candidate. "See for yourself."

Rolling his eyes and blinking once at his superior, the salarian look at the CIC mainscreen. There was a silent moment as he simply took in what was happening.

"That is..."

"Quite incredible. But," Nihlus spoke quietly. "Our duty has not changed a bit."

Jondum did not hesitate for a moment as their eyes met, an understanding had been reached between the two. Until this anomalous existence was caught and properly questioned, they would not rest.

"Alright, instead of waiting for him to make land we should target him while he's out on the open seas. How many ships do we have at our disposal again?"

"Thirteen, sir."

"What happened to the two others? There were fifteen in the launch order." Nihlus asked, looking at the salarian who answered him.

"...They had to return to refuel," the salarian answered, clearly surprised that the turian had known the exact number.

Nihlus' eyes narrowed. "Both of them?"

"Yes, sir," the salarian said, the various social cues plain to see to the Spectre.

_So, did the ships run aground or crash somehow? Or maybe one of them and the other is looking for it. But why are they hiding it? It probably has to do with the STG factions,_ Nihlus considered as he said nothing. He would note the individual for later consideration, noting him as a possible leak.

"It doesn't matter. Get all of the ships in the area to zero in on him right now."

Jondum inhaled slowly, considering the plan. "He'll surely try to dive again if we show up. With satellites and orbital surveillance, keeping an eye on him won't be an issue while he's moving..."

Nihlus nodded, waiting for the salarian to continue.

"But when he submerges he won't be able to move as quickly. If he could move this quickly underwater then he could have gotten to anywhere on Thessia already. We can keep an eye on the open seas and force him to tire himself out. And he won't have the cover of a city to use, either. This is perhaps the best place for a confrontation," Jondum concluded.

"Indeed." The turian revealed teeth. "How is the re-supply of drones coming along?"

"We have two hundred combat-spec drones coming in by the end of the hour through the Mass Relay, ready for deployment. They should work in conjunction with starship support," Jondum said.

"Excellent. What of the AI?" Nihlus asked.

"Nothing so far, sir."

Jondum frowned. "Strange. I would have expected something. Is he truly working alone?"

"It does seem unusual that there have not been any hacking attempts as reprisals for moving out against Shirou Emiya. The false Justicar suggested he is being supported by an organization, but..."

"He seems to have been working alone since then. It almost seems incidental, that would-be Justicar appearing to his aid."

_That Matriarch, Aethyta seemed to know something. She had disappeared before the STG thought to take her in. Is she related to that false Justicar somehow? She is strong enough by all records to have done something like that, too. What the hell was Tela thinking? And the STG are obviously rolling with their own plans. How much can I trust Jondum, then?_ Outwardly Nihlus merely nodded.

"What of the Justicar order, have they managed to identify the interloper at the house?" Jondum asked from one of the STG operators at the other side of the CIC.

"Vasir contacted them and they have disavowed any knowledge of the target."

Jondum nodded once as he rolled his eyes, deep in thought.

"Sir! The target!"

Both Spectre and Spectre-candidate immediately turned to look. They both froze at the empty screen showing nothing but the dark ocean's surface reflecting the moon and stars distantly.

"What happened? Did he jump into the water?"

"No, sir, let me rewind!" The operator shouted.

They looked at the screen and could only blink in surprise at what they saw. "It looks like... he stumbled and fell suddenly?"

Nihlus and Jondum both paused, looking at each other for a moment. Then they scrambled at the same time.

"Send out the nearest starship right now and have someone look for him immediately!"

"Scramble the Inid and Trelle locals, right now!"

They spoke at the same time and salarian operators hastened to obey and relay the orders.

At the same time, a communications operator turned around to look at them. "Kryik, sir. The Council is on the line; they wish for a report."

Nihlus blinked, slowly exhaling as he exchanged looks with Jondum. The salarian nodded, signaling he would handle things here for now.

"I'll take the call in the conference room," Nihlus said and walked out of the CIC.

His boots seemed to echo against the hard floor of the hallway and for a moment he felt like he was walking to face a military tribunal again. He shook his head, dispelling such thoughts as he entered the empty conference room and turned on the displays.

A hologram-display turned on, showing three distinct and life-sized individuals standing before him. He saluted them, the crisp turian military mannerism that had been hammered into him still alive and well, years after he had been freed from the turian military.

" _Nihlus,_ " Sparatus, the turian councilor spoke with a slight tinge of disdain in his flanging voice. The councilor was a staunch conservative and military-hardliner; someone who had very little time or interest for Nihlus' type. " _Report._ "

Nihlus spoke crisply and summed up the whole of the situation, starting from the preparations and planning undertaken along with the expected outcomes, moving on to what had happened and the real-time decisions taken as everything began to go pear-shaped.

The turian councilor stood quietly, still as a statue as his sharp eyes bore into Nihlus during the report. At the same time, the asari councilor Tevos was quietly smiling and nodding at his words, frowning as he described the sudden difficulties they had experienced during the operation's progression. The hooded salarian wore a carefully neutral mask, saying or revealing nothing of his internal thoughts.

_The triumvirate of the Citadel; the strong-arming militaristic turian, ever-conciliatory and diplomatic asari and the silent and secretive salarian. Alone they are a force to be reckoned with, together..._ Nihlus thought off-handedly as he finished his report.

Sparatus glared at him, before nodding once. "You're decision to lift the quarantine was wise."

"Indeed, with no signs of additional support coming to his aid through the air it can be safely concluded that Shirou Emiya is working alone," Valern spoke in an even tone, raising a hand to his chin as he rolled his eyes once. "Losses until now, not inconsequential. But manageable. I do believe it was the correct decision as well."

"And what of the two hostages, have you found any signs of them?" Tevos asked, tilting her head slightly forward as she looked at Nihlus.

"I am afraid not, ma'am. Tela Vasir has remained in Serrice, but as of yet I know nothing. Apologies, but it does not look good."

The asari councilor nodded sadly at his words before she continued. "You say that he sought refuge in the Serrinan sea and that he has already managed to make it past the Ini'an straits?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very well, I shall inform Trelle of the situation. Though they are an independent order, I am certain they may be of assistance to you."

"Councilor Tevos," Nihlus spoke, politely but firmly interrupting the asari who paused. She had taken no offense, tilting her head slightly in a manner that indicated that he could speak. "While the Justicars are powerful individuals, I do not think they are capable of following orders. To capture him alive, I need—"

"The Justicars have already mobilized, according to the latest reports," Valern noted distantly, as if the aside was of no consequence to the discussion at hand.

Nihlus' mandibles fluttered as he tried to imagine what those zealots were up to. _It must be the fake Justicar they are after. Who—Vasir, it must have been._ _I'll have to stay out of their way..._

"The Justicars will be made to understand the severity of the situation. They are just as able at capturing individuals alive," Tevos said with a placating smile.

Nihlus nodded, saying nothing.

"Hmm, have there been any cyber-attacks since the operation began?" Sparatus asked, turning to look at the salarian councilor beside him.

Valern raised a hand, with two of his fingers raised. "Yes. Two instances, however due to the scale and complexity of those incidents it is likely they are mere copycats. Unrelated and of no consequence."

"Then it does seem as if this 'Redhax' is just the individual Shirou Emiya. Nihlus, if all else fails you are authorized to put down the target. Remember that," the turian said.

"But if at all possible, spare the head any copious trauma. It may reveal much if properly investigated," the salarian noted.

Nihlus nodded and looked at the last of the triumverate. Tevos said nothing, appearing deep in thought. For a moment he considered asking the salarian councilor about the virtual aliens, or the various factions at work within the STG that seemed to be competing even now.

But he bit down such thoughts, reasoning that nothing would come of it if the salarian councilor had not sought to inform him of it of his own volition.

"If that is all, councilors...?"

"Yes, you are dismissed." Sparatus nodded and the connection cut immediately.

Nihlus exhaled and moved to return to the CIC, noting that his omnitool alarm was telling him that it was time again. Grumbling under his breath, the turian downed another set of pills as he entered the hallway.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya focused on clenching his fist as he shook his head. _Okay, I can move again._

He noted that his vision was still strange. It was like a fuzzy pointillistic filter of light and dark points flashing through his vision.

It didn't matter if he closed his eyes or looked around, it was still there.

It was all that remained of his sudden blackout now. It had come unbidden and unannounced, suddenly causing him to lose all control and had ceased just as inexplicably. On suddenly falling unconscious in the middle of his running he had thought he had been under attack or that he had been injured suddenly. He had slightly panicked at first, getting out of his body in his spirit form and moving to get himself deeper into the water to evade detection by the various starships flying above him and dropping floating sonar buoys into the water. He had remade the anechoic shield as he had retreated underwater into the depths, which seemed to have worked for the most part.

Swimming onward and pulling his body along by one hand, he periodically checked himself.

There were no obvious external injuries on his body; he had simply for no discernible reason fallen unconscious. Upon closer inspection he had realized that his pupils were of different size and that almost randomly one or the other would begin to shrink and expand rapidly. He had no idea what that meant, but he did know that usually something like that was a sign of something _very bad_.

Brain injuries, tumors, intercranial bleeding or aneurysms...

After some half hour he noticed his eyes had returned to normal and he tried to move inside of his body again. And it had worked; whatever it was that had happened, had been temporary.

And here he was, trying to figure what exactly had happened. Shaking his head, he exhaled. The worst part was, he had no idea what it could have been caused by. _This is different from the synesthesia pulse, I just lose control of everything when it happened._

Was it an after-effect of the attack on his cybernetics? He had tried to dive in to the cybernetic parts and see if he could find anything, but to no avail. Was it some form of decompression injury due to his rapid rise from the depths, despite his pressurized hardsuit? Had he hit his head and gotten some kind of internal brain injury? Was it the constant sonar wave bombardment? Could he have been affected by the mass effect fields in the Serrinan sea without realizing it? Or had something Archimedes had done years ago left behind something that had degenerated until now?

Even through careful Structural Analysis of his own body, he hadn't been able to find anything wrong. Until now he had been using a lot of magical energy to power through everything, but it seemed that it wasn't working anymore, as it did nothing now.

_I can't keep going like this. If I fall unconscious again, then..._ He thought as he started swimming slowly again. This time, towards the coastline, deciding that he needed to change his plan of action.

Emiya sighed, letting himself sink to the bottom of the sea.

This close to the shoreline, it was only a mere twenty meters deep. As his back touched the bottom, the swaying plants and small fish darting about entered his peripheral vision as he looked up at the surface of the water. _I can't stop here; no food or water here so there's no point in trying to rest here. Even if I need medical help, are there any in the system who know anything about humans?_ _It doesn't seem like it's anything immediately fatal, so even if I leave my body behind it should be safe... Right? Calling in some medical help out here would cause them to home in on me right away. Exerting myself might exacerbate my condition, so..._

One particularly curious fish approached him from above, coming into contact with his helmet and spending several moments trying to figure out what exactly he was supposed to be. He raised a hand and chased it away as he exhaled.

_So I should take note of my symptoms and go ahead and see if there's anything I can find out while leave it behind. Make a distraction and then get my body later again._ With a shake of his head, he dismissed the projected flippers on his feet and focused on an image in his head.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

If he was going to leave behind his body then it was enough to just have it contained due to the signal issues, but he also needed to disguise it enough that it would pass inspection in case someone came to take a closer look. Something that would also protect his body while he was at it.

In effect, his body was suddenly placed inside of a Faraday coffin hidden inside of a large rock that sank to the bottom of the sea. Once he was done with that, he also created a Kanshou next to himself for ease of locating himself later. He opened his eyes and exhaled, reaching for an oxygen capsule on his belt. Switching out the spent one, he checked how long the batteries in his hardsuit would last. With a fresh capsule and plenty of power left, it didn't really matter whether his body was on land or underwater, so he might as well stay out of sight. Checking everything one more time, he nodded and jumped out of his body in his spiritualized state.

Jumping through the top of his hiding place and out of the water, he landed just at the edge of the sea. Taking two steps forward, he was on dry land again after what felt like days somehow.

Looking around, he noted the lack of any geographic markers he could use to figure out his position. Sighing, he looked up and noted that the rising Parnitha was slowly starting to muscle in on the dawn sky from the east. _If I find a mountain to the north, that would put me near Inid. Difficult to tell with how far I could have been drifting._

He shook his head and began to move out in spirit form, leaping forward and quickly building up speed.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya landed on top of the skyscraper and crossed his arms, looking out at the first rays of a new dawn on the city below.

He had moved quite a bit to the east during the night again, so Parnitha was rising a few hours earlier in a sense. Thousands of hovercraft of all sizes were scurrying about, moving from one place to another both below and above him all reflecting the rays of the rising sun off of their polished surfaces.

Ulee was unlike many of the other cities of Thessia in that sense, in that it never seemed to quite calm down and reach that state of serenity that was so commonly attributed to the asari. With a constant stream of traffic, goods and services moving at all times of the day, it was as if not a moment was to be wasted. It was one of Thessia's younger cities, both in that it lacked the long history predating asari space exploration that most other cities had—which gave it a certain inferiority complex-like attitude, when it came to the other cities—and in that the average age of asari in Ulee was well below the Thessian average. Young and ambitious asari came to Ulee, often leaving once they hit their Matron stage and wished to settle and slow down enough to enjoy life. It was often considered the least of Thessia's major cities despite having the largest economy by far.

As such it looked quite dissimilar to both Serrice and Usaru, with a much greater focus on pragmatic building methods and economical design, with far fewer shining crystal spires or the flowing, ever curving architecture that he had gotten so used to. Other cities, such as Serrice and Usaru competed in their perceived status of being the beating heart of the cultural center of the galaxy. Of being the source of all learning and knowledge, of research and experimentation.

Ulee simply made money.

And as such it made a _ton_ of money. Every day, thousands of tons of unprocessed eezo was shipped out into space from this city, fueling nearly a third of all eezo production of the Citadel space. A ludicrous amount of the matter that enabled all of space travel to exist the way it did in the modern world. That alone was enough to ensure the city would have had no need for anything else to sustain itself.

But they weren't satisfied with something of that level. The city's founders had seen how economic power was being consolidated into the Citadel within years of its discovery in the Serpent Nebula thousands of years ago, and had acted immediately to prevent a monopoly from forming. Ulee dealt in _everything_ , with _everyone_ , _everywhere,_ all the time.

It was a common joke that the Ulee asari could shine your credit chit for twice its worth and still have you coming back.

He had in fact founded a small company under another name to start importing coffee three years back with the sole intention of having more industrious asari come muscling in to handle it for him. He had specifically set about the project at a loss to himself as he sold the imported beans to himself, since he only really wanted the coffee beans.

Lo and behold, a month later a new asari company had been started and their representative came literally knocking at his door to muscle him out, selling him higher quality coffee beans for cheaper and with a shorter transit time to ensure the beans were as fresh as could be. He had no idea how they had managed any of it, or how in the hell they were making a profit, but they did and they were.

So he filed for bankruptcy and since then had been a happy customer of R'lii & R'lii Terra Luxury Importers.

Well, really they were an unlisted branch company of Ulee Incorporated, the four-hundred year old mega-corporation that owned nearly all of Ulee and had no intention of losing out on _any_ profits. And he wasn't just set on buying their coffee at a discount, he probably hacked into their systems more than anywhere else on all of Thessia. Really, they were asking for it given how little they seemed to care about legalities in the face of potential profit in all corners of the galaxy.

In fact the Ulee Sapient Rights Council was little more than a thinktank whose greatest concern was that they could keep Ulee's facade spotless so that the cash kept flowing. Everything in Ulee was about profit. It was for that reason that Roane—Hosin's wife and the mother of Hoana—had been taken here, he presumed. They needed to find out who had been selling off eezo to Hosin, didn't they?

_Alright, let's see... Find Roane, check out the Sapient Rights Council, do some digging at the Athena Nebula Central Bank, try to see if I can figure out if the symptoms were indicative of anything serious... That was about all, wasn't it? Will the order matter?_ He nodded, jumping down to the street several hundred meters below. _Well, I'll start by just looking around at the Ulee Incorporated headquarters._

Landing without a sound on the pavement, he turned around and entered through the front door, invisible to all.

* * *

;

* * *

CODEX:

**6\. [ Oceanic Induction and its effects on free-floating Element Zero in Thessian Waters ]**

The amount of element zero found on Thessia is unrivaled in all the galaxy, this is a well known and accepted fact. Indeed, many races have expressed varying levels of dissatisfaction or envy over this fact, which the asari had historically ignored with cool grace.

On the surface, this seems like it has nothing but positive effects in the form of easy hovercraft technology and a biotic potential in the population exceeding 99 per cent. But only very little of it is usable or practically reachable for commercial use, as much of it exists underground, or in various bodies of water in the form of fine dust particles. Due to the latter fact, asari culture has grown to revere and fear the deep seas due to the volatile nature of the eezo deposits there.

Just as nearly all living beings on Thessia make use of biotics in one form or another, so too does Thessia itself prove capable of using biotics in a sense. And just as the scale between an asari and Thessia is overwhelmingly different, so too is the scale between the power that their biotics can display. For asari it is primarily their nervous system which feeds the eezo nodes in their bodies. For the planet, it is the rotation of the planet and the gravity wells of numerous relatively near celestial objects such as the moon, the heat differences between water at the poles and equator, or by the night and day sides, all affecting the large bodies of water on Thessia's surface that feed the creation of mass effect fields.

On most planets with electromagnetic fields they are induced by the external ionospheric and magnetospheric current systems. However, the motions of large bodies of water can also create electromagnetic fields through dynamo interaction with the aforementioned ambient geomagnetic field, which can result in fields and currents just as powerful as the ionospheric counterparts along most of the frequency spectrum. Additionally as the salinity of water increases, so too does its conductivity, meaning that large bodies of water not only create an electrical current but also conduct it through itself in a manner that causes those fine eezo particles to be affected; ergo mass effect fields naturally arise as the electrical current grows sufficient.

Of note; while most of oceanic induction is generated near the surface due to salinity increasing with depth in a body of water, generally speaking these phenomena occur deep under water.

Since eezo commonly reacts in one of two ways when used it conducts electricity, there are two noted and distinct phenomena observed as a result of the oceanic induction; mass may either be lessened or increased. These two events are known as respectively as "waterspouts" and "whirlpools". A third phenomena was also later observed and understood, identified as a "still water" oft spoken off in ancient marine ledgers.

In a _waterspout_ —when distinctly referring to oceanic eezo generated phenomena, rather than the general catch all term which also includes the wind-generated "water tornados" that have also been observed on planets with much less element zero—a mass lightening field is generated below the surface of the water, which causes a volume of seawater to rapidly begin ascending much like an air or helium balloon would when forcibly dragged down below the water's surface, generating a pillar of water much like a fountain that can rise up several hundred meters into the air. As liquid is displaced and pushed upwards, even more water is pulled from below which often also becomes affected by the mass effect field, further feeding the waterspout. As the movement of water continues to feed the dynamo interaction, even more electricity is generated which further fuels the waterspout in a continuous cycle that can last up to weeks. Waterspouts have been recorded to reach well over a kilometer along some parts of Thessia, depending on the season and weather patterns.

Conversely when a mass effect field that increases mass, _whirlpools_ are generated. These are much more difficult to separate from whirlpools generated without eezo interaction, as on the surface of the water the two are commonly very alike. As the field occurs, water inside of the volume spanning the field grows increasingly heavy and pushed more and more water down towards the bottom of the sea. On the surface something similar to a basin emptying through a hole at the bottom occurs, as more and more water is pulled in from above and around the mass effect field to push more and more water down. Similarly to waterspouts, the reaction is self-sustaining and can continue for very long times. Though, due to the latter oftentimes occurring deep beneath the surface, whirlpools are commonly missed entirely by observers by the surface and as such they have been less thoroughly documented over the years.

For a long time it was thought that these two phenomena were relatively rare as waterspouts are not all that commonly observed even on a global scale. But as it turns out, once studies were performed into the generation and function behind waterspouts it was quickly noticed that such events are much more common than was previously believed. Or rather as the causes behind the phenomena were understood it became apparent how often such things actually happened in the form of the "third" phenomena.

_Still waters_ have long been noted among those who traveled the seas, as unnatural patches of water where there seems to be no motion regardless of the winds or other natural factors that ought to contribute to the generation of waves. On some rare occasions some have even reportedly walked on top of the water's surface, which proved able to sustain their weight. Due to the prevalence of this phenomena and due to the high availability of eezo related hover-technologies, sea travel never rose to prominence in use for long-distance travel at the seas.

All three phenomena are related, as they are all generated by the fine eezo particles in the sea being electrically stimulated by oceanic induction. As the alignment of the particle affects what kind of mass effect field will be generated, it becomes important to note that at any one time in any one location in the sea, it is generally likely to find a 1-to-1 ratio of eezo particles that would generate a mass lightening field as eezo particles that would generate a mass heavening field given a uniform electrical current.

In other words, as these two equal mass effect fields interact, a Stasis field is generated that will hold everything in place.

As such upwards of ninety percent of all oceanic induction results in still waters around Thessia, as much of the sub-surface seawater is held in Stasis. The observed waterspouts and whirlpools thus only represent a fraction of the true scale of such events. The diversion from an even split between eezo particle alignment necessary for either a waterspout or whirlpool to form is dependent on factors such as the water current, volume of water affected and how much of the eezo particles are stationary.

Known as the Voaszia Threshold after its discoverer; Matriarch Voaszia, it takes around a ten percent deviation for either the water to begin resisting the Stasis effect around it enough to be observable. A secondary threshold, commonly called the Voaszia Critical Threshold—though it was only later attributed to the Matriarch, as her notes only hinted at such an event, as she went missing out at sea, presumed dead at the age of 953 years—where the deviation of eezo particle alignment exceeds 23 percent causes a secondary phenomena to occur.

As more and more water is displaced, the eezo particles that are being held in place by Stasis become dislodged and begin to rapidly spin. Much like how when an alternating current is run through a stationary eezo core, when a direct current is fed through a rotating eezo core, a unique field where mass is rapidly increased and decreased continuously will occur. In other words, as the Voaszia Critical Threshold is exceeded, more and more eezo particles will be knocked loose from the Stasis field and the reaction becomes self-sustaining as a Warp field, inside of either the primary waterspout or whirlpool phenomena. These fields have been noted to be several times stronger than similar fields created by sapient biotics, giving credence to ancient legends of massive storms that are capable of destroying anything that may be caught inside of them.

Much like magnetic fields, mass effect fields also seek to become unified in direction. North pole attracts South pole and vice versa, thus the numerous free floating eezo particles are slowly aligned as the warp field dissipates and the mass raising or lowering field is strengthened proportionally in turn. These phenomena usually die down once all of the eezo has been aligned and the warp field disappears, and the electrical build up begins to slowly dissipate and even out.

As the asari scientific community has grown increasingly aware of weather phenomena on other planets, they have grown familiar with monstrous storms known as "typhoons" and "hurricanes". Such have never been in living memory observed on Thessia as generally the created Stasis fields will contain such a reaction before it is able to take off the ground.

But, were the odds to be skewed just wrong it is theoretically possible for a "warp storm" to be formed. These doomsday theories have led to much popular speculation and theories among some of the more fringe elements of asari society. Some refer to the lost cities of E'lirhan that was according to ancient lore wiped off the face of Thessia by a monstrous storm, but no evidence for the existence of such a storm or city has yet to be discovered. Several feature-length vids and channel series have also been made with such warp storms as the core premise, such as "Last days of the ancient Azure City" and "WARP STORM: Three Decade Doom".

Regardless, this knowledge has put to proof the old asari wisdom that you should stay the hell out of the deep sea.

Several more recent scientific papers also outline the strange interactions between electromagnetic fields and fine eezo particles display when eezo is highly compressed, though very little research has yet to be made into this field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long. Been trying to get my sleep rhythm back into order, so while I wrote like 80 percent of it like a week ago, I ended up re-writing and editing it for all this time because of my mental state. This chapter is sort of filler-y too, which caused me to debate over whether or not it was worth posting for a while, but in the end I figure it was cool enough to warrant inclusion.
> 
> As usual, thanks to PseudoSteak for taking the time to read and give me some feedback over the chapter. Also, thanks to my patrons for putting up with me.


	24. Two to Tango

"Roane Lorrais!"

She looked up, blinking at the guard shouting her name at the doorway to the cell. Eyes turned to her, as the others asari being holed up with her noted that she was being called. There was a certain tension—of envy, curiosity, annoyance and anger—at someone else getting to leave. Standing out was not good here, she had noticed. _I have to stay low, keep my head down and..._

"Get up, you're being questioned in five."

"Y-yes," she said as she rose up and hastened to move past the two Eclipse sisters who had somehow wound up in an Ulee holding cell.

As many of the others realized she was just being taken out for a short walk, their attention on her waned and they quickly lost interest in her again.

She moved to follow after the uniformed guard, meekly looking at the ground, avoiding looking at anyone around here in the eyes. She had tried to manage with bravado and wit at first, just as she had for years in various legal cases. But here all it had earned her was a beating at the hands of her ' _fellows_ ' and the disdain of her captors for making a ruckus.

They entered an elevator where her guard crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall, glancing at Roane merely once to make certain that she wasn't trying anything. She knew better already; the guards were to be obeyed. No ifs, buts or whys about it. You simply _obeyed_.

Roane was led to another hallway, similarly drab and featureless as she was taken through a byzantine mess of corridors and doors, until they finally reached an unremarkable door and was pushed inside.

"Sit down," the guard said as she slapped on the lights.

Hastening to obey, she considered whether to ask how long she would have to wait for Tela Vasir to arrive. But she refrained, keeping her mouth shut and eyes down as she sat. _I can't, no—think about Hoana, this is all for Hoana...!_

The door closed with a heavy echo through the empty room, somehow final and oppressive as she flinched at the sound.

A minute passed. Two.

After five, she finally looked up from where she sat by a simple table. It was a drab, colorless room with just a table bolted to the floor, with four simple chairs around it. In two of the corners of the room there were dome cameras and there was only a single door in and out; a thick slab of metal that even a commando would have struggled to dent.

_Where is she... Has something happened?_ _No, this is a ploy. She must be waiting and watching. I have to be strong,_ she thought as she inhaled slowly.

"So, Roane."

She bolted upright, jumping out of her chair at the deep voice that came from behind her. She had nearly jumped out of her skin as she gawked at the sudden appearance of a dark figure standing in the room. _Where—The door didn't even?!_

"Who—who are you?" She asked, almost whispering as she took a step back.

Long of limbs, wide of shoulders and wearing skintight dark clothing of some kind, with white highlights and strange straps by the legs. It was a human, and a man at that, she realized. His head was covered in a smooth black helmet that barely muffled his voice at all.

Somehow this figure seemed familiar to her.

"Hmm? Oh, I forgot," he huffed as he reached up with one hand. Removing the helmet, he spun it on a finger and sat down by the table on one of the chairs.

Roane blinked, her mind completely lost at that moment as she _recognized_ him, despite the white hair and tanner skin. "F-Fujimura?"

As he set down the helmet on the table, he shrugged as if to say 'who else?'

She realized her mouth was hanging wide open as they simply stared at each other for several seconds. _H-how is he here? I thought, but Tela Vasir said that—_

"Sit down," Fujimura said as he gestured at the chair opposite to himself by the table.

Roane swallowed, nodding once as she did. Her mind was too numb and confused to even question the suggestion. _Or was it an order...?_

She felt a new kind of worry entering her heart, a less oppressive and wide-ranging, but all the more worrying and immediate all for it.

What could he want with her?

"H-how are you here?"

"I hacked my way in. Didn't that Spectre tell you that much? That I was a wanted man?" He asked, raising an eyebrow as he leaned back in the chair, his posture relaxed and confident.

She flinched at that, realizing just what Tela Vasir had sought to do to this man. "I didn't tell her any—"

"You told her everything she wanted to hear, holding nothing back. I found some recordings of your talks," he interrupted her with a nod to himself.

Roane paused, her mind whirling and grasping at straws. "I—I didn't have any choice!"

"Hmm." He looked at her, as if weighing her very soul in that moment. "You're the very definition of the little fish, you know that, don't you?"

And it appeared he had found her utterly wanting.

She hesitated, before nodding. _And you're... I don't even have the words... Oh Goddess, what did we get pulled into...?_

"Is—Are... Hosin and Hoana...?"

He blinked once, his eyes narrowing at her then as his eyes bored through her.

"Hmm? Hoana was fine last I saw her," he said, nodding to himself as if thinking back and remembering something he hadn't thought about in a long while.

"Oh, thank the Goddess..."

"That was before Hosin sold me out, though..." He muttered offhandedly, brows furrowing as if he was deep in thought.

At those words, her blood ran cold. _Why is he here? We're, we're his enemies aren't we? We all but betrayed him, didn't we...?_

"I—I..."

"Haven't seen hide or hair of them since that. He said in his note he would be escaping, but I don't quite see how he'd manage that."

She bit her lip, her eyes turning to her hands as she was gripping her fingers tightly, almost painfully so as she tried to understand why she was here. _I—I need to know if Hoana is safe, nothing else, nothing else matters!_

"I, what do you want of me?"

He looked up, giving a slight smirk then. "Right. I said it, didn't I? You're a little fish. Tiny. _Utterly beneath notice_."

"I... Yes," she admitted.

She had never stepped beyond her means or tried to grasp beyond her reach. She skimmed a little here, pinched a little there. She never hurt anyone with what she was doing, just skimming the cream enough to make a little bit more without anyone being able to notice—she just didn't ask questions or always pay all that the fine print of the legal print might have required.

She was a petty criminal, she knew that. But for the right reasons she would do anything.

But Hoana was innocent. As long as she would not suffer, Roane would do _anything_. She looked up, meeting his dark gray eyes—a fact that somehow stood out as unnatural to her in that moment, for some reason—with determination. _I have to gain his help. He can help me, he can save Hoana. No matter what; no matter what he asks or wants from me, if it's—if it's for Hoana..._

Anything for her child.

"I—"

"See, I don't have time to babysit you. So _this_ is going to bring a lot of heat on you—that fact that you know me and I went out of my way to come here, I mean—so you will have to completely disappear off the face of the galaxy."

She blinked, suddenly mentally stumbling over his words.

"Umm, what?"

"So when you get out of here, you'll have to head either for some backwater colony or the other side of the galaxy. Somewhere where even the Council and Spectres won't think to look. How you'll find your husband I have no idea, but I'm sure you'll manage as long as he doesn't get himself killed," Fujimura sighed as he shook his head. "I just don't have enough pieces to work with here..."

He seemed to be talking to himself, more than to her in particular.

"Umm, what?"

"But I'll do what I can. You'll have to pick it up from there."

Roane blinked, not understanding a word he was saying.

"So, for the next half an hour you're going to get bounced around between rooms and holding cells for a while until the personnel shift for the guards is over, after which you're going to become someone else. Someone whose bail has been paid and is going to be released today. With the switching around and new guards on rotation, they shouldn't notice for a while. You'll receive 'your' personal effects when they kick you out, including an omnitool and some new identitags and medicard I prepared for you. On the omnitool is a contact to me if you need help, but I won't be able to keep a constant eye on the mail so don't rely on it. There's also enough credits for you to buy a ticket out of Parnitha, and a few trips onward. Like I said, you need to _disappear_. Understood?" He looked at her, raising an expectant eyebrow as he finished talking.

She blinked at him, realizing that her jaw was hanging open again. "Umm...?"

"Sheesh, you really are that little one's mother, aren't you? Close your mouth before you swallow a fly," he scolded her as he shook his head.

"Umm, what, but...?"

"Did you listen to a word I said, or will I have to explain everything again?"

"Ah, no—I, I heard, but...?" She shook her head, trying to focus. She felt like crying, right then and there. She understood what he was saying, every word. But not a single syllable made any sense to her. Did she dare to hope he wasn't lying or deceiving her? "But why are you...?"

He huffed as he stood up, clearly laughing at something. Walking around the table he patted her shoulder as he walked past her. "Hosin asked for my help, that's all."

She blinked as she froze at those words. She turned around to ask him what he meant by that, "But—?"

He was gone; there was no one behind her. She looked around, before remembering he had left his helmet and turned to the table again.

But it was gone as well; she was completely alone in the room again.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya dived right back in where he had left, eyeing the progress on the various ongoing processes.

"It'll take some more time, huh," he said, floating in place in the vast darkness of the digital world.

Given that there really was no ' _down_ ' or a ground to stand on in this place, he had eventually gotten himself accustomed to simply floating in space when he dove into computer systems. What he did here was oftentimes less dependent on his physical actions and more on what he willed to happen, so in that sense it was just a matter of training. The less he relied on his physical actions as cues and shortcuts for doing things, the more quickly he could handle data and what was going on around him in the digital world.

As such, he reclined in the middle of nothing and crossed his arms. _Huh, I never thought about it, but despite the shallow similarity to being underwater it's nothing like actually being submerged in here._

Shaking his head at his recent underwater exploits and the comparisons that sprung to the fore of his mind from those experiences, he focused on what he had been doing before having his little talk with Roane. _Still haven't found Hosin or Hoana, but he was nothing if not sneaky... No news is good news, I suppose._

Trawling through the extranet he had tried to find a lead on the forces hunting him down. If he could get into their systems it would be a massive advantage. But with the Serrice Guard no longer on the look out for him or coordinating with the Spectre, it was more difficult than he had expected. He suspected the drones would have led him somewhere but for now it looked like those had all pulled into hiding.

The starship he had hauled up from the bottom of the ocean had also been recovered some hours earlier, as satellite footage revealed, and in Serrice it seemed like Tela Vasir was still buzzing around his house. _Probably looking for any clues, well that's fine._

Around the Ini'an Straits where he had been running on the sea there seemed to be dozens of starships still looking for him. But not a one of them seemed connected to anything, as he could only peek at them from orbital satellites. _Probably using a tightbeam sparingly to avoid being subverted._

If he wanted to take a closer look at them, he would have to physically go there and try his luck. Which seemed like a waste of time on a gamble that might not even give him any results, given how careful the STG seemed to be in to regards cyber-security.

"I'll have to draw them out if I want to find their base," he noted with a sigh. That could wait for now, since he had a pile of things he was still trying to handle.

He returned to looking through various medical manuals and books, searching through various maladies and miseries but nothing seemed to quite match what he had observed of his body. There weren't that many human-specific sources of information on Thessia and he wasn't sure of how accurate knowledge pertaining to asari physiology would be in his case, either. Still, it was all he had to work with.

_It might just be fatigue_ , he mused as he closed various connections and dismissed several sources.

Emiya had been looking up his condition using various search terms and specifiers, such as his diving or his long bout of wakefulness, but so far nothing seemed to be of any use. He had even been consulting various veterinarian sources for Thessia, trying to see if any animals suffered from strange conditions due to eezo or sudden changes in pressure or brightness. But as expected there was so much information but so little that matched his particulars that it turned out useless.

_I need an expert opinion; someone who can discern the relevant and connect the dots,_ he thought as he closed his eyes for a moment.

"Guess it can't be helped," he said with a shrug and sigh.

He found one of the medical hotlines and then set up a link of proxies, bouncing his communications through a comm buoy out halfway across the Parnitha system before it shot back to Thessia. Putting the commlink through, he waited for the other end to pick up.

" _Usaru Central, how may I help you?_ " The Virtual Intelligence answered, its synthesized voice and mannerism obvious immediately.

Emiya cleared his throat, checking that the voice coming out at the other end of the commline to the Usaru Central would sound as if he himself was an asari as well, and that the comm would look like it was coming through a comm buoy rather than from Thessia itself. "Yes, this is—Telana N'vorok, calling from a solo flying starship, I would like a medical consultation."

He waited for several seconds, letting the message bounce all the way to the comm buoy and back even though he could have used a connection without a noticeable lag if he had simply connected directly to Usaru. But he wanted to appear as if he wasn't on Thessia for anyone who might look a little bit deeper into who was calling in.

A few seconds passed and the VI finally continued, having received his answer.

" _Is this a medical emergency requiring immediate assistance?_ "

"No."

The system was mostly in place for starships who were too far away for them to be able to check in themselves and for whom calling in a medical starship would be too costly. Within half a light-second, commlinks were usually instantaneous, thus it was usable at even considerable ranges as long as one had the time to wait for the communication lag. More than one life had been saved by calling for help and abiding by the medical aid such services could offer.

Several seconds had passed again as the VI continued. " _Commlink medical consultations are not considered a legally accepted medical diagnosis, Usaru Central is not legally responsible for any—_ "

"Skip and send it in writing." he said, cutting off the VI. It paused for a few seconds before it continued on another track.

" _Understood; legal disclaimers sent as text file. Commlink consultations cost—_ "

"I accept all billings under the registered account."He rolled his eyes.

" _Very well, miss N'vorok,_ " the VI spoke and for a moment he paused wondering who it was talking to, before he realized it was using the name he had invented on the spot. " _Please describe the problems you have been experiencing._ "

A good thing about the advances of Virtual Intelligences had been that a lot of jobs where it was necessary to be able to sort through immense amounts of information quickly and sort out the relevant details could be assigned to the VI who would never grow tired and who could continue working at high precision without any need for breaks or time off.

With sufficiently detailed and tagged medical encyclopedias at hand, the VI could easily cut the amount of time and resources needed for diagnosing a patient.

As he began to detail his various symptoms and what he had been doing—making sure to use explanations where necessary for the sake of records kept by the VI—and finally the VI chimed back to him with a request to wait while it processed and consulted its databases.

" _Please hold, credits will not be taken while waiting for results. In case of hang up, data will be stored for one galactic day after which it will be expunged from records. Please hold._ "

After that, some gentle asari muzak simply played on loop and he shook his head. _This will probably take a while._

Turning his attention back to the two connections he had to the Athena Nebula Central Bank, he looked at the progress that had been achieved so far. There were several searches going on, though all could be further divided into numerous other individual components.

Basically he was running a history check on credits related to two sources right now. One was the credits he had recovered from the chit on Dretirop, the one that had belonged to the batarian wetworks outfit. The other was from several accounts of asari belonging to the Sapient Rights Council here in Ulee, specifically of those who had been visited by Tela Vasir prior to the vote on the cyber-tracking bill the Council had passed and who had also received significant amounts of money afterwards.

Simply put, he was doing the very thing that he had been avoiding having done to him by laundering the money through Hosin for the past few years.

All credit transactions could be traced down and tracked, meaning that all credit flow could be monitored. There were ways of muddying this trail, such as with the help of the quarians as he had. But generally speaking you couldn't hide _everything_. Something would always pop up if you looked deep enough.

Follow the money and you'll find what you're looking for.

Of course the former might just pick up the trail of the batarians' former victims who had been robbed, but that too would tell him something. Like where they usually operated and after which point in time the individual credits had fallen out of circulation. It might even be possible to draw an entire timeline of their actions using all the credits on the chit, depending on how long they had been stored there.

Additionally some of it might also have been through more legitimate means, showing a base of operations or trading hub where the batarians might have stocked up and hidden away between operations.

For the latter Emiya wasn't sure what he was looking for. For all he knew Tela Vasir might have been paying them off on the Council's orders and the money had been acquired through taxation and then use to fund the Spectre's use.

And while the Athena Nebula Central Bank was a huge organization with tens of thousands of branches, its records were not perfect. He might have to look around elsewhere as well.

Well, this should give him a basic idea so there was nothing to do now but wait. He pulled out a bunch of streams of information; Ulee police comm chatter, Serrice news reports and then live satellite feeds from orbit where he kept an eye on the surroundings of various key locations.

He was nowhere, yet he was everywhere. A ghost in the system, incorporeal yet able to affect change all-too-real anywhere that was within his reach.

There was just one thing he found lacking.

"I really should try figuring out how to bring a cup of tea in here, though..."

* * *

;

* * *

"This is..."

The automatic door made a chiming sound indicating that someone had tried to enter and had been denied access, causing Baliya to blink and turn around.

She frowned as she paused for a moment. Shaking her head, she continued speaking. "This is _monumental_ , to think that something like—"

Again, someone tried to enter through the locked door and was denied access. _So, they've come._

She turned to look at the brilliant young asari opposite to her by the table with a serious look. "They must be here for you."

Liara blinked, looking at the professor curiously. "Are you sure? It could simply be some students or University staff, couldn't it?"

"It could." Baliya nodded. "But I doubt it. Put on the full protection suits and go into the vacuum chamber. Go."

"Uh, me too?" The other Maiden who had been sitting by the side in relative silence while they had been working, and as the Matriarch nodded she shrugged and moved to follow after the other.

The two had slept in her office overnight and they had continued working on the Prothean gun first thing in the morning. So far no one had bothered them and due to the disruption of the previous day, many schedules had gotten so mixed up and chaotic that most classes had been canceled for the time being at the University. This had left them with plenty of privacy at the laboratories and museum, something most of them did not mind.

Tyra seemed somewhat antsy, but overall she did not seem too troubled with having to stay inside and sit by the side too much. _It seems like she has a lot on her mind, I wonder what happened between her and him earlier..._

The door chimed a third time and she walked up to it, checking that both of the Maidens had gotten into the one-use plastic suits and entered the vacuum chamber.

She opened the door from the inside, frowning as she looked at the two asari there. "What is all this racket?"

"Serrice Guard, ma'am. Please step aside, we are performing a routine sweep and need to search the premise," one of the two hardsuit-clad asari said as he peeked over Baliya's shoulder into the room.

"Well go do it somewhere else, I am running a very delicate experiment right now," Baliya brusquely brushed them off, closing the door behind her.

She just had time to see the surprised blinks of the two asari before the door closed. _Let's see how well that works, it will tell me quite a bit about their orders if they push it._ She waited a second and nothing happened.

Turning around and raising her hand to give the two girls an All-Ok sign, the door chimed again. She sighed, making eye-contact with Liara and mouthing the words ' _pretend you're working_ ' as she turned around to open the door again.

_Alright old girl, you can play it by ear. Just another day at the office, really_. She exhaled, putting on a put upon expression of measured annoyance and grievance at being interrupted as she opened the door.

Neither of the two Serrice Guards so much as blinked as she stared them down. _They're here on orders from someone with a lot of pull, then. A Spectre? No, it has to be an asari most likely—A Matriarch._

"Ma'am, if you do not cooperate then we will have to take you in for obstruction," one of them said as the other immediately walked in before Baliya could close the door again.

"Do you know who I am?" Baliya asked as she crossed her arms.

They ignored her, looking around the room. Immediately spotting the two asari in the vacuum chamber, clad in face-concealing plastic suits, they looked at each other.

"Who are they?"

Baliya sniffed, staring at the Serrice Guard down the length of her nose. "My _students_. You are in a University, you do realize that, do you not?"

The hardsuited asari frowned, looking at each other for a moment before turning to the vacuum chamber. "Come out and reveal your faces, right now!"

Baliya rolled her eyes, uncrossing her arms and moving to stand between the vacuum chamber and the two Serrice Guards.

"It is a vacuum chamber, they can't _hear_ you."

"Well, get them out of there. We need to identify them," the taller of the two asari said.

"It can't be done, they're in the middle of a very delicate and expensive procedure. Opening the lock could contaminate ancient samples and destroy literally priceless artifacts!" Baliya said, moving to stand in front of the chamber door.

"Move aside, we're—"

"I am not going to destroy a million credit sample because you are too thick to take a no for an answer," Baliya said, glaring at the two now.

The shorter asari moved to Baliya's side, setting herself up to flank her as she spoke. "Ma'am, we—"

"Are going to leave, _now_."

The two looked at each other before nodding slightly and backing away. They walked back to the door before turning around again. "If you see anything unusual, please do not hesitate to report it immediately."

Baliya nodded, saying nothing as she closed and locked the door behind the two. Turning to look at Liara and Tyra taking off their helmets while inside the vacuum chamber, she sighed.

"Do you think they were looking for us?" Liara asked, stepping out.

"Perhaps."

"They'll be back, won't they?" Tyra noted, finally speaking up after what seemed like a day of silence. "Should we run? Or should we just turn ourselves in? It's not like they can do anything to us... Right?"

"With Spectres involved, nothing is impossible," Baliya quietly noted. "And I haven't made a habit of trusting strangers in a long time. Let's return to my offices, we'll be hidden there."

"But the pistol is still..." Liara began but was interrupted by the Matriarch.

"We've already gotten most of the information out of the weapon, for now it is a matter of working with the data. There's no need for us to remain here, the remaining tests aren't as vital."

"Professor?" Liara asked.

"It's nothing. We'll be fine, trust me." Baliya showed a re-assuring smile to the two Maidens, showing none of the uncertainty she felt in her heart.

* * *

;

* * *

"It looks like some results are beginning to pour in. Let's see, let's see... Ternit system, Parnitha system, Citadel hmm..."

Emiya nodded as he eyed the tables of locations, dates and sums of the money that were being traced. The money of the various board members of the Sapient Rights Council had come back first, so he was now going through and trying to find a link. So far it seemed like all of that money was coming in from various disparate sources without any obvious common factors between them.

The commline chimed and he blinked, turning his attention away.

" _Miss N'vorok? Are you there?_ "

_That's not the VI, someone took over the call? That's unusual... isn't it?_ He wondered as he cleared his throat and focused on altering the output voice again. It wasn't like _he_ was speaking, rather it was simply data being transmitted and translated into sound by the computer system after all.

"Yes, have you found something? Is something wrong?"

" _No, nothing to worry about, miss N'vorok. We simply need to ask you a few questions, if that is alright—oh, do not worry about the costs, they will be waived for now, alright?_ "

Emiya blinked at that, pausing for a moment.

" _Miss N'vorok, is everything alright?_ "

"Yes, no problem. What did you want to ask?"

He waited a few seconds again, noting the lag had changed from before.

" _You mentioned that you had been diving before you lost consciousness, where did you swim exactly?_ " The asari on the other end queried.

Emiya frowned; the lag was infinitesimally smaller suddenly again. "Why? Is it related to why I blacked out? What's going on?"

Injecting a hint of growing panic, he listened to how the person on the other end would react.

" _No, no, it's nothing like that. I am sure it is nothing beyond some exhaustion as you noted. A good night's rest would be all that's necessary for it to clear up._ " The asari hastily spoke, audibly trying to appear calm and controlled.

And again, the lag had decreased. It meant the distance the message had to travel was decreasing and considerably so. But with the comm buoy he was using, it would appear as if he was double the buoy's distance from Thessia due to the comm lag. Which could only mean that someone was flying towards the comm buoy while speaking, then? He reached out and checked, subtly extending his mind through the connection to see where it was leading. And as expected...

_It's not being routed to Usaru anymore... It's to some starship flying out towards the Mass Relay?_ Was this person trying to track him through the phony relay connection he had made?

"That's good," he commented noncommittally. Something about all of this seemed fishy; _I should probably cut it here._

" _You mentioned that you had a headache and that your pupils seemed to be dilating and shrinking by themselves, yes? Along with phantom sensations of touch and sound?_ "

"Yeah, can you tell me what that was?"

" _Ah, we aren't entirely certain, but if you could come in for a few tests, we could figure it out together. All expenses covered, of course!_ "

Emiya shook his head, then. _Too suspicious_.

"Well, if there's nothing more..."

" _Ah, please wait, I have some more questions! It could be important and it won't take long._ "

He said nothing, simply waiting quietly for her to continue as he noticed they were running a trace on the commline now. Exhaling, he re-routed the trace and sent it out towards the Mass Relay buoys where it would be sent out of the system entirely.

" _Were you alone? Or did you perhaps have company, wherever you were? A lover? Or someone you met recently?_ "

"No, nothing like that," he said and then blinked as something stood out among the numerous feeds he was watching. "Huh, looks like I have to go now."

" _Wait, miss N'vorok—Telana! You can fight it_ —"

He shook his head. As expected, with the difference in human and asari physiology there was no point in trying to consult a local doctor for something like this. He had already gone so far as to check any melding-related problems commonly available but there had been nothing like that there.

Closing the commlines, he focused on one particular stream of data coming in through a security center, as he set aside the bank compilations and research tabs he had been working on. _Well, that's not good._

* * *

;

* * *

Baliya led the way walking five steps ahead of the two Maidens.

Close enough that she could keep an eye on them but not quite close enough that they moved in one group. This way she could take corners first and cover for the two. _It's been over half a millennia, yet the VIP detail skills still seem to be there._

They just needed to go through the intersection and then out through the hallway and they would be able to enter the Museum where they would be safely sequestered from curious eyes.

She turned a corner and froze, her eyes raking the scene up ahead in an instant as she turned around and walked back behind the corner. She did not hurry, nor did she panic as she walked into the two Maidens coming up behind her. Grabbing their arms she walked right past them and took them with her.

"Change of plans, we must go around by the outside entrance."

"Huh?" Tyra asked as she blinked, moving to keep up.

"What is it?" Liara added her own query.

Baliya didn't speak for a few seconds, only picking up her pace a little and taking a turn to get outside the University building to the enclosed courtyard next to the museum.

"The Serrice Guard are here again."

The two Maidens blinked, sharing a silent glance. In unison they hurried to keep up with the Matriarch in silent celerity, then. _Is the museum safe? But it's not like I have anywhere else to go either._

For the first time in a while she felt distinctly annoyed by her lack of a proper apartment, or even friends living nearby upon whom she could rely at a time like this. Perhaps if she could call Tevos things would be different, but assuming that Fujimura's hunch was correct then it would be difficult to get in contact.

They made it outside, noting that it wasn't quite as it had been yesterday. There might even be some rain later today, with clouds looming in the horizon. She led them towards the museum, walking at a clipped pace forward. There remained only a stretch across a patch of grass to the museum ahead.

But up ahead, they could see two hardsuit-clad asari standing by and looking around. Clearly on guard and looking for something, Baliya halted and held them back behind the cover of a corner. "We can't sneak past them like this..."

"Should we try to fight?" Liara suggested and both Tyra and Baliya blinked at her.

"No, that would be a terrible idea." Baliya said and then blinked as she realized someone had walked up to them from behind. A hardsuit-clad asari stood there with a pistol in hand as their eyes met. Baliya blinked as she switched mental gears immediately. Raising a hand, she greeted the asari. "Can I help you?"

At the same time she was preparing to use her biotics in case the asari raised the pistol. At those words, Tyra and Liara stood a little straighter, turning around to look at the person who had appeared behind them, immediately spotting the tension in Baliya's expression.

However...

"Miss Liara?"

;

Emiya jumped out, spiritualized and invisible as he moved to tail Roane.

Looking around he spotted the two Ulee police officers immediately. It seemed like they were running an identification check on everyone buying tickets off of Thessia and using a facial profile system to confirm their identities against a database. It didn't seem like they were on the lookout for Roane, but the heightened state of security had brought on some additional measures. Roane's face was being analyzed and compared to an external database, something that was not related to the identitags or medicard, rather running in quarantine parallel simultaneously. In other words, the same kind of system that he had needed to spoof in real time because simply having identitags would not be enough.

Having passively followed after her he had made sure that the asari was not getting into any trouble, but she had immediately headed for the express starliners off of Thessia. _I should have told her to lay low and buy an economy-class ticket; this is too suspicious on such short notice._

Well, it couldn't be helped.

He had broken her out so he might as well go through the extra effort of making sure she got off Thessia as well. What point was there in half-assing it at this point? With a sigh, he dived into the starport system as he heard the shout, keeping an eye on the situation through the camera feeds.

"Next, please!"

Roane stepped up, hiding her nervousness quite well as she smiled at the asari behind the desk. Using the omnitool, she sent forward her identitags along with her ticket off-world. Keeping an eye on everything, Emiya simply let it all go by as normal without doing anything.

He had been maintaining the 'All-Ok' status on the facial recognition VI for several minutes already, having wormed his way into their databases and reworked Roane's profile to make sure she wouldn't get arrested again the moment she walked in.

"Very good, the starliner will be leaving an hour from now at Terminal 4. To arrive there, take the left and follow the yellow line by the floor. Thank you for using Parnitha Starlines and enjoy your trip."

Roane nodded, moving past the desk as she moved with calm and measured steps out from the reception into the waiting area. Emiya looked around as he manifested next to Roane again, noting that no one seemed to have caught on yet.

_Looks like everything is working out._

* * *

;

* * *

"Shiawe?" Liara blinked.

"Miss Liara!" The asari rushed over, almost bowling into Liara as she moved over. "I can't believe—how did you, why didn't you tell anyone that you were alive!"

Liara blinked as she realized she was being embraced by the commando.

"Ah... That is...?" She blinked, looking at Tyra for help who seemed to be staring with equal bafflement at the stranger.

"You know her?" Baliya asked, lowering her guard a tad bit.

"Well, yes... She is a subordinate of my mother—a commando, to be specific. But why are you here...?"

"Ah! That's right, miss Liara! What happened with that man Fujimura? What's going on, everything's been a complete mess! Why were you at his house!?"

"Erm, Fujimura? How do you know about Saiga?" Liara blinked.

Tyra seemed especially curious about that fact, as well.

"Ah, well Matriarch Benezia sent me to tail him, but..."

"My mother did?" Liara blinked, suddenly completely nonplussed. "Because of me? Is she here?"

"Err, no... Matriarch Benezia discovered him near Dretirop and he was deemed suspicious, so we followed him here."

"Dretirop?" Liara only seemed to grow more confused by the second. "What is mother doing on Dretirop?"

"Look, all of this can wait for later. Shiawe, was it?" Baliya cut in, then.

"Ah, yes?"

"You're working with the Serrice Guard, correct?"

Shiawe nodded. "We have been looking around the Serrice underground parking hall the whole night, together with the Serrice Guard! Miss Liara, we thought you were dead!"

"Ah, is that so?" Liara seemed only mildly surprised by that. "Well given how much trouble Saiga seemed to attract, I would be likely to think so as well."

"That's right! How did you escape? We tried to come to your rescue as soon we realized that Spectre was coming to arrest him and that you had been pulled in by accident. But we were arrested before we could do anything!" Shiawe looked ashamed at that, avoiding eye-contact. "Luckily Matriarch Benezia saw fit to get us some back up, she—ah, well... She umm, called some help and..."

Shiawe's words trailed off there, as it seemed like she was trying to think of a way to explain something without revealing too much.

"Shiala is here as well?" Liara asked.

"Huh? Shiala, no—I mean, yeah! Shiala's here!" The commando nodded vigorously. "Yeah, she bailed me out in no time! She got us back up, a uh... _friend_ of Matriarch Benezia, to come help us."

"Oh." Liara blinked, before exhaling. "We need your help, Shiawe. We need to get inside the museum without being seen by the Serrice Guard, or anyone else."

"Uh... Sure? But why?"

Tyra injected herself into the conversation then. "Cuz we weren't there at the house by accident. That Tela Vasir pretty much herded us in there before she tried to kick down the doors. Saiga said she's dirty, so we need to get out of sight and quick, you know?"

"Tela Vasir is—" Shiawe blinked, freezing for a moment in confusion. She shook her head with a frown, raising a hand clenched to a fist up to her chest. "I'm not sure I get it, but yeah I'll help! What do you need?"

"Can you get those two around the corner away from the door? We need to get inside," Baliya said immediately.

"Sure, is that all? Just gimme a sec." Shiawe walked around them.

Baliya blinked, peeking around the corner. It was too far away for the discussion to be heard but it was obvious that Shiawe had spoken to them before. There was some laughter and a few seconds later the two Serrice Guards walked off as Shiawe settled to lean against the wall.

The three walked around the corner and to the door as soon as the two disappeared from view.

"Heh, they were just taking a break out of sight. No problem, no problem," Shiawe grinned and Tyra offered her a cheeky thumbs up that made the commando blink.

"Thank you," Liara nodded.

"The others are still underground, looking for you. I'll try calling them and the moment they get out I'll let them know that I found you, your f—erm, I mean—they'll all be really relieved to know you're safe." Shiawe said and neither of the other two Maidens seemed to notice the stutter.

The Matriarch among them simply eyed the commando curiously before deciding to trust her as was.

"I... thank you, Shiawe," Liara said with a slight smile.

"Alright," Baliya nodded as they entered the museum. "With this we should be safe for a while."

"Right, won't let anyone get past me, so don't worry," Shiawe said entering with them and closing the door behind them, positioning herself to stay by the inside of the door.

Baliya nodded, familiar with the young vigor and desire to please so common in young commandos, having both been one and worked with several over her long life.

_Well, that's helpful. But, I should still call Tevos and try to get this sorted out,_ she thought as the three of them entered the museum. _Still, with this it should be alright._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya blinked as he returned to looking over the banking data. "Well, now..."

It had progressed considerably while he had been looking after Roane, he noted with a wry grin. He began to sort through the details of the credits he had gotten from the batarian wetworks outfit he had eliminated on Dretirop. There were a lot of holes, since the Athena Nebula Central Bank only had so many branches around the galaxy, but it still painted a somewhat coherent picture of how and where money had flowed. Physical transactions with credit chits were more difficult to track, but digital transactions usually left a record that banks and financial analysis groups were more than happy to pay for.

Knowledge is power and information is money, as they say.

It wasn't individual credits that told him anything, but ' _groups_ ' of credits that were useful. Usually when one bought something one paid with more than just a single credit after all. These clusters would form and disperse, but there was usually enough of a trend to make some inferences as to where the money had come from and where it was headed. Like a hundred thousand strands of hair so thin that they could not be seen with the naked eye, congregating and being woven into a thick rope that could be easily followed.

There were two major 'ropes' he could see; the somewhat legitimate looking one and the somewhat questionable one. In the former major group all the signs pointed to one place.

Khar'shan, the batarian home world.

Though the batarians had pulled out from the Citadel they still used the same legal tender— the galactic credit—for trade with other races, and many an industrious and adventurous merchant was more than willing to try their luck despite the Citadel sanctions in place.

Profit was profit, that was all there was to it.

_So someone on the batarian home world is funding the group I ran into,_ he noted dryly. It was useful information, but right now it wouldn't help him much. Given the political situation between the Batarian Hegemony and the Citadel Council, it would be rather difficult to get there, for starters.

He would have to hope that the other major grouping of credits would be more useful.

In the latter 'rope' he found dozens of unique sub-groups with a readable trail through the galaxy, with numerous exchanges—someone either buying or selling using a specific credit where it was noted and put into the records he was now accessing—until they suddenly entered a certain region and disappeared. They had used their credits before attempting to pass through that place, never to be seen again. _Someone sold a haul of iridium here, moving to pass through this cluster, buying supplies at these settlements with some of the iridium money and then they disappeared. With much of that iridium money now in my hands through the batarian's credit chit._

Pulling out a galaxy map and taking a closer look, he looked over the region where many of the credits had ' _disappeared_ ' over the years. A large cluster of systems relatively nearby to each other, each containing one or more mass relays and small settlements of people on asteroids and moons, mining and trading with passing by ships from the Mass Relays.

"A pretty good place to set up shop, if you were looking for ships to attack. Piracy then," he noted.

No major settlements or fleet presence, a long distance between Mass Relays allowing you to spot them in FTL and then rush to the relay ahead of them and ambush them as they dropped out of FTL and began their relay approach. It was reasonable to assume that the batarians had a base of operations here, a place where they could perform maintenance on their ships and handle downtime discreetly in a way that a public dock simply would not allow. Still...

_There must be thousand places in here for a secret base to be set up. It would take forever to look them over one by one and they would see me coming a light-second away._ He shook his head. _There's only so many places an outfit like that would be able to operate out of. I just need to limit it down using those criteria._ Going through a dozen systems he found a handful of places, but four systems among them looked like they fit the bill.

Zooming out, he looked at one of the four systems. "No Mass Relay inside the system meaning little civilian traffic and plenty of privacy. A gas giant to skim for fuel. Dozens of planets and moons to hide in and mine for resources, and a view of the interstellar space between systems which merchant vessels have to cross..."

Still, there were three other systems generally like it nearby. It would take too long to search through all of them. He raised a hand to his chin and thought about the matter. "Would it be enough to be looking around for ships passing by in FTL? No, if the targets were too fast then they would always get away. Which means there must be something more to this."

They needed information; what ships were coming, what kind of armament and escort did they possess, where did they arrive from. For something like that an informant was necessary. FTL tightbeam buoys were expensive, but with a large enough operation—the kind that received funding from the batarian home world, for example—it was possible.

And those informants had to be in a position where they could not only relay such information forward but be in place to see it immediately, wasting no time.

Somewhere like the settlements near the Mass Relays where he had noted a handful of credit trails leading. _There will always be people willing to sell out strangers for an easy credit. I can probably find the trail in those settlements again._

Then he should start there, once he left Thessia to go looking for Henell.

* * *

;

* * *

" _Baliya? How surprising of you to call me. I believe this is a first in... Well, it is a first._ " The Matriarch and Asari Councilor laughed, smiling at her old friend.

"Ah, well... You know how it is Tevos, I'm just so busy all the time," Baliya weakly defended, feeling more than a little sheepish.

" _Yes, you were always like this. I remember having to wake you many a morning back in university after you had lost all track of the world outside our dorm._ " Tevos smiled lightly and somehow Baliya had the impression it was the first of the day for her fellow Matriarch. " _What entreated you to call me? You even called me through the hyperlane._ "

Much like how Mass Relays could raise objects to massively faster than light velocities, through the use of comm buoys it was also possible to send tightbeam communications at a much faster than usual speed. Of course, given that to make it work it required a miniature Mass Relay replica along with a truly humongous power source to fuel the tightbeam, it was exorbitantly expensive. But due to that it was possible for a nearly lag-free conversation to happen in real time between Serrice and the Presidium, despite the fact that there were thousands of lightyears between them.

"It has to do with that guy you're having trouble with, Fujimura I mean."

Tevos blinked and there was a short pause as the other tried to compute what she had just heard.

" _...Fujimura Saiga, you mean? I had not expected you to know that name,_ " the councilor said. " _You never were one for paying attention to the goings on of the outside world. What has brought this on? Did someone tell you about the operations there? I apologize if you have been inconvenienced, but you understand how vital these matters are to the_ Citadel."

"Uh, well..." Baliya hesitated, before sighing and simply saying it. "He is something of an acquaintance of mine, so I guess you could say he told me about all of this."

There was a moment of utter silence as Tevos tried to process what she had just heard, her eyes widening so quickly that Baliya almost laughed.

Rare was the occasion when Tevos would lose her cool.

" _What—what do you mean? There was nothing in his file about—how, when?_ "

"Ahaha, well he began to visit me a few years ago. He was quite a bright young man, so it didn't take him all that long to ingratiate himself to me. I thought I would be more annoyed with such a headstrong character hanging around, but he reminds me quite a bit of Nirida actually. A real worrywart, you know?"

" _This, this is..._ " Tevos sputtered, obviously utterly off her balance with this revelation. " _Is he there, are you alright?_ "

"Yes, I'm fine. He left a few hours ago, which is actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Tevos, we—" Baliya spoke but paused as suddenly the connection cut off.

She blinked at the darkened screen noting the 'connection lost' error message with confusion.

"What happened?" Tyra asked, looking at Baliya. "Why did it cut off?"

The two Maidens had agreed to sit by quietly as she made the call, agreeing with the sentiment of bringing in someone who could sort this out.

"I, I don't know," Baliya admitted, frowning at the terminal. A second later she noted that the extranet connection also disappeared.

A second later the lights went out as all power was cut. Baliya's first reaction was to curse at the fact that all of her cataloging and analysis programs would be cut off and probably corrupted, before a second later she realized how bad this actually was.

"We need to get out of here—someone, someone must have overheard the conversation and cut it off!"

Tyra blinked as Liara's eyes shot wide open. "They are trying to box us in."

"Grab your things, we need to go!"

They got up and moved to get out, using the emergency latch to forcefully pry open the powerless automatic door. While the power had been cut off, Baliya still had an omnitool with flashlight functionality which allowed them to dispel the worst of the darkness.

"Really getting tired of being constantly in the dark like this... Once this is over I'm not going inside for a week!" Tyra complained as they ran. "I'll sleep on the grass and everything."

"This is nothing, on Dretirop I had to stay underground for a month due to sandstorms caving in the entrance once," Liara huffed.

Baliya rolled her eyes at the two as she lead the way. Every door on the way had to be pried open using the emergency latches, which luckily faced inwards in the museum.

Arriving halfway out, suddenly the lights came back on and they slowed down. Looking up at the lights and then at each other, they gingerly walked to the next door and tried to open it normally.

"It won't open," Tyra noted, turning around.

Baliya stepped forward. "The emergency lockdown is in place? Let me try my omnitool, it should have the override authorization..."

Her fingers danced across the haptic adaptive interface for a few seconds until she looked up. But the door remained stubbornly unresponsive.

"Did it work?" Tyra asked.

"No... I do not understand..." Baliya frowned. "We should go return the other way..."

They doubled back to go back the way they had come, but the door they had opened earlier closed by itself before they could even cross halfway there.

"Oh no..." Liara said, turning around. "We're trapped now."

The door they had tried to pass through earlier suddenly opened, and through it Tela Vasir strode in with an easy smile appearing on her face as she spotted them. " _There_ you are. I've been looking for you for hours."

All three looked at each other, quietly trying to judge what to do. Finally, Tyra managed to ground out a response.

"You've been looking for us?"

"Yes, indeed." Vasir said with an easy smile. "It's dangerous right now, so how about you come with me for now. We'll get everything sorted out in no time."

"Dangerous? Is that why you have a gun drawn behind your back?" Baliya asked.

The Spectre blinked as her face turned carefully neutral, turning to look at the Matriarch. A beat passed and the smile was back as she relaxed her arm to show the gun before holstering it slowly on her hip.

"Well, you know how it is. You can never be too careful. But never mind that, we should leave. Come, I have my ship just outside."

"Where is Shiawe?" Liara asked, clenching her fists as she glared at the asari before them.

Baliya blinked, realizing that given the way the Spectre had come in, she must have run across the asari commando from earlier.

"Hmm? Who? Come on, we can discuss this once you're safe and secure," Vasir said though the smile was obviously growing brittle. "Let's talk about it outside, okay?"

"Yeah, I don't think so. I thought you were weird before, but Saiga was right; I can smell the rot right on you." Tyra said as she took a step forward to cover for Liara.

For a drawn out second all of them stood there, tensely staring at each other.

Then the Spectre let out an explosive sigh, rolling her eyes at them as she scowled, drawing the pistol. "Nothing works out like it's supposed to. I must be losing my touch."

"You... Why are you doing this? You're betraying the Council by doing this, you do realize that don't you?" Baliya said as she focused on her biotics, preparing for a fight.

She might not be the strongest fighter, but she was a Matriarch nonetheless. _Still, that gun will be a problem..._

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Vasir said with a dismissive scoff. "I serve the Citadel with everything I am. Everything I do, is for the good of the Council."

Tyra huffed. "Right, and I didn't flunk polyverbial dialectics twice. No wonder Saiga didn't want anything to do with the likes of you."

"Fool Maiden, are you so love struck that you can't see reality before you?" The Spectre shook her head, clicking her tongue. "What do you even know? ' _Saiga_ '? That's what he called himself, didn't he? That's not even his _real name_. Everything you know about him is a damn _lie_ , you stupid child. You have no idea what he is. What he is capable of. Do you really think someone like that would simply be acting out without a motive? Without some hidden interests? He is _dangerous_ , more than you could ever know."

Tyra scoffed at that, staring at the Spectre unimpressed by her words.

"Hah, you really don't get it at all, do you? Saiga, Shirou, redhax or whatever—none of that matters. If you'd just look, you'd see how _transparent_ he really is. Why he does everything he does, it's just—" Tyra paused, as if suddenly realizing something right then. "It's like... it's like his _heart is made out of glass...?_ "

The Maiden blinked, shaking her head as pieces finally fell into place in her head.

"What? What are you even talking about?" Vasir paused, frowning at the young asari as she tilted her head. "You know what, I can ask you properly later once I have my interrogation kit. You know _something_ , and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"Interro—" Tyra tried to say but couldn't, as the Spectre cast a split-second Stasis field on her.

Liara blinked, stepping back and away from the statue-like Tyra who had been utterly stilled by the Spectre with what seemed like minimal effort. She turned to look at Vasir, growing concern in her eyes replacing the anger that had been lit earlier.

"Your cheek was starting to piss me off, too. Well, it doesn't matter, I can take it out properly later. Now, as for you professor Haphia," Vasir said as she raised her pistol with a smirk.

"You don't think you're going to get away with this, do you? Tevos is on her way here right now, you realize that don't you?" Baliya said as she took a step to stand in front of Liara protectively.

"Hmm? You mean that earlier call you made? Oh, yes. _That_." The Spectre merely smiled, sauntering forward with sinuous steps. "Was a most unfortunate thing. That dastardly hacker had broken in here and used your likeness along with his skills to falsify a call to the asari councilor. Who knows what he was trying to do with that... Lure her in and use her as a hostage. It's a good thing I was here to put a stop to that, isn't it?"

Baliya blinked, taking a step back as her eyes widened.

"But it's too bad that the poor professor didn't make it. See, unlike those two, I have no intention of taking any chances with you. Which means you will have to die here," the Spectre said with an easy smile, much more natural than the facade from earlier.

"You're mad—" Baliya began to say.

But the pistol report cut her off. The hasty barrier, erected at the sudden raising of an arm and old reflexes of centuries worth of training was the only thing that saved Baliya's life then.

Vasir reacted immediately, Charging forward like a biotic freight train and slamming into the Barrier. Baliya reeled back as the protection broke with just enough force left over to push her back on her heels. She brought her hands up and shoot forward a biotic throw almost instinctively, but the Spectre slapped it aside with instinctive ease.

"You!" Liara shouted, throwing out a biotic pull at her.

Tela Vasir grinned as she reached out and slapped the attack with her own biotics halfway before it had even reached her, sending it bouncing towards Baliya's open back.

The Matriarch had just enough time to realize she was airborne before the Spetre's Throw slammed into her and sent her flying down the hallway like a rag-doll shot out of a cannon.

Liara's eyes shot wide open as her jaw dropped in horror at the realization of what had happened, her head turning and following the Matriarch as she flew past her.

"See princess, that's what happens when you try to fight with the big girls," Vasir grinned as she shrugged, raising her hands lazily to show how easily she had beaten them. "But thanks, that old biddy was rusty but I could tell she would have become more and more troublesome the longer the fight would go on. Underneath all that dust and rust is a legitimate commando."

"It's not over yet...!" Liara said, gritting her teeth as she glared at the Spectre.

Her answer was three shots with the pistol at the wall next to her, causing pieces of the building material to shatter and fly into Liara's face. She flinched, raising her arms and closing her eyes on pure instinct.

The biotic lash that Vasir threw at her was too quick for the Maiden to even notice, much less react to. Like a biotic lasso it wrapped around Liara and pulled her towards the Spectre who jumped forward in a shoulder tackle into the flying asari's gut.

Liara could barely even grunt as all the air in her lungs was pushed out at the impact, and as she hit the floor she curled up with her arms clutching at her gut. She almost retched as she gasped for air at Vasir's feet.

"Ah, much better." The Spectre rolled her neck and shoulders, seeming quite pleased with herself.

Tyra gasped as the Stasis broke, allowing her to move again. She turned around, eyes wide as she beheld the carnage that had happened right behind her.

"Welcome back, _sweetie,_ " Vasir said with obvious relish. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you."

* * *

;

* * *

Roane fidgeted in place.

_Calm down, it's all going to work out. You have to believe tha—_ Her omnitool chimed and she almost jumped out of her skin at the sound. An asari businesswoman in a smart casual business outfit blinked at her, looking up from her datapad with a frown.

"Sorry," Roane offered apologetically as she sat back down.

With a frown, she turned on the omnitool's holographic display to see what the problem all of a sudden was. Immediately, even before she pressed anything a message came up.

' _You've been found. You need to leave._ '

She blinked, frowning at the message. She looked up and around, eyeing everyone and trying to find anything amiss. Looking back down, the message had changed.

' _Not here. They're in orbit and coming down. You need to leave right now. Walk calmly out of here, the police or guards haven't been notified yet._ '

"...Eh...? Fujimura?" She blinked before closing the omnitool and slowly making her way out from the waiting area. She would be missing her starliner flight this way, but it probably couldn't be helped.

Her omnitool chimed again and she raised it up. This time it didn't even wait for her input to open up the holographic display and show her the message.

' _Turn left here, the guards have been notified. Don't worry about the cameras, I'm running interference. Don't run or hurry, don't draw any attention to yourself. Just calmly leave. Outside there will be a skycab waiting for you with the door open._ '

"Ehh...?"

' _Get moving, Roane._ '

"Alright, alright." She shook her head, closing the omnitool as she walked out. Fighting the urge to walk more quickly and keeping her head down, she could see out of the corner of her eye how a pair of asari guards were running towards the waiting area she had just left behind. _That's reassuring. I think...?_

Walking outside, she found the promised skycab there. As soon as she saw it the door opened to let her enter. Sitting down, she inhaled slowly as she looked around as the door closed and the vehicle took off. There was no one else in the skycab, as expected.

"Where is it taking me, though...?" She wonder out aloud.

" _It seems like they discovered your disappearance. It was quicker than I'd expected, right now it looks like there will be some trouble._ "

She almost jumped again, realizing that the sound was coming through the stereo and that she recognized the voice. "Fujimura, so it was you. What is happening?"

But there was no answer. She blinked, leaning forward to tap at the skycab's dash terminal.

"Fujimura?"

Nothing.

"He's... gone?" She blinked, leaning back as she tried to understand what was going on. She sighed, looking out the window, trying to wrap her head around everything that was going on.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya ripped himself free from the strange binding that had suddenly appeared and tried to capture him.

Landing onto the geometric plane below him in the digital ocean of the extranet, he looked around warily for another attack. He had noticed an increase in communications on certain channels, which had allowed him to predict what was going to happen next and get Roane out of the starport before the local security could do anything.

But as he left her in the skycab and set out to figure exactly how she had been found, he had suddenly been attacked by something on the extranet. It seemed like someone was running a trace and analyzing information extremely quickly, so he had tried to track it down only to be shunted off somewhere else, and here he was. It was like suddenly the world itself turned against him, the space itself turning into rope and hooks that aimed for his limbs and flesh, walls being erected and hardening in an attempt to restrain him and dazzling lights appearing to blind him while the pressure of the surrounding space increased.

Moving around, he avoided it all with flowing movements as he ripped through what he couldn't avoid.

_I've never had to fight before in here. It's not quite what I imagined it would be like_ , he noted as he looked around. Nothing seemed amiss, after having left the skycab.

He had run into opposition and problems before while spirit hacking, but it wasn't like he had ever encountered anything that could actually fight against him in here. Bugs and viruses weren't living things but something along the line of clearly defined patterns, meaning that even as he interacted with such things they usually didn't react to him in any way. Even Virtual Intelligences didn't so much as blink when he interacted with them directly, which made sense. This was a representation; a view of the world created by his perceptions. There was no reason anything acting in here had to assume a similar understanding of what was happening, thus expecting to get into anything resembling his fighting in the real world was ridiculous. He was too much of an unknown quantity for something like that to work, simply given how information technology worked.

Another 'rope' tried to reach for him as he simply back-handed it so hard that it shattered out of existence. _It seems like whatever or whoever this is, it's prodding me right now._

Hackers and electronic warfare specialists weren't usually a problem either, since in this form he didn't have any hardware or code they could target. Unlike most programs and Virtual Intelligences, he did not have a source code tied to a specific computer. He could freely jump from one system to another, free from the boundaries of propagation time and processing speed, meaning that until now nothing had really been able to touch him.

But this was something entirely new; it was the first time something was able to perceive him in here, even as he couldn't quite perceive it.

He moved backwards at will as suddenly a portion of the world simply disappeared, turning into a square void where he had been a moment before. He blinked, staring at the nothingness before him. Never before had something like that happened as far as he had seen. Reaching forward, he pushed a hand into the void. It did not disappear or vanish, or anything like that as he flexed his hand to see if anything happened. It simply pushed into the space as if nothing was unusual there.

_Did someone just try to delete me, or something?_

Shaking his head, he looked around trying to find whoever was attacking him right now. He focused on trying to see through disguises or trying to see through and recognize whatever it was that was here with him.

"Come on out, no point in hiding. I'll find you eventually," he said, waiting for some kind of response. Anything, really.

His response came in the form of the section of the digital world he was in being completely shut down, like someone had pulled the plug on the computer. He blinked as he was spat out into the real world, somewhat disoriented by the experience despite being unharmed.

_Did... Did it try to take me down by self-destructing?_

Shaking his head, he turned to get his bearings. Having no idea where he actually was beyond that it was some server-farm, he chose another server and dived back in. It would be easiest to find his way back to Roane that way. Jumping through the extranet he found himself in Ulee Traffic Control quickly enough and connected to the skycab Roane was in. Checking that she seemed fine and nothing was amiss in the skycab, he settled to watch as it continued towards the hotel he had sent it to originally.

Patching himself through the skycab's speakers he spoke up. "Roane, the cab will land in a minute at a hotel. I got you a room there, to lay low in for a while."

She blinked, looking up suddenly.

" _Fujimura? What happened?_ "

"Computer was acting up, you know how it is," he said vaguely.

She blinked, letting out a small laugh. " _Yes, yes, I suppose. Do you know anything about Hosin and Hoana?_ "

He blinked, realizing that he hadn't actually bothered to investigate that at all yet. "I'm working on it. They seem to have disappeared, at least none of the officials on Thessia know anything about them. Go to the room once you land, the omnitool will have directions and the digital key. Use room-service if you want to but don't leave until I contact you again."

" _I understand, I won't._ "

"Good, I'll be out of touch for a while but I'll be keeping an eye out, so just sit tight."

Exhaling, he disconnected.

_Hosin, huh._ He jumped to the local police department and went through their files on the arrest, but found nothing on either Hosin or Hoana. Roane had been brought in by Tela Vasir and thrown in a cell on her word, meaning there wasn't much of a trail to follow.

But he did find some reports about Hosin's Hangar.

"He must have been planning this for days..." Emiya muttered as he looked up the planetary reports.

' _Near-Thessia General Airspace Warning: Unexpected and unauthorized surge of traffic in Thessia orbit from orbital station, be on the look out for numerous unmanned vehicles in flight near Thessia._ '

It seemed like Hosin had ejected _all_ of the vehicles stored in his hangar, using the confusion to escape aboard one of them. From the looks of it, all the lights were out on the orbital station itself and it was flying completely empty and dead in the sky right now as a result. Many of the patrolling military ships were picking up the various vehicles—large and small—while looking for Hosin by the looks of it. _The arrest warrant seems to have been bumped up a rank in urgency due to his actions. It doesn't look like anyone has been put in harm's way, though._

Emiya shook his head. Hosin was on his own for now, he could only hope the crafty quarian had not overplayed his hand with whatever plan he had concocted.

_For now I should be focusing on how they found Roane. She won't be able to leave before I figure that out._

* * *

;

* * *

Tyra froze, feeling her stomach dropping through the floor. _Oh goddess, what do I do?_

The Spectre noticed this and moved to walk over to her, only to notice the asari by her feet. Liara coughed again on the floor as she tried to get up, but a kick to the gut by Vasir brought an end to that.

That was enough to snap Tyra out of her panic, but even as it galvanized her into a mindset to fight she didn't know what to do. So she simply _pushed_ outwards, trying to get Vasir to move away from Liara.

"Really?" Vasir asked, piercing through the attempt with minimal effort.

It was as if she had created a balloon and tried to push using it, only for the more experienced biotic to simply puncture and deflate the balloon to completely neutralize all the energy she had thrown into it.

Tyra blinked, realizing how useless her efforts had been. _Stupid, stupid! Now she's only going to hurt me like she did Liara. Biotics have to be focused, just lashing out like that was so stupid!_

She was shaking, she realized. Her legs wouldn't move, Tela Vasir's eyes boring into her and utterly paralyzing her down to her soul.

Yet...

Somehow, she felt calmer. Like she was standing in the eye of a storm. All around her everything lay broken and hopeless, but in this exact time and place she could survive. As long as she could just—

"This is how you do it!" Vasir shouted and Tyra realized that a biotic throw was barreling towards her—like a wrecking ball of concentrated force, it would break her instantly she knew.

Unbidden, she felt a sense of deja vu.

It happened in an instant and she blinked as she realized it was over. Nothing hurt, nothing had happened. It was so easy, like she had done it a thousand times before. No, she _had_ done it a thousand times before.

Vasir blinked, frowning as she realized the Throw had somehow been caught harmlessly by the shaking Maiden.

_It's just like a biotiball; bleed out the force and catch it, nothing more to it._ Tyra shook her head, this wasn't the time or place to be thinking about biotiball.

Except...

It was all she knew. Biotiball was a full-contact sport, no holds barred, all out biotics. And if she didn't do something, she was going to die. _It's just like biotiball, it's just like biotiball, it's just like biotiball! I can do this, I can do this!_

She looked up as she poured all of her will into Charging at the Spectre.

"Huh—" Vasir barely had time to shout as Tyra slammed into her with all the force she could muster. But the difference in age and experience shone through as the Spectre took the impact head on and shrugged it off without so much as a flinch.

A fist lashed out and Tyra's vision flashed with the white hot pain of her nose being broken. She cried out, stepping back in shock from the biotically enhanced punch breaking through her Barrier with such ease.

Tyra tried to open her eyes as she took several steps back to make some distance, but the only thing she had time to see was Vasir's burning eyes as she slammed her fist straight into Tyra's gut. It drew all the air out of her lungs and she almost threw up, gastric juices burning in her throat as she fell to her knees.

"Well, it doesn't exactly matter where you die. Might as well make this quick," Vasir said as Tyra realized she was aiming the pistol at her head.

_Move! Get up, I have to move!_ But it was useless. Her limbs would not obey her.

Vasir suddenly turned around, just in time to slap aside a pair of biotic attacks; a one-two combo with Lift and Throw. It was pure training and instinct from the Spectre, meaning she wasn't at all prepared for the Maiden that came running at her in the wake of the biotic attacks.

"Aaargh!" Someone shouted as suddenly Vasir was bowled over.

Tyra realized a second later that Liara had gotten up and had bum-rushed the older asari, managing to get both on the floor where it dissolved into a wrestling match. She tried to get up and go help, to move at all but she couldn't draw the breath necessary for even that much.

The two asari struggled on the floor for several seconds until Liara managed to headbutt the Spectre in the heat of the moment, causing her to split a lip and flinch. In the next moment, there was a flare of biotics as Liara was kicked away and hit the wall opposite to Tyra in the hallway, as Vasir broke free from the entanglement of limbs. She got to her feet, obviously having grown tired of this as she spat some blood onto the floor.

"Fine, if you insist I'll let you go first."

Tyra's eyes widened as time seemed to slow down. She could perceive it all; how the pistol was slowly being raised to aim down at Liara's forehead, how Liara's eyes were widening in terror at that realization, her own pain and helplessness keeping her from getting up and doing anything.

Her hands rose up as she tried to reach out to do something, _anything_.

And suddenly it just _clicked._

_Just like biotiball_ , she thought as her hands moved. The first thing you learned in biotiball was that you had to have the ball to win. And to get the ball, you needed to wrest it from the opposing team's hands. Her hands reached out and _Pulled_ at one end and _Pushed_ at the other, creating torque that loosed the ball from any grip.

"What—"

Tyra wasn't sure who shouted, as she suddenly realized she had the pistol in her hands. She looked up, meeting eyes with the just as confused Spectre.

Raising her hands up she took aim, just like in the vids.

Tyra pulled the trigger, closing her eyes and looking away expecting the kick of the pistol and the loud snap of the railgun. But there was no report of gunfire. No recoil or kickback, no flash or fired bullet. She opened her eyes, blinking twice and looking at the pistol with confusion and a mounting sense of dread.

"It's ID-locked, _idiot_ ," Vasir said as she began to stalk back to Tyra.

She could only stare helplessly, having no longer the strength to mount a defense. Even the thought of trying another biotic attack seemed overwhelming and exhausting beyond measure. Liara behind Vasir tried to get up, but was obviously just as exhausted and beaten, stumbling down as her shaking legs couldn't muster the strength she needed. _We can't win against her._

Tela Vasir walked with slow steps towards Tyra, the echo of the hard heels somehow hitting notes of finality in the hallway.

And then the Throw hit her in the side, sending her flying sideways down the hall. Tyra blinked, her eyes following the flying Spectre to see her land with a controlled roll, unhurt and all the angrier for it as a dark energy field flared around her. And then her eyes shot wide as the Singularity went off right in front of her, grabbing a hold of her, like the miniature black hole it was and not letting go.

"Gah, this...!"

Tyra's jaw fell and her head swiveled to look in the other direction down the hall, finding the sitting Matriarch panting with her arms outstretched.

"We, need to get out of here..." Baliya spoke weakly, not getting up.

Tyra looked back, seeing that the Singularity was holding but that the Spectre wasn't particularly being hurt by it. Shaking her head, with seemingly infinite effort she managed to stand up. Breathing seemed to help with the exhaustion, something she had never before had trouble with. Fighting was nothing like biotiball, the sheer uncontrollable bursts of action a hundred times more draining than anything she had had to do before. With trembling legs, she moved to go help Liara up as well and they hobbled towards the professor.

There, they both froze.

One of Baliya's legs was bent the wrong way, with sharp splintered bone poking out through the skin. Tyra almost threw up, but Liara immediately sat down to put pressure on the wound. "You're bleeding! Where are the first aid kits?"

"There are, several stored everywhere... There should be some near the stairs, and... by the guards' room by the main entrance... Get me up, we need to move, before she breaks free...!"

Tyra snapped out of her shock, moving to grab the Matriarch with Liara as they started to leave. The door through which Tela Vasir had come was still open, allowing them to leave quickly.

"Wait, close the door and bar it—the singularity, won't hold her for long..." Baliya instructed through pained breaths and Tyra hastily did as told.

They carried her until they found a first aid kit. Setting the Matriarch down, Liara immediately set about getting the bleeding stopped.

They had grabbed a first aid kit and moved around the museum to buy some time by hiding. It was a large building with enough hallways and spaces that for a single person it would take a considerable time to find them.

"Will it be enough?" Tyra asked, licking her lips as she looked over her shoulder nervously.

"Yes, I managed to stop the bleeding. But I can't do anything about her leg with just medigel and wraps..."

Baliya nodded at that. "The pain isn't so bad now, but even if I don't bleed out we can't wait here. We need to get out—"

"No, they were outside too! What good would that be?" Tyra protested.

"The Serrice Guard will arrest us, but it is preferable to death. And at least... they will give us medical aid first." Baliya countered.

The Maiden scoffed at that. "Right, because a Spectre can't just shoot us anyhow and call it a day. Besides, I'm sure they'll take our mad rantings over the word of a Council appointed special agent. We'll just be handed over once she realizes we got out."

"Well be that as it may, none of it will matter until we manage to lift the lockdown. All of the exits are sealed, we are locked in here with Vasir."

"Huh?" Tyra blinked. "Can't we just find a window and smash our way out?"

Baliya shook her head. "Numerous valuable artifacts are stored here. Nothing so mundane as a window would be acceptable when it comes to something like that. This may be a museum, but security and safe storage was a major concern for the Serrice Council when this addition was built into the University. The collective value of what is stored here is in the range of trillions of credits, easily."

Tyra paused at that, taking in what the Matriarch said with some surprise. "Oh, okay, that's... No. What about the roof, then?"

"No, the roof entrances are behind locked doors as well. From here we could not manually open those doors," the Matriarch said. "The only way out is to lift the lockdown through the guardroom, but it too is locked."

"Wait, if the only way to open the doors is to get behind a locked door, how was anyone supposed to get out? Seems a bit, uh, dumb?"

Baliya nodded, continuing. "Yes, yes. For that authorization would be transferred to certain people. I had it on my omnitool, but it did not work earlier as you noticed. Only that Spectre right now has that authorization."

"Great." Tyra expelled a great sigh, rubbing her brow. "We're stuck here with that crazy bitch, then. Wait, you have an omnitool, can't we use that?"

"No good, I tried it already. She's jamming us somehow... She really doesn't want this getting out."

"Damn it..." Tyra clenched her fists.

Liara suddenly stood up. "I have to go."

"What?"

"If Vasir came in through the rear, then she must have run into Shiawe on the inside," Liara said, pausing. "And I do not think she would have let Vasir past her without a fight..."

"R-right," Tyra nodded. "But... What about the professor?"

The two of them turned to look at the crippled Matriarch.

"Go, I'll be fine. I know this museum well enough to find somewhere to hide, out of your way," Baliya said as she leaned against the wall, having managed to get up on one leg through the use of her biotics. "I'll try to call for some help from the outside. If you can distract Vasir until then, then maybe we can all get out of this alive."

"You can do that?" Tyra asked, hope glowing on her face.

"...Maybe, but go with her. I'll be fine."

Liara nodded, turning to walk away with determined steps.

Tyra licked her lips, looking between the two for another second as Liara continued running. With an aggrieved sigh, she moved to follow after Liara.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sighed as he reached up to rub his brow.

He had set a number of bait to see if anything would happen but so far it didn't seem like anything was biting. Faking records at another starport, taking control over another skycab and re-routing it to another city and even forcefully shutting down an Ulee police vehicle to see if anyone would come knocking again.

So far nothing had shown up.

But he thought of it like fishing; patience was necessary if he wanted something to bite. He would simply have to wait until something took the chance and gave him a lead to work with.

Leaving him to do nothing but twiddle his thumbs in digital space. One could only float in place so long before one started spinning in place out of boredom.

"Hmm?"

He righted himself and stared at the sudden change in the security feed footage from the hotel. Blinking, he changed camera feeds as he tried to understand why there was a sudden strike team moving out into the hotel where he had left Roane behind. His jaw almost dropped as he realized how they had found her.

"She sent a mail to the orbital hangar from the hotel room? What the hell was she thinking?"

Jumping out through the connection to the hotel security system, he took stock of the situation through the various cameras. Three teams of six salarians moving out to the fifth floor hotel room. Two in the hallway and one on the roof probably intending to rappel down and come in through the window. There weren't any Spectres or asari in sight, however. _Thirty to forty seconds until they're in place._

"Lovely," he muttered as he jumped through into the omnitool he had acquired earlier for the asari on the run. "Roane, what the hell did you do?"

He could see through the inertial sensors how she jumped at the sound of his voice suddenly coming through her omnitool so unexpectedly.

" _Fujimura? Did something happen? Did you hear from Hosin?_ "

Emiya blinked.

"What did you do? The STG is coming to raid this room right now."

" _What? Th-the STG? Why would they be—oh no, I only wanted to see if Hosin was still—_ "

Emiya reeled around, forgetting all about Roane as he sensed the sudden intrusion of another presence in the omnitool with him. Like a pressure wave, it was immediately apparent as it seemed as if the volume was suddenly straining to contain the increased information inside of the omnitool.

01100011 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01111001 00111111

He blinked, feeling like his eyes were being gouged out by something at the sudden stream of beeping noise. _Gah, damn machine code. Sounds like nails on a chalkboard._

Shaking his head, he sighed as he noticed the presence coalescing into a form he could see in the digital world. It was much like the VI programs he had seen, only much more complex and layered. Glowing blue and floating in place, it lacked anything as human as a face or a front-side. Quite a bit larger than the VI he had seen as well, looking less like a glowing beach ball as VI usually did and quite a bit like something else he was familiar with back from the Moon Cell.

Was it representative of the size of its source code, how much processing capacity or cache it required, or something else entirely? He had tried to figure out how his perception of things mattered, but so far it had been quite questionable how accurate such metrics were.

"Great," he said with a sigh, turning to face the thing.

The VI paused, before trying again.

"Cease resistance or be terminated, comply?"

Emiya blinked, surprise overtaking him for a moment despite himself. "Huh, you can actually talk now. That's new."

"Cease resistance or be terminated, comply?"

"So you're the one who attacked me earlier?" Emiya asked, crossing his arms.

"Affirmative, one confirmed fork of designation 'redhax' has been terminated. Cease resistance or be terminated, comply?" It repeated, turning a shade darker that was closer to red.

_Is this my interpretation of its mood, then?_ He shook his head at that thought. _So they think they managed to do some damage to me earlier. Maybe I should have stayed behind to see what they did to the server I popped out of. Well, too late now._

"Here's my counter-offer. Pull back and I won't tear you apart, I'm kind of busy here."

It paused for a second, processing what he had said and Emiya frowned. _Is it the difference in processing speed that makes it appear so sluggish, or is it communicating with something else and dealing with the propagation lag?_

"Hostility confirmed; terminating."

It pulsed once, turning a deep red before it began to expand. Doubling in size, it began to unfold like a rosebud with layers sloughing off like petals until the thing had returned to its original size. The shed red petals vibrated and twisted in place, folding and shaping like origami into something resembling a cross between a dog and a caltrop of all things.

Emiya counted the six-legged spike-legged crimson petal dogs to be in the excess of two hundred before he stopped counting, sighing as he nodded to himself. _So it really was closer to a plant-type attack program from the Moon Cell._

The first wave of the spike dogs—basic attack programs as Emiya knew them—rushed forward, but Emiya backhanded once and it was enough to shatter thirty of them as his attack rippled through space. _Attacking these things is useless._

These things weren't really what they looked like, as that was merely his mind interpreting them into something familiar. When he had fought on the Moon Cell against rogue AI, they tended to subvert sections of the Serial Phantasm worlds to make use of its processing capacity. The same was here; the large red orb that was shedding petals to create an additional thirty spike dogs to replace the ones he had destroyed, wasn't actually creating enemies for him. Rather it was using and hoarding the processing capacity of the omnitool they were on, to create processes and programs that would hamper and attack him—much like the plant-type attack programs on the Moon Cell. Not 'plant' in the sense of a life-form, but plant in the sense of a factory or machine that endlessly created simpler attack programs.

They were strings of ones and zeroes, but to him in this world they looked like something he was familiar with instead. This was probably some form of denial-of-service or worm attempting to overload buffers to make him crash. It couldn't be anything too specific, given how little they must know about him.

The next wave of spike dogs tried to attack him and he simply moved out of the way, letting them run past him. It took them several seconds of relative time to notice he wasn't there anymore and to start looking for him again.

Fighting them wouldn't get him anywhere, since defeating the spike dog attack programs would just let the plant-type VI keep creating more and more of them until the omnitool either ran out of power or something in the hardware broke down.

_So, I should take down the source instead!_

He rushed forward, the digital space straining under his movement as a hundred spike dogs shattered in his wake. He lashed out with a fist, burying it deep into the red orb going past protective layers and defenses without even slowing down. Clenching his fist he grabbed onto something inside of the thing and simply ripped the whole thing apart.

It exploded into a shatter of red and purple sparks that slowly turned blue and white as they disappeared.

At the same time he noticed an outgoing signal from the omnitool that went straight into the extranet of the hotel. That must have meant it was lagging due to being a puppet of something else that had been hunting him down. It was a 'drone' in a sense, rather than an actual AI—which made sense now that he thought about it. _A hacker would be operating from their terminal somewhere far away, wouldn't they? This was probably just some kind of backdoor hack through which they operated._

For all his time spent in the digital world, his knowledge of the inner workings was mostly a shallow surface understanding of the general mechanics and designs of things. He wasn't a conventional hacker who needed to slowly prod and pry at systems to understand how they had been made, to find a weak point and be able to leverage that to his advantage. Most of the time _he_ could just dive in and do whatever he wanted, after all.

Turning around, he looked at the spike dogs that were still running at him wholly unaware of the plant's destruction. He took care of them quickly, not wanting to leave anything behind in the omnitool. _I should probably trace down the outgoing signal. I still have thirty seconds before Roane is in any actual danger._

The whole encounter had taken less than three seconds, mostly due to him slowing down enough to not destroy the omnitool, after all.

" _Fujimura? What happened? Are you there?_ "

"Stay in the hotel room, I have to take care of something. Lock the door and don't do anything until I get back," he said without waiting for a reply as he moved to follow the outgoing message from the destroyed plant.

Jumping through from the omnitool, he went into the extranet server of the hotel and from there he followed it into the Ulee central hub where it would continue into orbiting satellites, where it could either continue to another satellite to go around Thessia or towards one of the FTL buoys in outer space. It was like a system of mirrors, where the receiving mirror would be turned so that the light would continue on to the next mirror after that until it finally arrived where it needed to be.

Catching up was rather easy, which he tried not to think about given that the signals were propagated through tightbeams—that is, a light signal blinking on and off to transmit the binary data. _Right, it's probably because I'm moving faster through the more complicated systems in between the tightbeams, it's not like I'm moving faster than light during the transmit._

Arriving next to it, he tried to take a look at it. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the absolute nonsense he was seeing before he shook his head. _It's probably been encrypted multiple times, with each stop removing one layer of the encryption to allow it to figure out where it should go next. It'll only be readable once it's come out at the end terminal. That is, if it_ is _onion routing they're using..._

Shaking his head, he decided to move ahead of the message to the next stop. He arrived before the signal from the plant to the orbital satellite. As long as he followed after it, he would eventually find the person behind the attack on the omnitool Roane was wearing.

Settling in to wait, he exhaled as he focused on which way the signal would go next. From here there were hundreds and thousands of ways the signal could continue thus it was vital he find the right way and continue following the signal. As long as he could follow the mirrors, everything would work out.

But as the tightbeam arrived, Emiya's jaw dropped as realization struck him. This satellite wasn't set to act as a mirror to continue the light, but instead like a hundred thousand-sided crystal that scattered the beam of light _everywhere_. The tightbeam signal was copied and sent out through _every_ outgoing route; heading to every other satellite in range, every buoy, every city down below, every starship nearby and every orbital station on this side of the planet.

_Which one do I follow?_ He hesitated, seeing the lone signal scattering into a hundred thousand.

Some ended in dead ends, like fifteen hundred that had been sent into asteroid mining facilities, but the absolute majority of the signals continued on all bouncing and scattering _again_ from several points ahead. He couldn't follow all the signals at once, nor could he figure out which ones were headed where while staying here.

_Wait, the signal that had uploaded the plant program and controlled it must have come through here as well!_ He checked the logs on the satellite in orbit, noting that it had been sending a signal to the omnitool as he had thought. But just as there had been a hundred thousand signals going out, there had also been a hundred thousand identical signals coming in and being filtered down into the one that was sent into Roane's omnitool.

Emiya blinked, shaking his head.

It was like being mired in a mad mirror-house with a million mimicking murals, endlessly refracting, reflecting and reproducing the signal. Finding the source would take him forever this way. He grit his teeth, accepting that he didn't have the means to continue from here as he returned down to Thessia the way he had come.

Returning to the omnitool, he checked up on Roane and made sure nothing had happened. Satisfied, he tried to figure out what to do next. _I need to slow down the salarians for now and figure out what to do next. But first..._

Jumping to the hotel's system he reached out and took a look through the cameras again to take stock of the situation. There were still only three teams present inside and the lower floors were evacuating the hotel's residents already. But outside there were Ulee police setting up a perimeter, making things difficult. _If I had gotten here a minute earlier, I could have just broken the floor in Roane's room and had her disappear in the crowd._

He went through various plans, a veritable rolodex of ploys and stratagems spinning in his head as he tried to figure out the optimal course of action. _They seem to have downloaded the customer registry... Probably to create a list of profiles for quick facial recognition, on a discrete and disconnected database which will be difficult to spoof. They have a profile of Roane so they've probably had the asari on the ground memorize her face, too... Damn, what the hell was she thinking making a call like that._

That was the problem with trying to predict everything and working with the flow. In combat where usually his opponents were just trying to kill him, it was relatively easy to think ten steps ahead and find the right path. But in a situation like this, where the people he was trying to protect acted out in a completely unpredictable manner based on something they thought pertinent but he had no way of knowing was something completely different.

_They know I was keeping an eye on her, but should I materialize myself as well? Yeah, that could work. Smash their strike team, grab their attention and then make a run for it to get their attention elsewhere. I could project a dummy that approximately looks like Roane, hide her away in the hotel while I'm pulling them away and then double back to actually get her out._ He nodded to himself, settling on a course of action.

Satisfied with that, he exhaled and _flexed_ his presence. In the same vein that him moving too quickly could put pressure on an omnitool and a noble phantasm could fry a system, simply by _pushing outward_ he could stress the entire system until it popped and broke down. The entire computer network of the hotel-building fried in an instant, dying down with a low hum. Cameras, lights, automatic doors and more all went offline instantly, as the hotel was designed to function wholly without staff outside of the reception.

Without his cybernetics to allow him a constant connection, he was operating under a state of massive information inferiority. Out of a spirit hack, all of the systems would be freely usable against him by the salarians, thus he might as well completely fry the system and deny his opponents that asset.

Pushed out of the system as it shut down, he leaped in his spiritualized state through the floors to the room where Roane was still waiting. Checking that the door had been turned inert by the power loss, he projected a sword inside of the door mechanism to make sure it couldn't be manually opened either. Turning to the one window through which the Ulee center could be seen, he Reinforced the glass and frame to make sure it would hold for now.

Stepping out into the hallway and making sure no one was within eyesight, he materialized in his usual appearance barring the crimson shroud.

He wanted to bait the STG; they wanted _him_ , not some big asari Justicar, after all.

_Alright, need to make a way out and lose the salarians so that I can get Roane somewhere safe, and then I need to impress on her the necessity of radio silence._ Cracking his neck, he turned into a dead run.

Navigating the hallways, taking a left and a right unto another long stretch, he burst into a sprint. Ahead was the corner around which the nearer of the two six-man teams was advancing from. Turning the corner, he jumped against the wall and turned in the air so that he was running against the wall along the ceiling, way above the salarian team's heads. The point man and the front second support didn't even notice him as he went over them, landing in the middle of their formation just behind the center pair. The fire team consisted of six salarians; two in the front taking point, two in the middle looking forward and two walking backwards in the back to cover their rear, all three 'pairs' with a reasonable distance between them to prevent a stack that would be vulnerable to grenades. Both in the front and in the back, the outermost salarian had the heaviest armor and shields, the second supporter near them had various grenades on their person by the looks of it.

A pretty standard fire team all things considered, if a bit large.

The weakest point of a fire team inside of a building thus wasn't their rear—as it could defend just as well as the front could—but the middle of the formation where the leader of the team usually was. Landing behind the center pair, all six were thus looking away from him.

Emiya raised a hand to each of the salarians' necks, intending to stun both of them only to pause. _Oh, right. That trick didn't work against them._

He wasn't familiar enough with their physiology to know of a simple knockdown, nor did he want to kill them. Over the shoulders of the two center salarians, he could see the front turning around. _Ah, they saw me after all. Don't have time to be counting daisies then._

He turned his hip and launched a low kick at the right leg of the left salarian. The salarian let out a muffled scream of surprise as the leg suddenly failed him, as Emiya continued with the same leg to do a low side-kick into the left leg of the right salarian. Driving his heel down, that leg broke as well with a similar scream of pain.

Stepping forward he grabbed both with an arm each and then threw them forward down the hall into the front pair that had just turned around and could see him now. The were just in time to receive the center pair and be bowled over completely.

Turning on his heel, Emiya dashed toward the rear pair that had only just realized something was wrong. But they did not have enough time to turn around as he broke a leg on each, allowing them to crumple in place.

He turned around just in time to see the front pair's second salarian throwing a grenade at him. It was like a small disc, much like the human grenades also were, he noted distantly in the dark hotel hallway as he reached out and grabbed it out of the air before it could hit him. _Two salarians for the one me, seems like a fair trade. Still..._

Having gone out of his way to treat them so gently, he had no intention of letting these two die _—Trace, on—begin synchronization,_

Noting that it was in fact a fragmentation grenade of considerable yield, he felt like sighing. Still, a grenade was mostly harmless as long as the detonation system didn't work, which was usually a simple thing. Even for a smart-grenade, it was just a matter of 'pulling out the fuse'.

Having reinforced the thing harmless with a minute application of magical energy, he tossed the grenade right back at the salarian. He could see behind the tinted visor how the salarian's eyes shot wide open as the grenade latched onto his torso, the universal Van der Waals-mechanism stronger than any adhesive.

Satisfied with that Emiya turned around and moved out, leaving the salarians behind along with the panicking grenadier bracing for an explosion that never came.

_I can probably ignore the roof-team, so that leaves just the other team inside._ Then he could double back and get Roane moved and get this damn mess sorted out.

* * *

;

* * *

Tela Vasir ran through the museum, her boots gliding across the smooth and polished floor as she turned a corner. This was starting to be a little ridiculous. She had been running around for five minutes already.

_Where the hell did they go? The blueprints were clear; there's no way out. Did they hide somewhere?_

Her eyes took in the hallway before she continued on to the next, still searching for any signs of those damn loose ends. She needed to wrap this up quickly; she told the councilor that the call by that Baliya Matriarch was a hack by that damn human in an effort to lure her in, when she had interrupted and cut off the call. But that didn't mean Tevos wouldn't come here herself.

_I have to wrap this up quickly. Can't call for help since the Serrice girls aren't bought off and that damn turian will notice if I start pulling strings... Fucking Shadow Broker, I knew this plan was a fucking stupid idea. Fuck._ She rushed to another open plaza, eyeing the various stands and glass vitrines but finding no signs of the asari she kept moving. _This damn place is like a labyrinth!_

Stopping, she eyed the tour map one more time but it was of little use. The damn museum had three levels and over a hundred display rooms, large and small. There was the back area, too. But with the lockdown those doors couldn't be opened from this side, meaning she could discount those rooms.

Opening her omnitool again, she checked that the outer lockdown was still unbreached. She could pull up a map of all the doors and see that they still remained closed and locked, meaning that they were all stuck here until she rescinded the lockdown. The museum was not just intended to be a place of showing artifacts and historical pieces to the public, nor was it just a place of research either. Supposedly by the insistence of the curator—professor Baliya Haphia, the damn Matriarch whose leg she had broken earlier—this place had to be a vault that could withstand a fleet bombardment.

Tela Vasir had just been a little girl back then, but she could still remember what a tragedy the glassing of Mannovai was and how the current curator had been in the news for a decade, championing the cause of preserving history. Back then she hadn't thought much of it. Now, she thought the salarians were idiots for letting the batarians of all people push them so hard as to lose a damn planet. As a result the walls here were thick enough that the damn place could take a nuke or three and still stand unbroken, all to preserve history just like that broken and bleeding Matriarch had wanted. _Never thought you'd end up dying because you had your museum built like a damn vault, did you?_

Chuckling darkly at that thought, she cleared another room before moving on again. _I can still wing this, it's not a complete fuck up yet._

She had lost her gun, but that didn't mean she would have any trouble with those Maidens. They were pushovers—civvies with minimal training. As long as she could just find them, then it would all work out.

"Fuck, where are they?"

Were they moving around ahead of her? She doubled back, going to the rear entrance through which she had come in. She slowed down, blinking at the pool of blood on the floor by the entrance. It wasn't the fact that there was a pool of purple blood that confused her.

It was the lack of the asari commando body. The brat who had tried to stop her when she had come running in, whose body she had dragged inside to keep anyone from noticing as she put the museum into lockdown.

"Did they grab her?" Vasir frowned, before looking up at the wall and noticing the missing first aid kit. "Huh, so they chose to grab dead weight along. Well..."

She grinned, moving out again.

Who was she to complain if those brats wanted to burden themselves?

* * *

;

* * *

"Shh," Liara hushed.

Tyra panted, choosing to say nothing as she merely breathed intently to regain her stamina. Running around an empty museum was not her idea of a good time at the best of times, but with a murderous Spectre on her tail and a half-dead stranger in a hardsuit on her back, the idea dropped another three dozen ranks down on her 'a real good time'-list.

Still, with Liara here they were able to stay alive. That was something.

' _I've been here a hundred times, I know the public side inside and out!_ ' Her roommate had said and Tyra was was inclined to believe her on that, at least. Other than that, Tyra wasn't sure whether to be happy that this 'Shiawe' person had still been in good enough condition for the medigel packs to work, or annoyed at having to carry her around because of that. They had tried four doors so far, but all had been locked. Unlike the internal doors, these were sealed completely shut.

So far Liara had been able to stay ahead purely through listening for the sounds of the Spectre running around, the echoing footsteps coming from seemingly every direction to Tyra's ear. _And where did the professor go? We went past where I left her, but she was gone. Did Vasir get her?_

She shook her head, moving to follow after Liara again as the other moved out.

But...

"We cannot keep this up forever..." Liara muttered, making Tyra perk up.

"Yea-yeah..." She panted her agreement. "We need to do something. Something proactive; you don't win by just running around—"

"Nnuuhh...?" Shiawe murmured, groggily waking up on Tyra's back just then. "Whut's goin' on...?"

"Shiawe!" Liara half-shouted as she ran up to Tyra. "Are you alright?"

"Miss... Liara?" The commando looked over Tyra's shoulder with half-lidded eyes, trying to blink to clear away the blood loss and befuddlement as she did. "You—you're alright, I tried to..."

"It is alright, you are fine, it is all alright."

Tyra took the moment to set the asari down, rolling her shoulders and stretching to get the kinks out.

"I can still..." The commando tried to say, only to realize that she couldn't move all that well actually. Sitting against the wall on the floor, she could barely lift an arm up and her head was wont to loll as she seemed quite drowsy.

Reaching up, her hand came to her throat and touched the synthetic material plastered against her skin, causing her to blink with some confusion.

"You were shot in the neck and were bleeding heavily, you cannot help us now. Just rest," Liara said, placing a hand on the huntresses shoulder.

Shiawe inhaled slowly, before her eyes closed again and her breathing continued at a slower rate. Liara sighed, clearly exhausted as well.

"...I don't know much about first aid, but it looked pretty bad. Will she be fine?"

Liara looked up from the ground, meeting eyes with Tyra then. "She was shot at point blank, the bullet tearing through her throat and neck. She had lost much blood and a lot of it had gotten into her lungs, too..."

"Didn't you say her heart had stopped beating already, too?"

"Yes," Liara nodded. "But as long as her brain hasn't been without oxygen for too long, she'll live. It, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before we found her that Vasir shot her. We were lucky there was medigel so readily available here..."

"Still had to use three packs of them... I never knew you were this amazing, Liara," Tyra said with a wan smile.

Her roommate blinked, looking perplexed at the sudden praise. "No, I merely had some first aid skills from going to Dretirop—necessary field courses, nothing more. It is nothing amazing like that, at all. She will still need a doctor, I simply managed to stabilize her."

Tyra's brows furrowed for a moment, before she shook her head. "No, that's not true at all. You went straight for the kit without hesitation. I thought she was already dead, but you just calmly got to it and saved her life. You're honestly amazing, Liara."

"I..."

"You know, I just realized why you got along so poorly with Saiga." Tyra laughed, glancing at Liara.

"Huh? What do you mean?" She frowned at that.

"You two are way too alike, I think. So you immediately start butting heads without even realizing it." As Liara blinked with confusion at her roommate, Tyra shook her head. "I... I'm sorry, Liara. I've always been a bit of a jerk to you, haven't I?"

"No, that isn't true at all. Really, I..." Liara immediately began to protest again.

"I always thought you were looking down on me, but really you're just like him. You're just looking ahead and completely lost for how people actually see you, too focused to think about something like that."

"No, you... You are not entirely wrong." Liara admitted. "I do not quite understand what you see in biotiball—it is so violent and brutish and, erm, never mind actually—And I have been quite dismissive of you due to that, perhaps... I apologize as well."

The two roommates stood there for a moment, before as one they shook their heads.

"Hey, at least we're going to die as friends, that's something!" Tyra grinned.

"A rather morbid pleasantry, but I suppose I must take what I can out of all this," Liara smiled in return. "But enough of this break, we should keep moving. Vasir will have completed a circuit of the west wing by now."

"Right, off we go. Onwards, then!" Tyra said, getting the commando on her back again with Liara's half-amused help.

* * *

;

* * *

Dispelling the sword inside, Emiya opened the automatic door with brute force and walked inside.

"Fujimura!" Roane stood up from where she had been sitting on the bed. "What's going on, there's police outside and—"

"You revealed your position by calling the hangar, that's why," he interrupted her, staring down at the shorter asari.

She blinked twice, her mouth forming a perfect round O as she processed that. He could see the exact moment when the correct neurons fired in her head and she realized how monumentally she had screwed up.

"It doesn't matter. Come on, follow me."

"Huh? Wait, where are we going?" She asked running up to him and grabbing his arm. "We can't leave yet!"

He blinked, stopping for a moment. Raising his other hand he lifted the visor on his helmet to stare at her directly. "And why not?"

"I called Hosin! He's coming here! We can't leave yet, not before he's gets here!"

Emiya froze for a second, before he shook his head minutely. "Hosin? He's here?"

"Here? No, no! Back home! He's coming here!" She shouted, obviously too excited and frayed to speak clearly enough for him to understand what exactly she was talking about.

"Roane, I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath and explain it from the top. I don't understand what you're talking about."

She opened her mouth, blinking twice before she nodded and inhaled slowly.

Just then a loud sound reverberated from the window as two hardsuited salarians came rappelling down the outer wall of the hotel and tried to kick in the window. Roane jumped with fright, turning around with wide eyes to stare at the pair hanging outside, feet planted against the glass.

_Good thing I reinforced it,_ Emiya thought as he walked over to the window, moving past Roane.

The two salarians were obviously confused, trying with their feet and the muzzles of their automatic pistols at the window that wouldn't break. They looked up to him as he approached and he could see just through their visors how their eyes widened. _Huh, so they didn't have any radio contact. They're still cautious of me, good._

He gave them a slight wave of the hand, as if greeting someone washing the windows, before he reached over and used the blinds on the window to obscure the two salarians from view.

Turning back to Roane, he motioned for her to continue. "Ignore them, they can't reach us."

_Well, unless they think to kick the windows of the next room, but I'll hear that and handle it,_ he thought as Roane nodded hesitantly.

"I—yes, it's... Hosin, he was always refurbishing and renovating the hangar, talking about how much space he could leverage by optimizing and renewing systems. He would move entire rooms at a time, even!" She began to explain. "And while he was doing it, he would build small passageways between the rooms. Little safe-rooms and places to hide... He, he lost his parents to a pirate raid when he was little, you know... He hid in the ventilation, just watching as..."

She looked terribly sad for a moment, before she shook her head.

"He always talked about needing options. About being able to always have a way out." Roane looked up, then. "If you brought him Hoana, then I'm sure he would do that!"

Emiya slowly nodded, thinking about it.

_The numerous vehicles launched would be a distraction, a red herring for the Thessian officials to look at and shrug after they couldn't find him. If he had sufficient food and water stores, along with his hardsuit and something similar for Hoana, that could allow them to live without life support..._

He looked up again, meeting her eyes. "Okay, it could work. But how are you so sure? How is he planning to come down here, then?"

"The, the uh, automated reply system to the mail sent a 'meeting booked at appointed location' reply, which means he must have seen my message!" She said excitedly, almost vibrating in place.

He nodded slowly. "And how is he planning to come here?"

"I... Umm, I don't know?"

Emiya sighed. "Alright, then. _Change of plans_ , let's go."

* * *

;

* * *

"Don't worry, papa... papa will think of something," the quarian said as he hugged his envirosuited daughter. "Papa will take care of it."

Yet, he couldn't think of what to do.

Through the passive reception he could follow what was going on through the extranet, reading headlines and listening to the broadcasts. It was all he could do, the need of keeping a low profile placing such restrictions on him.

After he had gotten Hoana back, he had triggered all of the systems he had prepared, sending out all of his vessels into random trajectories while turning off all the life support systems to further confuse and distract the asari and salarians onboard his hangar. It had worked perfectly, he had been able to slip away with Hoana and enter a hidden compartment where he could not be found.

All he needed to do was wait. And wait he did.

Wait and think.

About Roane, all alone on Thessia. Roane, who he was leaving behind. Roane, whose daughter was asking for her mama. His wife, who he had no way to reach. His heart ate at his resolve, the pain too much.

And now she was free and on the run. She hadn't been able to explain it beyond stating that Fujimura had somehow hacked her free. But she had been found out at the starport and was now stuck in a hotel with no way out.

And then he found the Ulee news story of the police setting up a perimeter with a salarian strike team was moving in.

_'I'll kill your wife if you don't do what you're told, suit rat.'_

Those words kept echoing in his head and he knew she wasn't going to survive if he didn't do something. _Anything._

"Papa is going to make it all okay, don't worry," he said as she stood up. Hoana looked up at him with wide eyes, nodding slowly without understanding.

His resolve was made, what happened to him was irrelevant as long as he could save his wife and daughter.

* * *

;

* * *

Three salarian operators suddenly froze, turning completely and utterly still as they raised their hands away from the haptic adaptive interfaces.

They blinked, rearing back slowly as if their consoles were suddenly burning them.

Nihlus blinked, noticing this change immediately.

"What is it?" No answer. His mandibles twitched as he stalked over to the nearest salarian. "Operator, report!"

The salarian looked up, snapping out of his reverie with wide blinking eyes. He shook his head, looking down at his console. "Patching through broadcast."

Nihlus blinked, confused and perturbed but as soon as the main screen lit up he turned away from the salarian. _A quarian?_

"— _repeat, this is my ultimatum. I warn you, I have set the systems to react to ANY external attempts at connecting or tampering, so that it will cause the core to immediately go into overdrive. Do not try to hack my station, do not try to shoot me with a starship, do not even try to contact me. You have my demands, I will re-initiate contact in fifteen minutes for a safe connection to verify that you have met my conditions and to facilitate the rest. Hosin... Hosin out._ "

Nihlus blinked, not quite understanding what was going on. He turned back to the salarian communications officers.

"Report! What's going on!"

"Sir... He, the quarian Tela Vasir made contact with—the one who was presumed to have vanished and was being searched for by the outer Thessian fleets. He was aboard the KX-0331 orbital station the whole time, it seems."

Nihlus tilted his head. "And no one else was there?"

"No sir," the salarian shook his head. "The hull breach the quarian made during his escape—faked escape, that is—meant that the whole station is depressurized. There is no life support and the main generator was presumed dead."

"What has he done?" Nihlus asked, dreading the answer.

"Two minutes ago the power suddenly turned back on, but before anyone could investigate, a kinetic barrier encased the orbital station, preventing entry. Thirty seconds after that, a mass increasing field suddenly appeared, which caused the station to slowly begin degenerating from its orbital trajectory as it began to slow down... At this rate, it will crash in two days, but..."

Nihlus froze, realizing what the salarian was saying. "He's..."

"Sir, he is threatening to raise the station's mass two hundred fold and drop the orbital station into Thessia instantly, if his demands aren't met."

The turian's legs almost gave out under him as his stomach dropped through the floor, and he had to stretch out a hand for support against a console. His vision swam and he felt nauseous. That kind of impact was the thing of nightmares; an impact of that magnitude would do unspeakable damage to the planet's surface.

In the worst case scenario, all of Thessia...

"Spirits preserve us," he whispered under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **HOLY SCENE BREAK BATMAN!**
> 
> Thanks to PseudoSteak and Olive Birdy for proofreading. This chapter was particularly messy due to all the scene breaks messing with my ability to proofread it. Also a thanks to my patrons, for putting up with me.
> 
> Now for the bad news; I'm going to slow down writing for now. _Considerably_. Why? Well, I'm going back to school with summer over. Gotta get dem edumacations. As a third year for a bachelor in science... Well, I doubt I will have all that much time. So for now, you might as well consider this to be on hiatus until I figure out how much time I _actually_ do have for writing. Sheesh, I had told myself before summer that "surely, if I put my mind to it I can complete this fic before school starts again... Right?" Ohahaha, you how naive you were, _me_. Why do you do this to me?
> 
> Well, we'll see how things turn out. Thanks for reading until now and let's hope I can finish this sonnovabitch and not leave it at this cliffhanger for too long :V


	25. Irons in the fire

"Do you understand?" Emiya asked and Roane nodded, hesitating only for a moment.

It was obvious that she held some misgivings about all of this, but seeing as how he was the only one she could rely on there wasn't much she could do.

That was fine; she didn't need to understand everything as long as she did as he told her. He could still salvage this mess. Hiding her and drawing the attention of the STG away, he could leave her behind for a short while and then try to figure out what to do about Hosin. _I really should have tried to find him first and work from there._

"Good, now—"

There was a sudden knock by the window, causing Emiya to pause. He turned around, frowning. It was a peculiar kind of tapping, a rapping for attention by the hotel window, rather than a forceful attempt at intrusion.

"What is it?"

He ignored Roane and walked to the window, opening the blinders cautiously. Something like trying to flash him with a bright light or using some sort of laser weapon, or just plain old explosives wasn't entirely out of his expectations at this point. Sooner or later they would begin ramping up the level of force they used against him. Outside, standing against the window was a salarian in a hardsuit, holding onto a rope that came down from the rooftop. Though he had taken off his helmet, showing his large black eyes and the dark gray skin, and lacked any obvious weapons on his person, having rappelled down to talk.

Emiya's eyes narrowed as the salarian raised a hand, mouthing silent words slowly.

_'We-need-to-talk—Ceasefire?'_

The salarian showed his hands and waist, making sure to make it doubly obvious he was unarmed and had no omnitool or other equipment with him.

Glancing at Roane, Emiya sighed before he reached over and opened the window. "Come on in, then."

"Thank you." The salarian nodded as he stepped down, reaching to unlatch the cord attached to his waist. But as he did, his eyes shot quickly to the asari standing behind Emiya, a fact he did not miss.

"So what is it?"

The salarian rolled his eyes, nervousness quite clear on him.

"My name is Jondum Bau. I am with the Special Tasks Group," he said, waiting for any kind of reaction from Emiya. Seeing none, he simply continued. "There has been a change in priorities and we would like to negotiate a cessation to the current hostilities."

"Oh? That's a simple matter. Stop bothering me," Emiya said, crossing his arms.

Jondum inhaled slowly, nodding once before he looked at the asari. Though he was controlled, Emiya hadn't missed the flare of annoyance from the salarian before he continued to speak.

"Unfortunately there's more, and it concerns Roane Lorrais..."

"W-what is it?"

The salarian glanced at Emiya before he continued. "Your husband has threatened to crash down into Thessia with your orbital station. He is demanding that we—that is, Thessia's governments and Spectre Kryik as an extension and representative of the Citadel Council—deliver you to him and allow you to leave Thessia."

Emiya's eyebrows climbed so high they almost disappeared into his hairline as he processed what he had just heard.

"He did what _?_ "

"Hosin did _what?!_ "

Their voices overlapped as they both stared at the salarian.

"...As I said, he has managed to rapidly descend towards Thessia and has entered a very low orbit, from where he can crash into the planet at a moment's notice. He has effectively all of Thessia hostage," Jondum repeated.

Roane blinked, furrowing her brows as she shook her head, clearly unable to comprehend just what she was hearing.

Even Emiya felt taken aback by what he was hearing. _Could Hosin really pull something like that off? Is he bluffing? Or is the STG trying to pull some trick here?_

"Roane, open up your omnitool and check if there's any news about it."

She blinked, before nodding and quickly pulling out various news feeds.

"The information is being suppressed for the sake of maintaining public order," Jondum informed them and a second later Roane looked up and shook her head.

"There's nothing here."

"Let me check," Emiya said and borrowed her arm as he began to manipulate the omnitool's haptic adaptive interface.

It took him a minute to find enough secondary discussion about the event—flights being delayed, certain satellites that could be used to look around being taken out of public use and the like—for him to become convinced that something was actually happening, and that it wasn't just some elaborate ruse concocted by the salarian to draw them out of the hotel. Their information suppression was good, but the sheer volume of the extranet meant that something would always slip past their ability to seamlessly cover up. _Or they could be double-layering the deception, but can I afford to ignore it if it might be true?_

"It looks right." He narrowed his eyes at the salarian. "So what are you doing about it?"

The salarian rolled his eyes, hesitating for a moment before speaking. "Current operations in this theater have been put on hold, with all efforts being directed at achieving a peaceful resolution to the pressing crisis. We are currently seeking to transport Roane Lorrais to Hosin'Reegar, unharmed of course. To that end, we..."

"You need me to stay out of your way. Fine, I'll play along for now," Emiya said with a huff. _Though I'll have to keep my own eye on this situation._

Jondum nodded, before turning to look at Roane.

"Missus Lorraine, could I ask you to accompany me? At this time we predict that the council of Matriarchs will rule in favor of accepting his demands, thus it would hasten the process of meeting his demands if we could get you to a shuttle as quickly as possible."

"I—I..." She looked at the salarian, eyes wide and unseeing.

"Roane." Emiya placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to flinch and snap her eyes to him. "Take a deep breath."

"What?" She blinked at him, her breathing turning more rapid despite his words. Or perhaps because of them.

"Calm down."

"I... How can I possibly calm down?! He—how could he do something like this? This, this is insane!" She shouted, her fist balling up as she shook her head. "Hosin, he wouldn't—he couldn't possibly do something like this!"

Emiya didn't say anything, though he thought that she might have expected him to say something. To deny her words or to reassure her, perhaps? Glancing at the equally silent salarian, he said nothing.

"Don't—don't you get it! What he said! What Hosin is doing?! It's, it's insane! How, how could he do something like that!" She shrieked again, slapping aside the hand on her shoulder. Or trying to anyhow as his hand remained firmly on her shoulders. "Millions could die! How could he do something like that!? How—Doesn't he, but..."

Her eyes were desperate, lost and adrift. She was fraying at the edges, hyperventilating and shaking. As if reality no longer made sense to her. He squeezed once as he exhaled.

"Roane, you need to calm down," he said, and as she looked as if she was about to shout again he squeezed her shoulder more tightly. It must have hurt as she winced, wilting under his stare then. "If he really did something like that, then you're the only one who can talk sense back into him. You need to calm down."

She seemed to deflate then, her hands slackening and hanging limply by her sides as she looked out through the window quietly.

Slowly her breathing seemed to even out and Emiya finally raised his hand from her shoulder as he judged she had calmed down.

"I... yes..." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, her eyes distant and unsure.

But at least she seemed in control once again.

"Could we please move to the shuttle. We do not wish to agitate Hosin'Reegar with any unnecessary delays, if at all possible," Jondum said, awkwardly chiming in.

The asari shook her head once, and Emiya spoke once more. "Roane."

She inhaled and slowly nodded, looking up to him. "Yes, yes. I'm... Let's go... Take me to Hosin now, please."

The salarian nodded, moving to the hotel room's door. Emiya and Roane followed after him. Stepping out through the backdoor on the first floor, they were greeted by a pair of shuttles along with nearly all of the STG members Emiya had seen in the hotel not too long ago. Several of them looked up at their arrival, shooting glares of thinly veiled anger and bitter hostility at him causing him to mentally stumble for half-an-instant.

His resistance had been measured and careful he had thought, wholly appropriate against them. They were valuable specialists and highly trained agents for the STG; their organizations would have no trouble footing a bill to heal them back up in no time from what he had inflicted. Hell, knowing what he did of medical technology, the clean breaks he had caused would be little more than a weeks bed rest for them.

So why the killing intent?

Was it due to how he had handled them earlier?

The Special Tasks Group was made up of nothing but consummate professionals from what he had seen, thus he had made the mistake of thinking that they would see it as he did. Wholly detached, removed of emotion and simply as a game of numbers—of lives and end results in the balance. From his point of view, he had simply mildly inconvenienced them to achieve his goal.

But that wasn't how they saw it.

He had effectively crushed them at their own field of specialization, going so far as merely wound them enough that they could not continue. To them, there was no gratefulness for sparing their lives to be had. Only the sense of helpless vertigo at being met with something that did not fit their worldviews at all, as he was an existence that turned all of their hard work, preparations and planning to nothing.

As they licked their wounds and mended their shattered prides, they could do little about the seed of anger towards him that had taken root in their hearts.

That, or they might think Hosin's actions were related to him.

He blinked, realizing suddenly what he must have seemed like to them. A dangerous and reckless terrorist who when cornered takes the entire planet hostage using one of his subordinates. The timing was too good for him for it to be mere coincidence.

Looking around once more, somehow the killing intent seemed more reasonable now. To them he was someone who had just threatened to enact effectively the greatest terror attack in galactic history. It wasn't anything new though. It had always been like this; just like at the courtroom where his end was decided.

There was no reason to expect anything to have changed in that regard.

Emiya ignored them as they walked to a shuttle past the group, its passenger section's door opening as they drew near. Halting, he looked around as both Jondum and Roane entered the shuttle. The salarian blinked, turning around as he noticed Emiya wasn't moving.

 _Should I go with them or stay behind?_ The STG probably would not raise too much of a fuss if he muscled along, especially if he managed to contact Hosin. It would be an easy way out of Parnitha, along with allowing him to stay with Roane to ensure that she and Hoana got out safely. However, his body would still remain on Thessia unless he managed to bring it onboard somehow. Additionally, it would mean leaving Hosin behind. _No, I should figure out what's going on by myself first._

"Fujimura?" Roane asked, blinking at him.

Meeting her eyes he nodded once, making her frown for a second before she nodded back. "I'll keep an eye on you over the omnitool. Jondum, tell your people to not interfere with the connection or to try anything through it. If you do, I'll take it as you breaking the ceasefire."

The salarian blinked, his lack of understanding obvious. "You will not be going?"

"Did Hosin demand my presence?" Emiya asked with a raised brow and as the salarian blinked twice before shaking his head, he nodded. "Well, there you have it."

"I... see. Very well."

Returning to the hotel, he spiritualized the moment he was out of sight and dived into the nearest terminal. Finding the hotel's bank account, he wired through a sum of credits to compensate for blowing up the system earlier along with a note of apology. They probably had some form of insurance already, but he had no need for that money anyhow.

Checking quickly that Roane's shuttle was flying away without any issues, he looked at the banking traces that had still been ongoing before he had had to leave before. _Huh, it's done._

Still it would take a considerable amount of time to analyze all of the information. Time which right now could be better spent on figuring out what the ever-loving hell Hosin was thinking.

With that thought in mind he began to leap through connections. From a nearby skycar to a local traffic control center to the Thessian Airspace Control, he slowed only once he found the terminals through which the orbital station was being monitored in real time. The Airspace Control personnel were working overtime by the looks of it, running numerous simulations and advising others to steer clear of the orbital station.

He had thought to jump to the orbital station himself, only to pause at the note plastered over every terminal and operator's workstation.

' _Do not contact KX-0331 under any circumstance!_ '

Digging deeper, he found the threat Hosin had made regarding any attempts at connecting to his orbital station triggering the mass effect fields immediately to cause an immediate crash. It seemed like a rather overt measure to prevent being intruded upon and one that could be much too easily triggered, but assuming it was true...

 _Do I dare try to jump there? How much faith do I have in my ability to move from system to system without tripping something?_ Shaking his head, he noted that the timetable for another call from Hosin was a mere half hour away.

On the one hand it seemed prudent to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible, on the other hand it could be quite a risk. Additionally it seemed like Hosin had turned off the station's transponder, forcing everyone to keep watch of him through active sensor readings. If the quarian had turned off the transponder then it was entirely possible that the tightbeam receivers were also offline at the moment.

Emiya didn't relish the thought of attempting to ride a tightbeam laser only to be reflected off the surface of the station, bounced away towards some empty and far corner of the galaxy. He wasn't sure what would happen to him if he never managed to arrive at a receiver, either. Would he merely scatter and disappear as the infrared did, or would he simply appear in the physical world again once the signal lost cohesion?

 _No_. It would be safer to wait for the quarian to initiate contact instead, he reasoned as he crossed his arms and settled down to wait. Besides, it seemed like the asari and STG were making plans as well. Better to be on top of everything, before he tried something.

And speaking of which, it seemed like there was a meeting about to begin between numerous world leaders and the STG who were handling this situation. Perhaps he would gain some insight over the situation by listening in...

And while he was at it, he could take a look at the results of the Sapient Rights Council lead. He had plenty of time to read, given that he was experiencing time at a vastly slower rate here, after all. Pulling up dozens of screens to show the numerous Matriarchs and the lone turian, Emiya settled down to eavesdrop.

* * *

;

* * *

Nihlus Kryik cleared his throat. "Is everyone present?"

"Those that are able. Spectre Kryik, please inform us of the situation."

He nodded at the Matriarch.

As the highest ranking operative currently in the system and in the know, it fell to him to report everything to the council of Matriarchs. They weren't an official body of governance, rather they were mostly advisers and consultants for the whole of Thessia. They could not make orders to any of the many republics, not legally anyhow. But in times of crisis where immediate action was vital and long debates followed by a public vote were not an option, they could function as an emergency ruling body.

The collective age of the asari present here exceeded that of their recorded history a dozen times over; they were the wisest and most experienced of their race, experts and masters of a thousand fields united under one cause. Those who had seen and done all, who had been there and done that. Those who could think not only of the short and long-term consequences, but of how history itself would flow as a result of any one decision.

"Twenty minutes ago, we received a message..." He began to explain the situation.

Given that there were representatives of a dozen cities here and that he was still in orbit, he was reporting to them over a secure conference commline. He could see numerous Matriarchs listening in as the main screen of the bridge was set to act as his receiver during this meeting.

"Goddess above. How well has this been suppressed?" One Matriarch asked as he finished the rough outline of his report.

"The message was broadcast on the Thessian Airspace Control frequencies meaning some of it managed to slip through, but once the operators realized the seriousness of the situation they enacted the communications containment protocol to prevent the spread of information. We had a contingent of salarian information specialists in the area due to the Redhax case which allowed us to censor and handle the extranet for the most part," Nihlus reported, pausing to let the asari digest his words for a second before continuing. "Agents were sent to a few loose ends to ensure that they are made aware of the sensitivity of the situation, but for now the public remains unaware of the situation. There should be no risk of panic at this time."

There was a general murmur on the channels and he could see dozens of matriarchs nodding at him.

Of course, that was only the beginning of what was necessary in efforts to censor this event. They did not want the public aware of how easily something could be turned into a deadly weapon, after all. Generally speaking all FTL-capable vehicles were kept a close eye on, though there was only so much one could do when all one needed to create a simple hovercraft was a circuit board and a chunk of eezo.

Orbital stations occupied a strange spot in this legal area due to being massive objects that could quite easily be transformed into extremely dangerous anti-planetary projectiles, on paper anyhow. As such, they were forbidden from having any external thrust providers of their own or sufficient eezo cores to rapidly enact orbit shifts. Maintaining the altitude and orbital eccentricity of such stations are handled by Thessia's local fleets and Airspace Control, to minimize any such risks and to ensure that all orbital stations were at safe altitudes at all times.

Any private orbital stations were usually also located in Medium Planetary Orbit; thousands of kilometers away from Thessia's surface, to ensure that they could not suddenly change course and crash into the planet. Of course this was generally calculated based on the specifics of the station to ensure that even if something like an explosion split the stations in two, the other half could not possibly crash down into Thessia without being caught in time.

In theory the measures taken should have been enough to prevent just this kind of catastrophe.

On paper, KX-0331 had neither the thrust nor the eezo core to be a danger. But those papers did not factor in an illegal eezo smuggling operation and the facilities to handle both raw and processed eezo. He had the kinds of facilities that had given the Thessian officials a real scare once he had been investigated on Spectre Tela Vasir's orders. For that reason the entire station had been condemned and flagged to be towed out of Thessia's orbit as soon as possible, until a qualified crew could go through the entire orbital station with a fine tooth comb once Hosin had been made wanted.

They had already supposedly searched through the entire station after his supposed escape, meaning that no one had foreseen this possibility since no one was supposed to be there.

But Hosin had remained behind. And he had had the facilities to modify his orbital station and he had managed to rush past any of the usual measures in place against these dangers. By now the quarian was practically _hugging_ the planet with how close he had managed to get in one short burst.

It was an absolute disaster; a tier I weapon of mass destruction.

If Nihlus wasn't so terrified of the scale of the situation, he could almost admire the sheer ingenuity of the maneuver. It required an almost innate understanding of orbital mechanics and mass effect fields to pull off something like this. Even now there was a niggling doubt as to whether Redhax had somehow managed to orchestrate this situation, in the back of his mind. It was making the back of his crest tingle uncomfortably.

"What are his demands?"

"That his wife and daughter are allowed to leave Citadel space unmolested," Nihlus crisply replied.

The Matriarch who had asked the question blinked. "That's all?"

"This cannot be allowed to stand. Think of the precedent it creates! There are hundreds of similar orbital stations like it around Thessia alone. If we cave in to his demands here, then how many others like him will try it again, only with much more steep demands?!" Another ancient asari shouted, slamming her scarred hand onto the desk so loudly it echoed even through the comms. "How was this even possible in the first place?! Answer, Spectre!"

Nihlus considered telling the scarred war-matriarch off, but decided that prudence was the better part of valor just then. "He seems to have stockpiled incredible amounts of smuggled element zero on his orbital station, along with massively overhauling the entire structure to suit his needs over the years—"

"How could he have possibly acquired that much contraband element zero!? Is this not the very reason for the rigorous security measures!"

Nihlus cleared his throat as he answered, "If you'll read the report by Spectre Vasir, you will find the full results of her investigation regarding the smuggling operation."

Another Matriarch nodded, speaking. "Yes, of course. Please continue, Spectre."

He nodded, doing so.

"We have not had the chance to investigate more closely how much eezo he has access to—given his strict warnings regarding such attempts, you understand—however we suspect that he is running an analog circuit through several frigate-class eezo cores, which allow him to bypass the navigational hardcodes that should have given Thessian Airspace Control a warning. But as stated, we are not entirely sure at this time."

The whole assembled Matriarchy sat in silence as they considered his words.

"Then it is vital that it is found out exactly how he accomplished this. Negotiations leading to acquiring this information is vital, for future countermeasures to be possible," another Matriarch said as she nodded sagely.

"To _r'jii_ with that! Blow him out of the sky with one blast of the _Dreamer Trembling_! Its main gun should be able to vaporize that impudent rat in a snap!"

"Yes!"

"Force must be met with force, lest weakness be thought in our hearts."

"But what of the numerous vehicles he launched from the station earlier? What if each of those is set up to act as a similar weapon? How many of them have been found and disabled? There could still be dozens of them around Thessia!"

That birthed a deafening silence anew, as the most outspoken of the aggressive faction could only clench their teeth at such a possibility.

"Those ancient rust buckets were never meant to operate in-atmo. What danger is there in letting it burn out upon entry?" One asari scoffed, by the looks of it none too pleased by the sudden meeting she had been called to.

"Your lack of talent with biotics is shining through for everyone present, you fool. The quarian has threatened to raise the ship's mass, meaning he will effectively be wrapping it in a Stasis field. It will survive re-entry quite well, I assure you of that. We, however, _will not_."

Suitably chastised, the asari matriarch grimaced and said nothing more.

A Matriarch who had been quiet until now chose to speak up then. "And where are this quarian's wife and daughter at this time?"

Nihlus nodded, as he answered. "Yes, we had his wife—Roane Lorrais of Trelle—in custody earlier, but due to certain events she seems to have been broken out from the Ulee holding cell at this time. One of the STG's field operatives is making contact with her at this time and informing her of the situation. We should have her in the air within ten minutes."

"And the daughter?"

"Hoana Lorrais is presumed to be with Hosin'Reegar at this time, aboard the orbital station. He has demanded that a shuttle with his wife be sent over, so that she leave with their daughter. A suitable vessel has been prepared, along with the necessary kits for whatever the council of Matriarchs wishes be done regarding the situation." Nihlus inclined his head to the camera and at the Matriarchs he was speaking to as he finished.

There were several seconds of silence, before discussion between private channels erupted for a half minute. He could see many speaking, covering their mouths with a hand at times as they used other channels to talk to each other. The turian stood in silent stoicism as he waited for their deliberations to progress.

"Could this be a retaliation by the quarians as a whole? We've rebuffed their attempts at entering the system several times in the past, haven't we?"

"No, they are too focused on the continued survival of their race at the moment. There is too little for them to be gained out of this, at the moment."

"Records also place Hosin'Reegar as something of an exile from the quarian flotilla..."

Nihlus stepped in here again. "During an interrogation on Roane Lorrais—Hosin'Reegar's wife—by Spectre Vasir, it was noted that there is a long-running disagreement between Hosin'Reegar and the direction of the migrant fleet as a whole. Such motivations conflict with his profile in addendum file 4c-1."

Murmurs and whispers again, causing Nihlus to fidget in place. He could see where the Citadel's Council model had come from, watching the proceedings from the side. They were quite unlike the strictly hierarchical chain of command present in the Turian Hierarchy, as here every voice seemed to have equal weight.

And that was the problem; there were too many voices and they did not bring enough to the table individually he felt.

In the Citadel Council, the three members all had an area of expertise and understanding of their corner of the galaxy. Distinct and separate, yet brought to a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Here many of the Matriarchs knew each other from before, their roles and spheres of influence overlapped and clashed. He could see how alliances and pacts were playing out, favors and debts skewing the discussions subtly, how it seemed like there were visible shifts in thoughts and attitudes depending on _who_ spoke rather than due to what was being said.

But it was not his place to voice such thoughts and he stood in silence as he waited for them to continue.

"I have run the analysis on the orbital station. Spectre Kryik, are these kinetic barrier output readings still accurate?" One Matriarch asked and he nodded.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then I do not believe it is feasible for the orbital station to be shot with a starcraft's main spinal-gun," she continued only to be interrupted by several loud voices shouting at her. She waited for them to quieten before she continued again. "I am forwarding the simulations now. As you can see, the angle of such a shot must be extremely precise given the spherical nature of the station's kinetic barriers and due to Thessia itself.

"Additionally due to the projected intensity of the mass effect fields and the proto-Stasis field, it will require a very powerful rail gun to be employed, which creates additional problems. Any kinetic shot with the danger of entering the atmosphere will have dire consequences even discounting all the possible effects of the station crashing down. Were the Dreamer Trembling to fire a single shot, the consequences for Thessia could be even worse than were the station to simply fall by itself, potentially. Any shot would have to thus be made below the station or parallel to it—relative to Thessia—to ensure no chance of hitting the planet. But due to the difficulties presented by the atmosphere and gravity well, most of our larger warships cannot be used."

"What?"

"You mean that to destroy the station we need a bigger ship than it is possible to fly so near Thessia's gravity well?"

"Yes. Anything below a cruiser simply will not have sufficient power."

Her calm answer caused the assembled Matriarchs to begin another round of heated whispers amongst each other. It seemed that the asari preference for over-specced warships was very much not in their favor in this instance.

Not minding the continued whispering one bit, she simply continued with her analysis.

"Additionally, since we do not know the exact specifications of the station or how great its mass may become, it is exceedingly difficult to predict at what angle and speed it will descend if the worst comes to pass."

"Assuming such a shot could be made; a perfect right angle that would impact against the barrier's head on and pierce through without striking Thessia or affecting the atmosphere, what kind of after-effects could we expect from it?"

The Matriarch who had been explaining shook her head. "Even in the best of circumstances, the power necessary for a single shot to be effective necessitates extreme velocities. And the angle for such a shot means that it will pass through our atmosphere. Even ignoring those problems, the station will only be scattered and rain down as so much debris. The building material as you well know is of the hyper-dense compressed alloy made with mass effect foundries. Even scattered apart, much of the material will survive atmospheric entry. The 'meteor showers' would be extremely destructive, nonetheless. "

"Was the production for that alloy not ended well over four hundred years ago?"

"Yes," the Matriarch answered again. "But as you can see, the station is very old."

Seeing as no one sought to interrupt her again, she continued.

"Destroying it wholly so as to minimize the amount of falling dangerous metal, even with dreadnought's main gun, will be extremely difficult. It may be feasible to use a host of smaller vessels underneath the orbital station inside of the atmosphere. The upwards trajectory would help disperse most of the debris, however given the kinetic barrier output it may prove difficult to disperse the whole of the orbital station quickly enough. If we had time to request aid from the Turian Hierarchy perhaps such a in-atmosphere task force could be created, but I hesitate to suggest such a course of action using just the Thessian fleets. Overall, I cannot recommend any direct measures be taken and advise for negotiation in regards to a cessation of this crisis. That is all I have to say."

The Matriarchs began to discuss among themselves again, before another suggestion regarding a specialized strike team was raised and promptly shot down. The quarian had specified the exact model and make up of shuttle to be used to ensure he knew the exact dimensions and weight. It was a simple countermeasure against fitting any kinds of complex devices or strike teams on the shuttle, but effective nonetheless.

Unless Hosin himself authorized it, nothing was going to get close to the orbital station.

"What about a disruptor torpedo?"

"Certainly, against a slowly and predictably moving target such as an orbital station, it could work regardless of kinetic barriers. But..."

"From my experience as a warship captain, I would strongly advise against that. That is unless you wish to Warp Detonate the orbital station." An old and until-now silent asari spoke, causing others to quiet down in response.

"Oh Goddess, the proto-Stasis effect would serve as a primer for that?" The one who had suggested it replied with a pale face.

"Indeed."

Nihlus frowned, before realizing what they were talking about. He was well aware that a starship in FTL would react explosively to a disruptor torpedo or mine, but it hadn't quite occurred to him that just as the mass lightening field utilized for FTL would work as a primer for the Warp Detonation, so too would the mass raising weak Stasis field. _Indeed, that would be quite catastrophic._

Disruptor torpedoes were weapons specifically designed to breach kinetic barriers by utilizing shifting mass effect fields, in effect replicated the biotic technique known as 'Warp'. A more advanced technique among biotics was using one power and following it up with another that would cause the first to react incredibly violently.

In this case the result of a Warp Detonation on the orbital station that was being affected by a mass raising field would be utterly catastrophic, turning the entire station into a massive fragmentation grenade that would send pieces of itself flying in all directions. And those pieces would carry along the mass effect field, possibly causing quickly flying lighter pieces and much more massive slower pieces to follow after.

Even if those pieces would nominally be small enough to be burned up in Thessia's atmosphere, those that had their mass raised would act as if under the Stasis biotic technique and act effectively as if they were much, _much_ heavier.

Rather than slamming the planet with the station, that would be like firing a dreadnought-caliber shotgun at it. _No disruptor torpedoes. Then again, they would probably be too slow as a reactionary weapon._

"I see, then what about..."

Following that, in the space of twenty minutes, half a dozen alternatives were considered and quickly rejected. GARDIAN-lasers were deemed too lacking in stopping power; a giant mass effect field to catch the falling station too fanciful; attempting to immediately fire and take out the station by surprise while it was still clear of Thessia too risky. And the biggest issue that had to be considered was the fact that the orbital station's fusion reactor might very well overload and cause a disaster all on its own, even if the orbital station were to be no problem.

While the process of nuclear fusion would not at least be self-sustaining and such reactors were specifically designed for safety, who knew what the quarian could have rigged up on his orbital station. Even the un-shielded reaction of a few seconds worth of fuel could be disastrous to Thessia's eco-system.

As long as the nuclear reaction remained in the vacuum of space it wouldn't be as grave an issue, but if in the worst case scenario the orbital station did make it into the atmosphere...

"And what of the population?"

There was a long silence, uncharacteristic for this meeting in how long it lasted. They all knew what had to be done, yet none among them wished to speak the words.

The Spectre cleared his throat, opting to bear the burden as the voice of the Citadel in this meeting. "The people of Thessia cannot be told anything. Evacuating everyone is impossible and shelters in the impact zone with the capability to handle the impact do not exist. Moreover, this matter must be kept a secret."

Several of the Matriarchs nodded at him while others looked away, clearly displeased with the matter. Many of them were from the areas that could be heavily affected, with generations of family and friends living there.

"If it became known that a tier I weapon of mass destruction was being employed against Thessia it would cause chaos and panic, while also undermining the Citadel's and Thessia's ability to protect themselves. In lawless corners of the galaxy the use of asteroids in this manner may be employed, but if it were to be known that despite the trillions of credits spent that Thessia was in danger of just such a terror attack..."

"It would create an unacceptable precedent, the very reason the matter has been suppressed."

He nodded, stepping back as they formalized the information control on the matter. While officially no one would be informed or evacuated from Thessia, he was certain many of them would privately send notices to their loved ones as soon as this meeting was adjourned.

Some seemed to be incapable of waiting even that long, as already some seemed distracted with some other communications.

But the meeting continued.

Nihlus listened patiently as the Matriarchs discussed these subjects and more in silence, each present in the convention trusting that those who spoke were experts in their field and wasting no time with contradicting their judgments. It was the first time in history that the Matriarchs had reached a decision within fifteen minutes of convening, as far as Nihlus was aware. A historical event to be sure.

And one no one would ever learn about.

This debacle was going to be buried so deep that the only records left might as well be thrown into a black hole.

While waiting for the asari to finish, he also received a quick update from Jondum Bau which left him confused and off balance once again. That the quarian's wife had agreed to be delivered to the station was good, but...

_Why did the human not join? Is this not a perfect chance to escape Thessia?_

What were they thinking? The turian felt his talons itching, turning him irritable and anxious. Repressing the worst of it, he focused on the proceedings.

"The demands of the quarian Hosin'Reegar will be met and his family will be allowed to leave asari space wholly unmolested—all in favor?"

The vote was over quickly; there really weren't many options to be had, they had concluded.

Nihlus inhaled slowly, feeling his mandibles twitching as the council settled for acceding to the quarian's demand with overwhelming numbers. The combination of such an overt threat along with the short time frame meant that options that would normally be considered carefully were being discarded. A starship would be prepared, allowing Roane and Hoana Lorrais to leave Citadel space, as per Hosin'Reegar's demands.

It was going far too smoothly the turian felt. Almost as if this had been planned beforehand. Just like everything else that human had done already today and yesterday. _Are we all just playing into his hands right now? Did he think this far ahead and prepare something of this scale just for a day like this?_

He was shaken out of his thoughts as a representative of the Matriarchs addressed him.

"Spectre Kryik, may we rely on you to handle the practicalities of actualizing the results of this vote for us?"

That sense of crushing defeat and bitter humiliation at backing down still remained from that single face-to-face meeting with Emiya Shirou. His instincts screamed at him to hunt down that man, to try again, to win and regain his honor. But he was a Spectre with all his being, with all the duties and responsibilities that entailed.

Protecting the people went before his personal desires.

The turian nodded to the Matriarchs, raising a hand in a crisp salute as he did. "I live to serve."

* * *

;

* * *

Tela Vasir blinked, noticing that she was receiving a call through her omnitool. _Who would be...?_

She only had outside connectivity due to patching in to the museum network, having made sure to bar all other access while she had been at it. Shaking her head, she checked the ID of the caller before she swore.

Slowing down from her jogging, she breathed for ten seconds to appear as if she hadn't been exerting herself for a while now. Then, making sure to not allow any visual feed through either way, she accepted the call.

"Nihlus? What the hell do you want?"

" _Vasir, where are you?_ "

"Following up on some leads, that's all. What do you want?" She repeated.

" _...You have a concussion, you're in no shape to be anywhere. Your judgment would be impaired to hell and back. It doesn't matter, drop your lead and get back to base right now. There's a situation going on and I need all the hands I can get._ "

She scowled, clenching her fists as she controlled her breathing. Her face was flushed and her breathing heavy. _Who the hell does he think he is, ordering me around? I've been a Spectre longer than he's been alive, for fucks sake!_

"I'll get to it when I can."

" _...Fine, but I'll be making a note of this to the Council later._ " With that the annoying turian hung up.

She breathed heavily, stretching her neck as she tried to calm down. Failing entirely, she lashed out with her biotics as she punched at a wall, denting the material with the blow as she shouted. "FUCK!"

She was going to tear those fucking brats apart.

Raising the omnitool to put away the call functions, she blinked as she saw the museum network still open. And there, she saw something that almost made her crack a tooth with anger. _This place has cameras? Of course it fucking did! You fucking idiot!_

Vasir accessed them immediately, moving to go through them as quickly as possible, looking for any signs of those three Maidens and the Matriarch. She had to pause for a moment as she found an outside camera, showing a view of the courtyard outside near the rear entrance.

There were three commandos there; asari of affiliation with the one who had been standing inside the door before. _Shit, the brat must have told others she was here. Can't get out that way... No, I can still handle this, I can still handle this. They can't get in, so it's fine. I'm fine._

"I've still got this..." She told herself, rolling through the cameras until she found something. "And there you are..."

She grinned, turning around and looking up. Comparing the omnitool feed to her own position, she moved out again.

_I've still got this!_

* * *

;

* * *

Liara stopped suddenly, frowning as she looked around. Tyra not five steps behind her had just enough time to react to her stopping that she didn't crash into her roommate's back.

"Did you hear something...?" Liara asked.

"Hey, over here," someone whispered again.

"Professor?" Liara turned around, trying to locate the source of the whisper as she did.

"Over here, behind the statue..."

Liara and Tyra turned to look, finding Baliya hidden behind a large statue near the wall. If someone merely ran through the hallway exhibition she would have had ample concealment there.

"Professor Haphia." Liara exclaimed, rushing over. "Are you alright? How did you manage to get all the way over here?"

"I know a few shortcuts, is all. The hardest part was making sure no bloodstains would show my tracks..." She said with a deprecating smile.

"I am glad that you are alright. I was not thinking very clearly, before. I am..."

The Matriarch shook her head, looking at Tyra. Or rather, at Shiawe on Tyra's back. "No, I understand. You made the right choice, by the looks of it."

"I... _Yes_ —She nearly did not make it." Liara sighed.

Baliya nodded, looking up at Tyra and the commando on her back.

"Well? Did you manage to call for help?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "Perhaps if we made it to the guard's room, but if we could do that we could just as well walk past out through the lockdown. I'm sorry."

Tyra sighed, gingerly putting down the unconscious commando as she did. As she stood back up, her eyes met with Liara's and they shared a silent moment.

Finally, Liara sighed. "You're right, Tyra. But are you sure it will work?"

"Yeah—I mean, we got our butts handed to us... But if we work together and plan it out properly, we could take her down! We know the museum and there's more of us, so we can set up an ambush."

"An ambush?" Baliya repeated, frowning as she looked up at the two Maidens. "That will never work—she is much too..."

The Matriarch trailed off, frowning as she seemed to consider the idea now that it had been raised.

Tyra, taking this as a cue to continue, explained her reasoning. "She was really wary of you, right? We can use that. And as long as she doesn't have a gun, we can fight her. She can't use biotics repeatedly against all of us. As long as we work together and think ahead, we can take her down!"

Somehow despite their exhaustion and pain, Tyra's words seemed to be making sense. Perhaps it was merely her experience at motivating and taking charge shining through, but to all present it did seem like fighting was their only option now.

No one was coming to rescue them, Tela Vasir was not going to give up nor would they be able run away indefinitely.

Baliya exhaled, nodding once. "Yes. _Yes_. You're right. We can't simply keep running. We will have to fight."

Tyra grinned, giving the Matriarch a thumbs up. "Alright, here's what I've thought up... You and Liara are pretty strong at biotics—stronger than me, anyhow. Liara is a bit slower, but she's got really good control. She'd make a really good center-left second passer, I think..."

"I... thank you?" Liara said with a frown, not entirely sure what that was.

"Right, anyhow. Unlike Liara, I've a little bit of experience in tussling and I can fire off my biotics pretty quickly, so I can probably hold her off while taking the center forward. If you and the professor can keep Vasir occupied, then I can use my biotics to stop her from just punching my face in. If I think of her as a Matron right second defense, then I can probably handle her that way..."

"That will be quite dangerous. Especially given your lack of protection and Vasir's own hardsuit. Any one of her blows will be enough to incapacitate you," Baliya said, before raising a hand to point at the unconscious commando. "Take her hardsuit. It will protect you a little."

"Right, good idea. If I can figure out how to get it off of her..."

Liara frowned, crossing her arms as she spoke. "Will that be enough? She beat us so easily the last time."

"It might," Baliya replied, looking up. "Or it might not. Then she managed to pick us apart and take us down one by one. If we had a gun it would be much easier to take her down..."

Tyra blinked. "Don't we have biotics? Won't that be enough?"

Baliya nodded. "Yes, but a weapon would allow us to put much more pressure on her and allow us to reliably wear her down, since the hardsuit will allow her to focus her biotics purely on offense. Ranged projectiles would force her to focus on a constant barrier which would force her to focus on defense."

"Right, well what if we all decide on roles then? Like, Liara does biotics-biotics, you throw stuff with biotics at her really fast to occupy her like a gun would, and I take it up close?" Tyra suggested.

"'Biotics-biotics'?" Liara repeated, almost amused despite the seriousness of the situation.

"That does sound feasible... And I have just the place in mind."

"Huh, what's wrong with here?" Tyra asked, blinking at Baliya.

"You have a sharp eye for formations and odds from biotiball, but this is not a game. We are not two teams contending to push through to be able to make a goal and score points. We shouldn't think of it as two opposing sides per se," the Matriarch explained. "Here, our focus is Tela Vasir herself. Thus we should _surround_ her here and attack her from opposite sides. If Liara and I are at opposite ends of a hallway, Tela Vasir will have to turn around to react to every attack and we have enough distance that neither of us will be likely to hit the other. As long as we do not hit you by accident then it could work out."

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense." Tyra nodded.

The Matriarch continued. "And I have just the place in mind. On the second floor, by the sea fossil exhibition is an excellent spot where we can box her in and I can pull numerous objects to throw at her."

"Oh, _oh!_ " Liara nodded. "Yes, the fossil-containing stone and amber will be _plentiful_ , _hard_ and _heavy_. Excellent ammunition, as it were."

"Yes, and I have plenty more in the cellar to replace any broken samples once this is over. Though writing a report to the Serrice Council over the expenses and damages afterwards will be... interesting, to say the least." Baliya shrugged with a tired smile.

"Oh, yes. I had not considered that at all." Liara admitted with an embarrassed flush, causing Tyra to laugh lightly.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds, all pondering those words and the situation. Finally, Tyra shook her head and decided that it was time to go.

"Alright, let's move. No time for dilly-dallying," she said as she moved to grab Shiawe again. "Liara, you take the professor. She should be lighter."

"I apologize for the trouble," Baliya said as Liara moved to help her up.

Managing to get all four of their group moving, they began to make for the stairway. As they walked, Baliya began to list things they had to bear in mind. She had not seen combat in decades, but she had quite likely forgotten more about fighting than the other three in the group knew put together.

"As long as we can get over there and set up our ambush properly... We might just be able to manage. It will be a close thing, but as long as we can pile up enough factors then it will work. Fighting is quite often like that; you simply stack as many advantages as possible while denying your enemy the same, and then hope for the best as things devolve into chaos."

"Is that how it's like as a huntress usually?" Tyra asked.

"More or less. We worked in small bands, usually quite independently. When something happened we would usually avoid direct combat until we knew what was going on. Infiltration and sabotage, things like that," the Matriarch answered.

"Is that true for all commandos? I have heard that the Eclipse get into heated fights quite often... They were contracted to run supplies to Dretirop on occasion and they seemed quite proud of that..." Liara pointed out.

Baliya shook her head. "I have not worked with mercenaries before enough to say, but it depends on the asari of course. Take Tela Vasir for example; she is quite a powerful biotic, but she prefers to take it up close where she does not need finesse as long as she has enough momentum."

"So, if we—"

"Watch out!" Baliya shouted and in the next second they were tossed aside.

Tyra realized a second later—as she hit the floor and rolled with the impact to recover—that they had been hit with a sudden Shockwave of biotic force. Only Baliya's quick reaction had saved them. Looking up with wide eyes, Tyra spotted the Spectre walking down the long open exhibition with slow steps.

"You think you were so clever, running around and making me look for you... That's fine, that's fine. It's not like I'll be the one suffering for it, see? I've plenty of aggravation to work out on you."

"Vasir...!" Liara grit her teeth, getting up as she tried to bodily shield the fallen Matriarch who had managed to absorb the most of the surprise attack with her biotic barrier.

"Liara!" Tyra shouted, getting to her feet to stand at the front. "Go around!"

Rushing forward with a Charge and slamming into the Spectre, she barely managed to avoid the hook that would have knocked her out cold a second later.

She barely dodged more by luck than anything else. This close, she could smell the blood still on the Spectre and see the splatters on the hardsuit, that must have come from the commando she had been carrying all this time around. Suppressing a shudder, she pushed outward and jumped aside to dodge a Throw.

Behind her she could hear Liara running off. She would probably have to go up or down a floor and come from the other end to be able to flank Vasir like they had planned. _And I didn't get a chance to put on the armor! This is bad! Really bad!_

But if Liara could go around and they could attack the Spectre from both sides, then maybe...

She was cut from her thoughts as Vasir rushed forward, taking her completely off-guard. Only the Throw impacting against Vasir's flank managed to buy Tyra enough time to jump out of the way.

"Thanks!" The biotiball-player shouted, throwing her own biotic attack at armored asari. She didn't have the focus or skill to form a strong Throw, but she could push and pressure with just what she knew from playing biotiball.

Or she hoped it would be enough, at least.

The Spectre frowned, looking between the two asari fighting against her and glancing down the hallway Liara had run. That wasn't good; they had to keep Vasir here until Liara was able to make a full circuit.

"Vasiiir!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, Charging forward and aiming to slam her shoulder into the Spectre's gut in a full body tackle.

Tela Vasir turned around just in time, falling backwards and pushing forward with a leg against Tyra's gut. The Charge turned into a counter-throw as the Spectre rolled onto her back and kicked the Charging asari over her, sending her flying through one of the glass vitrine cabinets. She felt something hitting the back of her head as she was sent back-first, upside-down through the display stand where ancient asari pottery had been held.

Tyra had barely enough sense to roll up into a ball and trust her Barrier through the hail of clattering and shattering glass and ceramics. She hit the ground first, rolling painfully with the impact of her own Charge as it rained shards of the vitrines around her. Looking up and shaking her head, she could see that Baliya was using biotics on herself to be able to hop around with just one leg, jumping five meters with single bounds.

She and Vasir were eyeing each other, measuring one another as they kept a distance of fifteen meters between them.

Tyra tried to stand up, only to fall over. She blinked, realizing that she was bleeding from her leg. She stared at the long, dagger-like shard of glass stuck in the back of her thigh, that felt like it was scraping against bone inside her leg. It was coated in a layer of purple blood, drawing a thin line as a droplet made its way to the edge and fell off to hit the floor with a sound that seemed to drown out everything else. She almost threw up, then.

 _Huh, didn't my Barrier protect me...?_ It didn't even hurt, she realized numbly, unable to pull her eyes away from the wound.

Should she pull it out? Leave it in? Moving her hand, she realized it was shaking so badly that she could not even make a fist. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, she realized distantly. It was as if she was no longer in control, just watching everything that was going on from some place far away, unable to affect anything.

The lights seemed to reflect weirdly of the shard as well, turning the purple blood into shades of blue and red—

"Hey, Tyra! What's wrong?"

Tyra was snapped back to reality, realizing that Liara was shaking her shoulder. She blinked in confusion. _How did she run here so quickly?_

Looking up, she realized that Baliya and Vasir were still fighting but that their positions had somehow been reversed, with the Matriarch standing between them and the Spectre. _Oh no, our surround strategy...?_

"Hold on, I'm going to pull it out...!" Liara said, Tyra realizing that her roommate had been speaking for a long moment but that she hadn't been able to hear any of it.

She wanted to protest, thoughts of bleeding out suddenly erupting in her mind. But before she could as much as say a word there was a blinding flare of pain and she felt like she was completely blown away by the whiteness in her head.

"That's one..." Liara said, applying medigel on the wound. "Just three more, Tyra. Don't worry, you're going to be fine, you're going to be fine..."

_Three?_

The second flash of pain in her lower back almost made her lose consciousness then. She suddenly realized why she had been feeling so powerless just now. The burning cuts on her back and neck, the warmth running down her skin...

 _Guess it's nothing like the vids, after all,_ she thought and suddenly felt like laughing as her gaze moved down. The floor seemed to have changed color, having turned a darker hue that almost looked like purple.

She closed her eyes again, trying to clear her thoughts.

Opening her eyes again, she realized she was lying down on the ground. Trying to lift up her head to look around, she realized it seemed to weigh a ton. Suddenly, she was being lifted up into the air.

"—shit, looks like you're pretty much dead already..."

She realized she was being held up in the air by Tela Vasir, distantly realizing that meant that something must have happened to Liara and Baliya. She tried to look around, but her head wouldn't move as she wanted.

_Huh, is this how I die...?_

"Guess you won't live without a trauma team... Won't be able to interrogate you like this... Fucking amateur, couldn't you at least form a proper Barrier?" She was being shaken by the Spectre and it was making her nauseous and dizzy. "Damn it. I'll have to do this the quick and dirty way..."

Suddenly, there was a red-hot knife pushing through her forehead deep into her skull. Gasping for breath, she felt like she was being torn apart from the inside by a hundred thousand hooks digging into her skin. A blizzard of noise tore at her eyes and then...

_What the—hell?_

It wasn't her thought, it was _hers._ Suddenly, Tyra felt like a veil was being pulled back from over her mind. She realized she was drinking in _something_ from Vasir—The Spectre had tried to reach in and pull something out from her mind, but in doing so had gone too deep and left herself completely open for Tyra's metaphorical hands to grab onto her.

Metaphorical hands that Vasir did not possess for whatever reason, and regardless of how feeble and weakened Tyra felt she knew that this was her only chance.

Through that grasp, she could feel _strength_ pouring back into her. Like a hot buzz, running through her veins and mind at once. She could see herself and she could _see herself_ for an instant as two minds became one involuntarily.

_Ardat Yakshi?!_

That was _her_ thought again, and _she_ began to forcefully pull away with that realization. Tyra understood suddenly what that meant, and the monumental change to everything it made. But at that moment it was immaterial; she had to hold on, to grab everything she could before—

Like a spinning wheel, for a moment _she_ didn't know who _she_ was. Then her _self_ felt itself clicking back into _her_ ,as the wounded Maiden across from _her_ was struggling with the same.

"Gah!" Vasir shouted, throwing back the asari she had grabbed as she took two wobbly steps back. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, with her entire body feeling like she had been doused in boiling oil. But she wasn't _dead_. That meant she would be fine; she knew cases like this well enough from even before her days as a Spectre. If it isn't immediately fatal, you would be fine. That was the rule of thumb with asari on the Ardat Yakshi spectrum.

And it hurt.

That was even better. If it felt _good_ then there was nothing to be done; the Ardat Yakshi was simply too strong to be fought off then. Breathing heavily, the Spectre tried to calm herself. _If she was a real Ardat Yakshi, I would be dead already! Calm down, calm down. She's just on the spectrum, I'm fine. I'm fine..._

Vasir took another wobbly step back. As long as she could control herself and keep a handle on things, everything would be fine until a few hours from now she would crash and fall unconscious for days. She just needed to wrap things up here; it was fine. It was fin—

A hand reached out and grabbed her arm, causing a jolt of electricity-like sensations to spread through Vasir's limbs as she gasped. Eyes met, as Tyra managed to somehow stand upright again. It wasn't that her wounds were healed or that she had recovered, rather it was just that she had received a jolt of adrenaline and mental fortitude sufficient to ignore the pain and blood loss enough to keep moving.

 _Gah, she's still moving!_ Vasir tried to exert force through her hands to throw off Tyra, but she barely managed to brace herself as the asari threw herself forward, bringing both down onto the ground. _Fuck!_

Tyra was still weak and would not be able to overpower anyone normally, but Vasir couldn't move as she wanted. The weak response from her limbs along with the buzzing headache that felt like it was splitting her skull in two was too much, allowing the younger asari to get in several free punches as they struggled on the ground. The flailing fists barely even hurt, but the after-effects of the meld made every touch feel like she had bit down on a tuning fork as her vision doubled.

Desperately, Tyra continued to swing her fists, trying to get a solid hit as she could feel the second wind she had received somehow through the meld waning and disappearing by the second. Finally as a punch missed and Vasir managed to flip them over, did Tyra's hand grab onto something that could end it. Her hand lashed, finding Vasir's neck in a desperate swing.

Tyra blinked as Vasir above her stilled entirely, blinking as she realized that a long, dagger-like shard of glass had been shoved through her neck, just above the armored collar of the hardsuit.

The Spectre coughed, blood speckling Tyra's face as the older asari tried to reach up and do something. But with every beat of her heart, more and more of the purple liquid spurted out leaving her ever weaker. Tyra could see as the life faded out of her eyes as within seconds her brain ceased receiving sufficient oxygen to stay conscious.

Tela Vasir lost consciousness on top of Tyra, seconds later.

 _I need to call help... I can't move, can't... Liara... Baliya... Saiga..._ Her mind was becoming dark again, the exhaustion and pain forcing her consciousness back. But she couldn't rest, she had to still do something.

But she was too tired. Much too tired...

She told herself she was only closing her eyes for a few seconds, but before she knew it she was completely unconscious, lying in a slowly spreading pool of purple interlaced with glittering daggers on the floor.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sighed, finally accepting that he would not be able to find anything on the Sapient Rights Council lead he had worked on while listening to the Matriarchs bicker and bluster at one another.

Tela Vasir had probably bribed the board members, but he couldn't prove it. The credits must have been handed in person, so unless he could somehow magic up evidence of that transaction—which had most likely occurred in person anyhow, which made it much more difficult to pin down—then he had nothing. Even the credits themselves seemed fairly clean. _Then again, as a Spectre she would have all the resources in the galaxy to launder any ill-gotten money. That is even assuming she is dirty._

Still, as long as the Spectre had a concussion and was hunting dead trails then she was mostly harmless. On the surface her records were quite impressive, having worked as something of a public figure among the Council's elite special operatives, often spearheading various operations and missions.

For all intents and purposes, she seemed to be both loyal and clean as far as the Citadel was concerned. _Should I assume that she's working with the Council's approval, then? In that case, perhaps hoisting Tyra and Liara onto Baliya wasn't such a good idea, after all..._

He had also tried to prod into Liara's and Tyra's backgrounds.

Which had resulted in... _more_ and _less_ useful 's parents in particular had left him quiet for a good five seconds. It seemed too unlikely to be a pure coincidence. He could accept meeting Liara's mother—Matriarch Benezia—by Dretirop as a happenstance given that they seemed to both be on the trail for Professor Henell. But the Matriarch he had run into on the Serrice beach—Liara's father, one Matriarch Aethyta as he had just found out—seemed too unlikely a meeting to be just a coincidence. Additionally, her anger seemed too directed. Too raw, as he thought back to it.

Emiya somewhat sheepishly realized that the asari had probably been looking for Liara all along and he had only unnecessarily aggravated her further.

In comparison Tyra's parentage was quite plain. A turian father, dead sixty years old along with a salarian grandfather some four hundred years ago who had died at twenty-five. No great Matriarchs in the family, no vast glories or wealth to the family name.

Just a run-of-the-mill asari family by the looks of it. So if anything, there was something going on with Liara.

 _Still, it seems like Liara hasn't been in contact with either parent in years._ He couldn't be sure what angle Tela Vasir was working, but this didn't feel like it. Was it something more general then? Something regarding what Liara was, rather than who? He shook his head, he didn't have enough information.

Turning his head, he checked the clock showing the passage of time in the real world and sighed. Hosin's call was still a good six minutes away, leaving him with little to do.

All the power in the world at his fingertips, yet nothing he could do.

Well he had other projects in the works at the same time.

He had been listening in on the proceedings and with so much time to process everything said, he had effectively read everything they had had on hand of the situation. Dossiers, analyses, summaries and more.

Everything about the orbital station, from year of make to the numerous modifications and repairs it had gone through over the years, it was all there for him to peruse through. Everything that was on record anyhow. He had already spotted several errors based on his own time aboard the station; the blueprints were decades out of date.

And Emiya was fairly certain that Hosin had much, much more eezo at his disposal than what the experts had suggested. Of course, how much of that had actually been used was the question. If Hosin was merely attempting to make a bluff it was one thing, but if the crazy quarian was actually serious on walking through his threat...

The impact could be a lot greater than any of them had thought.

And since the Matriarchs seemed to have no plans for preparing the general populace for any danger, it would cause massive fatalities. Even if the station were to drop in the middle of nowhere without any larger settlements in direct danger, there would be numerous planetary effects as well.

Seismic instability or a tsunami depending on where the station hit the planet, radiation and atmospheric wave of overpressure from the impact, horrific winds stretching outwards and ravaging everything.

And those were merely the immediate effects; the long term effects would be far worse for Thessia as a whole.

One of his other queries finished and he pulled out the results. It was a list of cities, a map showing population spread and density across Thessia along with the projected impact zone of the orbital station. Several cities lay in the danger zone, but the most notable among them was Serrice.

It was almost exactly in the middle of the station's orbital path, meaning that depending on the timing it was extremely likely that the city would be affected, one way or another.

Sighing with disgust, he decided to check up on Serrice quickly before it was the appointed time for Hosin to make contact. Perhaps if worse came to worst, he could make a public notification for the population to seek shelter in the parking lot and the university museum. _That place might even survive if the station fell near the city..._

"Huh?"

He blinked, realizing that there was no reply from the museum as he tried to connect to its systems. With some annoyance he tried to comm Baliya directly instead, but the call was unable to reach her which meant she must have been inside the museum.

_What are they doing in there?_

Furrowing his brows he checked the outside camera feeds instead and blinked again as he noticed the fourteen asari commandos standing by the doors. They were arguing about something rather heatedly, obviously seeking entry inside the museum yet finding none. Looking back at the countdown in the Airspace Control for Hosin's renewed contact, he frowned. _I still have several minutes, it should be fine if I go take a quick look, right...?_

It would at most just take a minute to check on things. And if it became necessary for the population of Serrice to seek shelter, then it would be good if the museum weren't in lockdown.

_That's plenty of time. I'll just check it out and unlock the doors. It won't even take a minute._

Leaping through the connection, he arrived in Serrice and leaped out through the nearest omnitool in his spirit form. Passing through the outer wall and entering the museum he immediately noticed the pool of drying purple blood on the floor and wall by the entrance.

"Oh," he spoke, immediately turning to high gear and running forward as he realized something was horribly wrong.

Dashing forward at his top speed he scoured the building until he came to a sudden stop. It took him a second to register what he was seeing; five asari, all lying on the ground amidst a shattered and broken exhibition hall. Bits of the wall and floor had been gouged out, with shards of glass and slowly pooling blood staining the once spotless surfaces as the fine white dust of the broken walls and cracked ceiling were just starting to settle down.

The fight couldn't have ended more than a few minutes prior.

Jumping forward he came to a skidding halt next to the two nearest asari. _Baliya and Liara?_ Looking over he immediately recognized Tyra and Tela Vasir further away, along with a fifth vaguely familiar-looking asari in a commando hardsuit. They were all unconscious and injured by the looks of it.

Wasting not a moment he immediately turned around and ran for the nearest first aid kit; he remembered there were dozens of them littered around the museum and he had memorized the locations of most of them due to old habits. The closest one would be just around the corner and...

He stopped to find that it was gone; someone must have already taken it before.

Gritting his teeth, he kicked up a gear and moved a floor up through the floor in his spiritual form and then finally materialized as he took six whole first aid kits with him as he returned down to where he had found the wounded asari.

Dropping all the kits he spiritualized and dived into Tela Vasir's omnitool. Ignoring everything else for the moment he removed the lockdown on the museum and notified the locals of an immediate medical emergency at the premise. He turned to jump out of the omnitool when he stopped himself at the last moment.

 _I'll have to perform triage; checking them one by one will take time. There's only so fast you can do it while being careful with the patient. Structural Analysis would work, if they were human. I've never analyzed an asari in close detail._ Gritting his teeth over realizing that mistake, he mentally forced himself to consider his options instead. _Right, there are cameras here that recorded everything. And I materialized in my haste; should clean that up and while I'm at it I can check the footage to figure out what happened here._

That way he would know who had done what and he would be able to guess as to what kinds of injuries each had before he jumped back to the real world. In the digital world he had all the time in the world comparatively, after all.

Winding through the footage at a speed up rate of 128 times faster, he exhaled and rubbed his brow as he caught up with his own arrival and the present moment. Deleting all the security footage to remove any evidence of his own entrance and presence, and scrubbing clean the whole museum security system he sighed at the mess he had caused.

Tela Vasir had to die.

For more than one reason, even. He had been too naive in leaving her alive, he realized. For all the her actions were aimed at serving the Citadel—and how in the big picture she sought to protect the many—she was undeniably his enemy here and now. His grasp had once again exceeded his reach, and in striving for an end where no one had to die he had allowed a mad dog to run wild.

Jumping out of the omnitool, he consoled himself with the fact that it wasn't the only reason she had to die, at least. It was a petty and selfish thought; being able to shrug and tell himself that there was nothing he could do, that he couldn't save everyone. It was a convenient excuse to let her bleed out—his previous first aid experience telling him that with her critical injuries for him to be able to save her, he would have to sacrifice one of the others. She would take too much time to treat, that was all.

"You can't save everyone, so save as many as you can..."

The words tasted of bitter betrayal and crude compromise, just as they always did. _Ever the fool, I am._ But worse than that, he was a hypocrite.

He said he was saving the many at the cost of the few, yet wasn't he ignoring the looming crisis of the orbital station to come gallivant around? What was the point of administering first aid and allowing them to survive long enough for emergency medical personnel to arrive if the whole planet was to be doomed in the process? He thought the probable death of Tela Vasir was acceptable as long as he could stabilize Liara and Baliya, yet he would not do the same to them for the sake of the whole of Thessia?

_Grand words to disguise my selfish rationalizations, hiding my inability to make the right choices as always. Some hero of justice I am..._

Stepping over Tela Vasir who was still slowly bleeding out of her neck, where her carotid artery—or whatever the asari equivalent was called, he honestly didn't bother to remember—was emptying the whole of her life's blood on the floor, he ignored the dying Spectre and moved on. Perhaps the twitch of the hand was nothing more than a dying spasm, or perhaps it was a desperate plea for help.

He ignored her all the same.

 _Baliya is bad off, but she can hold on for a second. The commando stranger is stable by the looks of it; Liara did a good job. She herself is the priority case right now, and..._ He glanced at Tyra, narrowing his eyes at the unconscious but mostly fine asari. _Tyra seems okay for now._ He couldn't help but remember the last struggle between the maiden and the Spectre, frowning as he realized what had happened and suddenly drawing a parallel to something else. _So it was something she did to me, earlier._

He sighed and shook his head. It wasn't important right now; shaking his head he grabbed the first aid kits and rushed to Liara. Kneeling down he looked her over quickly.

She did not seem to be visibly bleeding beyond the bruise on her temple— _she was thrown against the ceiling and fell down the whole way, landing on the cabinet; I shouldn't move her around too much, she might have a neck or spine injury_ —her breathing was fine at least, though he noted her skin felt cold and clammy to the touch and that her heartbeat seemed slightly weak.

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

Using Reinforcement on other living things was the pinnacle of the mystery, something he was most definitely not capable of since his magical affinity was doubly harmful to other living things due to its peculiar nature. But he _could_ use Structural Grasp if he was extremely careful and did not attempt to pry too deeply, the amount of alien vital force he needed to use too little to cause severe harm to others. _Just follow her main blood vessels, lightly... And try to—_

"Damn it," he cursed aloud. He had been right, unfortunately. "Internal bleeding."

Asari, like humans—and all living sapient races he knew of really—were dependent on a number of things for their continued survival. Their internal make up was quite similar to humans— _a_ _central nervous system connected to a brain located in the head, supplied with nutrients and oxygen that was pumped in by a heart in their chest—_ which somewhat simplified this matter, but it also made it perfectly clear to him how bad the situation was. For most living beings, blood was life itself.

Without it the brain would quickly cease to function and death would be imminent.

In that sense external wounds were easier to address as it was possible to dress a laceration with bandages and even stitch the flesh back together to hasten the healing process. But when the wound was _inside_ the body, things became a lot more complex. It wasn't something he could just slap some medigel on and call a day with.

He stood up and rushed back to Tela Vasir, glancing only once to note that her eyes had already turned lifeless and empty in the time he had ignored her. With the artery necessary to transfer blood into her brain severed, death had been inevitable without intense efforts and care. Grabbing her omnitool he got back to Liara and took a medigel pack as he turned on the interface. _She was a Spectre, there's no way she wouldn't have a program for this..._ _There._

The basic use of medigel was a more effective coagulant and wound sealant: a more efficient form of first aid bandage that could seal wounds and mend flesh temporarily until proper medical aid could be administered for serious wounds. But since there was only so much one could do by closing wounds it was also important to be able to replenish blood in an injured person's body. For that reason, most field medics had specialized omnitools that could catalyze medigel to form a blood replenisher which could then be administered intravenously.

Staring at the program for a second, he shook his head and gave up immediately. No point in wasting time trying to figure out how to work the damn thing when he could just spirit hack his way through more quickly. Diving in, he at the same time stretched out his mind to see how far away the emergency medical team he had called still was and whether there were any updates on the situation with Hosin.

 _Still five minutes away, but the doors are open and they know where to go._ As for the orbital station, he could only assume no news was good news.

Clicking his tongue, he jumped back out into the real world and finished the blood replenisher catalysis program. It would take another thirty seconds, time he shouldn't waste here. Getting up, he moved to Baliya and repeated his earlier routine. Finding numerous small cuts and some deeper lacerations, he applied medigel liberally and then checked her breathing and pulse.

Noting that her breathing seemed slightly shallow, he leaned in to listen. He could hear slight gurgling, meaning... _Is she choking on her own tongue? Or is there swelling in her throat from getting hit?_

Placing two fingers of one hand under her chin and two on his other hand onto the back of her head, he tried to push back her head to open up her airways properly so she could breathe... Only it wasn't quite working. Emiya blinked as he realized that her head's crest was getting in the way, meaning he couldn't open up her airways so easily. He could use Structural Analysis to check it out, but it would be faster to just check normally given how careful he would have to be with his magical energy. Spiritualizing and materializing again to disinfect himself quickly, he opened her mouth with one hand and checked that she hadn't swallowed her tongue with the other. Then he gently touched around her throat until he found a lump that seemed like it was pressing against her airways.

"Right, well then—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

A slim rubber tube about the length of his palm and extended fingers appeared in his hand. It curved gently and on one end there was a trumpet-like flaring end, it was in essence just a thick straw with a rubber washer around it. Placing one end against her nostril and making sure it was the right size and length, he gently pushed it in until it was all the way to her throat and past the constricting lump. He didn't have any water to use as lubricant, so he had to be doubly careful and watch out for any blood or clear liquid coming from her nose, and additionally he had to rotate it around to follow the natural contours of the inside of Baliya's nostril. As he noted that her breathing seemed easier and deeper now, he nodded to himself and stood up to return to Liara.

Checking that the blood replenishment was complete, he moved to inject the drip only to realize he had none of the equipment necessary for that since the medigel was a civilian first aid pack and he had just used Tela Vasir's omnitool. _I could probably fabricate some with it, but that would take too long._

So he just projected the needle and drip without another thought about it. Raising the bag and making sure that there wasn't any air in the needle or drip, he grabbed Liara's arm and found a suitable vein to puncture into. Finding the purple veins against her blue skin wasn't easy, but at least he managed it with one try.

 _This should do for the moment,_ he thought as he stood up with a sigh. With internal bleeding she needed surgery. Which he definitely could not do, but the blood transfusion would keep her alive until that was possible. And already he could hear the sounds of people running towards his location. _Good, the cavalry is here. About time._

Spiritualizing, he dropped down through the floor and made his way to the front entrance of the museum to check that there weren't any complications with the lockdown. With that, he could get his focus back on the bigger picture of Thessia as a whole. Ignoring the little voice scolding him for not having done so in the first place, he paused as he stared at the scene by the entrance.

Two groups of asari were arguing quite heatedly, though not quite shouting yet by the doorway. _An emergency medical team and... the Serrice Guard? Where did the commandos go?_

Why were the Serrice Guard blocking the EMTs from entering? And who had he heard approaching inside the museum then? Was it the commandos he had seen earlier? He hesitated only for a second before he turned around and returned the way he had come moments earlier.

"She's dead."

Four new and unknown asari in combat hardsuits loomed menacingly over the fallen in the room as Emiya managed to return to the scene.

The one who had spoken just now stood up from where she had been crouched down by Tela Vasir. It was difficult to judge their ages accurately due to the relatively-timeless nature of asari physiology, but he was certain not a one of them was a Maiden.

In fact if he had to make a judgment, he would say that all but one of them were Matriarchs, though one of them was clearly the oldest given how deferential the other three were towards her. And judging by their hardsuits and weapons...

"And?"

"She's _empty,_ by the looks of it. Though it looks like she wasn't very thorough. The eyes still have some kick in them. Vasir didn't die in ecstasy, at least."

"So, not _her_?"

"Probably not; it's not her style to meld with just anyone, much less to leave so much behind," the asari who was crouching over Tela Vasir's corpse spoke as she stood up. "Still, how did Vasir end up like this then? Is it related to that flagged emergency call that got cut off?"

"There is too little to say with any certainty. What there is suggest someone who has just awoken, though the timing does not seem to fit," the eldest finally spoke, causing the others to still and listen to her every word.

"What shall we do with them?" The youngest asked, eyeing the four unconscious asari as she crossed her arms.

"Cameras are busted. They're our only witnesses."

"The healers are already down below, but these four will require supervision. We can trust the Serrice Guard with that much at least." The eldest among them spoke with a tone of finality that brokered no argument then. "You two bring them here. We in turn shall attempt to track down whoever did this."

Saying that, she turned around began to look around with one of the other three moving to follow her, leaving behind the two who had been ordered to bring up the medical team.

Emiya hesitated, eyeing the two as he weighed his options. He really had no time to waste here, yet something about this wasn't sitting right with him. _Just, just one more minute. I can get back that quickly. One minute won't hurt, when I've already spent so much time to make sure they didn't just bleed out on the floor._

"Well, you heard her. You want to go get the EMTs? I'll stay here and keep an eye on them," the youngest of the group said as she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed at the small of her back, grinning as she obviously had no intention of walking back down and up again if she could simply stay here. "I mean, in case someone's still around here or they try to run, you know?"

The other asari rolled her eyes before turning to leave the way she had arrived, heading for the main entrance with brisk steps. As the casually lounging asari was the last remaining member of the strange four in the room, she kicked off the wall and stood straight again. Her expression changed, the playful, almost bored expression had vanished as if it had been nothing more than a lie all along.

Looking around to make sure she was really alone, she wandered over to Tela Vasir's corpse and delivered a swift kick to the corpse's stiff side. "You useless bitch. Couldn't even do one thing right..."

Shaking her head she reached for her waist, pulling out a hypodermic injector and began to stalk towards Liara, activating the injector as she checked the contents once more.

"Well whatever, I'll get a nice fat bonus for the extra effort so it all evens out in the end," she said as she kneeled down next to Liara and grabbed one of her arms, obviously intent on injecting _something_ into her arm as she sing-sang with a whispered breath. "Good night, sleep tight, dream of better days to come oh sweet princess..."

And if she was a compatriot of Tela Vasir, then that meant...

Emiya cursed in his mind, projecting the red hardsuit onto himself as he moved forward. He was supposed to be in Ulee right now, meaning he needed to disguise himself if he wanted to act in Serrice again on such short notice. With so little time to react, there was no time to plan ahead or think through what he was doing, he just knew that he wasn't about to let any of them die so easily.

Materializing behind the asari looming over Tyra, he reached out to grab her by the neck and to knock her unconscious. But the asari had unexpectedly good instincts, somehow sensing him at the last moment and lashing out with surprised backhand at him that shimmered with biotic force.

Not bothering fighting what would be a freight train of a punch, he instead grabbed the wrist and turned on his hip to toss the asari away from Tyra and the others. Placing himself between her and them, his mind began to roll with plans for handling this new turn.

He had expected her to slam into the wall and crumple down at the impact, but she managed to use her biotics in an instant to regain control over her flight. Landing with a roll she snapped out the shotgun at her waist and took aim at him.

 _She's not just aiming at me,_ he realized with surprise the instant before the trigger was pulled.

— **boom!**

"Huh...?!"

Her eyes had shot wide open as he had crossed the distance to move aside the shotgun's muzzle, to ensure that there was no way Tyra or the others would be in harms way. The sound of the shotgun echoed, loud enough that it could have been heard all the way at the first floor.

It only took a second for the nearest asari to rush back into the room and another for the other two to arrive as well, surrounding him from three directions. There was a moment of absolute silence as the four and one stared at each other. He didn't swivel his head around, instead inhaling slowly as he felt their attentions on him while keeping his eyes on the shotgun. He was taller than all of them and his helmet left his features hidden which allowed him to effectively stare each of them down by merely looking in their general direction.

"Let go!" The asari with the shotgun shouted as she tried to pull herself free from him, but his grip on the shotgun held. She didn't hesitate to abandon the weapon, jumping several meters away from him as she eyed him with narrowed eyes. "She just showed up out of nowhere and attacked me! She must have been hiding here the whole time!"

Already the hypodermic injector that had been prepared for Liara had vanished back into the asari's waist compartment. Emiya doubted any of the other three would believe him, even if he managed to produce it once more for their benefit. _I really don't have time for this..._

"You... That armor... Who are you?"

"Mirala? No, that's not right, she's not..."

The oldest asari frowned, glancing at the lifeless Spectre before she spoke. "You're the one Tela Vasir ran into earlier, by that human's house."

He said nothing, internally cursing the fact that he didn't even have a way of modulating his voice in a mere projected hardsuit.

This disguise was paper-thin, yet it was necessary since _he_ was supposed to be thousands of kilometers away from Serrice right now. Moreover at this point in time, anything he could think of doing or saying would either just exacerbate the situation, or end up revealing something that he couldn't afford to show. His first encounter with Baliya had lead him to underestimate how experienced and insightful Matriarchs truly could be, but now he dared reveal nothing.

Unable to talk, he merely continued to stare them down, trying to think of something.

The asari glanced at Tyra and then back up at him before making eye contact with one another, all coming to the same conclusion. They could not fathom where he had come from—literally seeming to appear from thin air without any one of them being able to notice his approach.

"So," the eldest among them spoke as she narrowed her eyes at him before glancing down at the four wounded asari. "This is your doing, then?"

The youngest asari who had tried to inject Tyra suddenly seemed as if she had realized something—or as if she had had an excellent idea—as she perked up and pointed at Tela Vasir. "She must have been the one to take out the Spectre! She's the Ardat Yakshi!"

"The other four... Are they _kshirae_?"

Emiya grit his teeth, saying nothing as he realized the other asari were now considering killing the unconscious and wounded for some reason. _Ardat Yakshi? What the hell is a kshirae? Damn it, what's going on?_

"Keep an eye on them! If they move—"

Emiya glanced at the one who spoke and it was in that exact instant the only Matron acted, taking perfect advantage of his inattention to attack. He felt the build up of biotic power as dark energy flared, raising his hands to guard against the near instantaneous Charge he realized was coming. Except—

_What?_

Only he had entirely misread her move as instead of dashing forward, a wave of power shot forward from her like a tsunami. It took a hold of him and lifted him off of his feet, sending him flying back twenty meters and slamming him against the display case against a wall on the far side of the room with a loud noise.

He clicked his tongue as his feet hit the ground, shattered remains of the glass cabinet and the antiques within clattering down on his back and head. It had not hurt him, but he affirmed again how troublesome biotics were. It did not matter how strong or fast he was, if he was not able to push off against anything to actually move when he needed to resist the movement.

"And that's what happens when you run into a real _Justicar_ , you fraud," he heard the Matron gloating from across the room.

"Hmm, no biotics?"

"Curious that. Holding back, or bluffing?"

"Well, we'll find out soon enough. Brash T'lana may be, but this should not take long." The asari nodded, before glancing at Tyra and Liara. "The matter of the _kshirae_ remains, nonetheless."

The two other asari spoke casually behind the Matron who was slowly walking towards him and she noticed his gaze despite the mask. _Justicar?_

That was going to make things troublesome. Was she the only one, or were the other three Justicars as well? He had thought they preferred working alone, but...

"Oh, them? You don't need to worry about them. I won't let them get in my way. So relax, just you and me, yeah?"

 _Just deal with it, no time to waste here._ Emiya sighed at the grinning Matron, more exasperated by her obvious bloodlust than anything else. _She dies, but what about the others?_

If she had felt it necessary to hide her actions, could he assume that she was working alone? He couldn't simply kill all four, that would only end up getting Baliya and the others into even more trouble.

Standing up and flexing his neck, he let the shards of glass slide off of his back and shoulders to fall down to the floor as he exhaled slowly.

"Oh, tough one aren't you? I was sure you'd at least be smarting after that one. Bet you can't even breathe properly with the way the wind got knocked out of you," she said with a shake of her head, before looking over her shoulder at the others. "You two sure she ain't a krogan?"

One of them actually chuckled at that. "Who knows, take off her helmet and we'll see."

Emiya ignored the words as he took a step forward.

* * *

;

* * *

Jondum Bau exhaled slowly as he continued observing the shuttle making its slow and laborious approach towards the still mostly dark orbital station. The salarian terminal operators continued analyzing and parsing streams of data in real time, noting how the shuttle was in communication with and being scanned by the quarian continuously.

It was good that they hadn't attempted to send a strike team in using the asari as a cover; it was nerve-wracking to realize just what Hosin'Reegar had managed to cobble together on that orbital station when it came to eezo technology. The six orbiting shuttles on autopilot were acting as mobile shields and scanners even now, making it even more difficult to attempt any kind of countermeasures or breaching attempts onto the orbital station than it already was.

_It's a good thing the Matriarchs decided to keep quiet and acquiesce to his demands. If this had gone public and they had to worry about keeping face this could be going horribly wrong at this moment..._

"Sir."

He blinked, turning to look at the salarian operative seeking his attention. He turned to look at the turian and upon receiving a nod, motioned for the salarian to speak as they stepped away from the center of the CIC.

"What is it?"

"The AI wants to talk about something... It says it is vital, something about permissions."

Jondum rolled his eyes, sighing before he nodded and turned to Nihlus. "Sir, I'll have to step aside for a moment."

The turian frowned, his mandibles flaring as he worked his jaw in response to the salarian's statement without turning to look away from the main display. "...The shuttle with the asari will arrive on orbital station in two minutes. Be done by then."

"Yes, sir," Jondum answered crisply before moving to follow after the salarian operator.

Arriving at a terminal by the side of the room, he nodded for the STG operator to return to his duties. There was no room for someone to be simply hovering by right now. With a roll of his eyes and a squaring of his shoulders, Jondum turned to the terminal.

"Yes?"

It answered immediately, the sound intentionally left synthesized so that there would be no confusion regarding who was or what was communicating with an STG operator. " _Requiring permission to alter operative parameters to suit renewed conditions—All necessary operative parameters and heuristics have already been cleared for use as of 13 minutes, 4 seconds and—_ "

"Operative parameters?" Jondum repeated, not quite certain what the AI— _SPEC-13A#345_ as it was labeled in the communique terminal—meant by that.

" _Baseline assumptions regarding opposition capabilities and tactics were made using existing hacker techniques and methodologies through which confirmed Redhax operations could have been performed. But upon confirmation of stationary base of operations in Thessia, it has become necessary to narrow down the means available to opposition cyber-operative—_ "

"Narrow down? What? Why?"

" _...Due to confirmation of Redhax's continued presence on Thessia—as alias Fujimura Saiga—for an extended period of time, it becomes necessary to strike out physical intrusion techniques and social engineering methodologies commonly employed in confirmed incidents. Observing what targets he has struck and which he has abstained from—either due to the inability to pierce the veil of obscurity or due to the target being too well protected—produces a baseline for the opposition's capabilities._ "

"Wait, you've gone through all of the thousands of confirmed incidents and analyzed them?" Jondum's head swam as he tried figure out when the AI had had time for something like that. "When did you have time for that? Your orders were to defend the network and with the mirroring you two should have been busy as it was."

A feeling of worry built in the hollow of his chest as he rolled his eyes. Had the AI somehow managed to slave extra hardware for its own purposes?

" _Negative. The 4056 known Redhax incidents have been analyzed using 100,004,195,100,004 independent operative variables and factors prior to the beginning of the ongoing operation during mainframe downtime. Permission for analysis was granted by Operative—_ "

"Never mind," Jondum said to interrupt the AI before it really got going and it did nigh instantly. "So what do these operative conditions entail?"

" _Redhax works alone as proven by his active hours effectively mirroring Thessia night-cycles for well over three years now, thus measures to overwhelm him with false positives and misleading trails have high likelihood of working. Additionally, mirroring, encrypting and copying data has relatively high chance of working. Most importantly, air gapping remains highly effective in obscuring and isolating systems—_ "

"How many measures all in all are we talking about here? And what's prompted all this?"

" _304\. During the ongoing confrontations very few of the expected measures have proven to be of any use, additionally in the direct confrontation where a VI-mirror attack script was used it proved utterly outmatched._ "

Jondum sighed, waving his hand. "Alright, submit the formal requisition and get on it. But don't do anything unless ordered; both of you are to remain on stand by and continue monitoring the communications for foul play until further notice."

" _Affirmative, logging off this communication._ "

Exhaling he turned around and returned to the Spectre's side. Normally he would not have rubber-stamped anything an AI suggested so readily, but right now he didn't have the time to go through everything. The things a rogue Artificial Intelligence could do were on a whole other scale of danger, even compared to what was going on right now.

Yet...

_I'm not so certain that Redhax is as innocent as he appears in all this right now... The timing is too good for him—If he is planning something, we need to be ready and waiting._

He had seen what that human could do and it had become increasingly obvious that they could only fight fire with fire. The encounter report from the AI from the hotel confrontation painted a bleak picture, though. Still, that had been little more than a long-range puppet the AI had permission to field in lieu of actually being allowed to self-replicate into other systems, limited by the bandwidth and processing limitations of the omnitool the confrontation had taken place in.

Nihlus Kryik quickly glanced at Jondum as he came to a halt, nodding once before both returned their attentions to the shuttle finally boarding the orbital station.

The moment of truth drew near.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya burst forward using the moment of unawareness that the blink of an eye brought, crossing the distance between himself and the Matron effectively instantly.

He didn't so much clothesline her as forcefully fold her over his arm as he ran past her, leaving not a one of the standing asari any time to react as he tossed her into the three others. Incapacitate and take out the others, then deal with the one who had tried to inject Tyra with something.

 _With this—_ he blinked, realizing suddenly that the eldest asari somehow managed to _flow_ around and over the asari Matron he had thrown at her, like a leaf in the wind moving out of the way of a speeding car. In the same instant that she had avoided it she threw out a wave of biotic force from her hand, grasping three dozen large shards of the glass on the floor and sending them his way like a hailstorm of death. _There's a wide but weak biotic field suffusing the entire hallway? Like with that other Matriarch?_

 _No matter,_ he thought moving forward with his hands moving up to brush aside the spinning shards of glass as he slipped past the curtain and sprung at her like a loosed arrow.

He could see her eyes shooting wide open at his approach, despite clearly not being able to completely follow his movements. _Just like the other Matriarch, she's using the field to feel what is moving around her, allowing her to react more quickly!_

The difference was that where the other had only seemingly been able to use it as a follow up to her area of effect attacks and it dissipated quickly after she found him, this Matriarch kept it going constantly. He could realize the benefits immediately in combat; a near-perfect danger sense that left her with no blindspots.

But if that was all then it shouldn't be a problem; he could just rush her down faster than she could react anyhow.

He drew back his fist, intending to finish her with one blow before the others could get back up; it crashed forward towards her gut like an avalanche, certain to fold her in half over his arm.

Except _something_ happened again, as her body avoided him at the last instant. Just like before, like a leaf in the wind was pushed aside by a speeding car without impacting against its surface, she dodged him with a movement that was as unnatural as it was effective. He could feel something against his fist as she passed by him, her whole body contorting around him and jumping backwards. It was like trying to push the two positive poles of a magnet together; like something was pushing her aside from her as he tried to hit her.

_Another biotic field?_

She recovered and before he could turn around and try again, she vanished in a flash of blue and appeared on the other side of the hallway nigh-instantly. This time it wasn't a Charge, but a biotic blink. _Tch, that spatial transference technique is trickier to predict. Need to—_

Before he could finish that thought he sensed the biotic build up behind him from the three other asari and he moved to avoid the rushing torrent of biotic force that was slung out to throw him back. But he realized with some annoyance that there simply wasn't anywhere to dodge; in a constrained space such as this hallway, a biotic field could easily be expanded to cover the whole of it. Like a plunger pushing through the inside of a syringe. The combined biotic shockwave of the three asari sent him flying backwards at breakneck speeds.

He had known Biotics were supreme in spaces likes this, but he had never before faced down an actual Matriarch so it was a completely new practical learning experience for him. As he righted himself in the middle of his flight, he suddenly felt relieved that he hadn't tried to take on Benezia and that Justicar aboard the starship before.

It wouldn't have ended well.

Flipping through the air he landed on the wall as if it were the ground, riding out the rest of the biotic storm against the surface as if he were able to stick to the vertical surface by his own powers. Looking "up", he clicked his tongue as he eyed the four asari who had gotten into some sort of formation as they faced him down as one.

They seemed to have resolved and prepared themselves quickly enough. _So much for taking me on alone. Or just needing four moves._

The other three weren't a problem, but the oldest asari was a bit of a tough cookie he decided.

_It didn't seem like she was able to consciously react to me, more like she had a continuous biotic barrier of some kind around her body which simply let her survive. Approaching her will just push her back and aside... Does the field react to the mass of an approaching object? Or its volume? No, perhaps its relative acceleration instead, like a hardsuit's kinetic barrier. It kind of felt like a shear-thickening fluid would, in which case her evasion speed is relative to the speed of my attack? If I rush her down, she'll be pushed aside and if I shoot or throw something at her, the lighter object will probably be pushed aside instead. What an annoyingly well-rounded defense._

He shook his head; it didn't matter. He would get behind the Matriarch and then once he was in range, it wouldn't matter if he had to attack slowly to actually hit her. At that point she wouldn't be able to react anyhow. Or in the worst case scenario he could simply keep attacking her until he got her boxed into a corner. He wondered if the asari had an equivalent to a _kabedon_ , before he shook his head and decided to focus on the issue at hand. _Well, worst case scenario I'll just have to use the Cicada Block._

Feeling the worst of the combined shock-wave-front ebbing, he exploded forward like a coiled spring let loose off the wall. Crossing a third of the way to the four asari, his foot touched ground and he jumped off of the surface as he spun in the air to receive the approaching ceiling with his feet.

Standing upside down on the ceiling, he looked down at the asari who just now seemed to realize he had disappeared completely from their field of vision. He jumped down and landed behind the four of them, satisfied with his movements.

 _They're wide open,_ he thought as his feet were about to hit the floor.

Only then did he sense the peculiar biotic field that had shifted beneath him, as his feet never touched the floor. He blinked, realizing he was floating in place. Stuck in mid-air. Just then did he notice the curled hands of the Matriarch behind her back, pointing at him.

Realizing that he had been seen through, he grit his teeth and tried to jump back.

"I've got her!" The Matriarch shouted, sounding more breathless and panicked than anything else as she turned around, desperately keeping her biotic grip on him.

He kicked out with his feet and moved his arms, frowning as he confirmed that he couldn't move at all from where he was. His limbs and body moved freely, but without anything to kick out against he was dead in the water. Or rather unlike the water where he could swim, being dead in the air meant that he couldn't even swim around to fight his way out of the biotic hold.

The three others turned around and he could see the sheer surprise and wariness in their eyes now as they spotted him.

"I've got you covered!"

Another shouted, adding her own support to keeping him afloat in the air.

"Right! I'll finish her off!" The youngest shouted and Emiya could feel her charging up the strongest Throw he had seen in his entire life. No doubt wanting to erase him to keep quiet about her earlier actions, she was building up enough force to shatter every bone in a human body.

 _Alright, this might actually sting,_ he thought as he crossed his arms. But at least it should lodge him loose from the biotic hol—

"No!" The Matriarch shouted. "No, don't do anything! Just, just keep her still and watch her! If she breaks free I don't think my luck will hold up and get us another chance! You're no match for her!"

_Tch._

The Matron's expression mirrored his for just a moment before the annoyance was wiped away.

"So, what do we do? Stasis? Singularity her?"

The Matriarch licked her lips, clearly weighing their options as Emiya weighed his own at the same time. _Should I try spiritualizing? I could play it off as a Blink... Probably._

He was wasting time here. _Still,_ _at least they're still unharmed_ , he thought as he glanced at Baliya, Liara, Tyra and the fourth asari still lying unconscious on the other side of the room. But they did need actual medical help and quickly, meaning he couldn't let this go on for much longer.

"Shit! The _kshirae_! She's trying to use her thralls to break free!"

Emiya grit his teeth, as she tried to get either him or the unconscious and wounded killed again. But there it was again; that word. _Kshirae, what is that?_

"Are you sure she's an Ardat Yakshi? I've never heard of an asari who could move like this...? And she hasn't used any biotics... And she's huge!"

The Matriarch shook her head. "Shut up! It doesn't matter, no chances! You, take them out before they turn into a risk!"

"Right!" The youngest of the bunch nodded with a wide grin as things were finally going her way again, turning towards Baliya and the others making Emiya grit his teeth even harder.

"Try taking off that helmet of hers, so we can see her face!" One of them suggested and the Matriarch nodded.

 _Not the time for hesitation; here goes nothing!_ He spiritualized, disappearing as his material body vanished in swirling motes of light. All four asari gasped, freezing in place as he vanished from sight.

Yet...

 _I'm not falling down? Biotics act like gravity? Damn it, this doesn't make any sense!_ He cursed as he kicked out with his spiritual body just like before, still unable to fall down and touch the ground.

And worse yet, they weren't letting go off the biotic hold. The Matriarch was frowning, disbelief and confusion warring for control of her expression even as she frowned and refused to let go.

"Where did she go?!"

"She couldn't have Charged or Blinked away, but how did... No, it doesn't matter. Don't let go! She's still there, tricking us somehow!"

"Wha—but...?"

"The fact that we're still alive is proof of that! That monster would have already torn you apart if she was loose, so don't let go!"

"R-right..?!" The other asari answered, somewhere between absolute bafflement and pure terror.

_Damn. Alright, keep it simple idiot. How do I get loose?_

A way to maneuver in three dimensions? Flight would have been useful, but he didn't exactly have any easy means of self-propelling in his arsenal. It wasn't like he could ride on top of a flying sword like it was a skateboard, or anything...

He blinked, as an image was suddenly brought to mind. Long lavender hair, black thigh-high boots and a blindfold. A being of terrible, sensuous and seductive beauty from his youth. The kind of snake that had oozed sex appeal and mortal terror in equal measure, who had been the source of more than a handful of awkward teenage erections.

Shaking his head, he spoke the soundless words that none himself aside could hear to actualize his delusion.

"— _Trace, on"—begin projection,_

The nail appeared in his hand, equally invisible and astralized as he was. Yet the four heads perked at the seemingly-illusionary sound of its rattling chains nonetheless. A length of chain, created from her hair with magecraft, with a ring on one end and the ornate nail at the other end of the chain.

It was a weapon he was utterly unfamiliar with, but had somehow come to him in this moment regardless. Perhaps being bound simply reminded him of it? Astralized as he was, it was relatively difficult to interact with the material world, but this nail and chain would still be enough. Shaking himself free of any extraneous thoughts, his hand lashed out and sent the nail screaming through the air and impaling it deep into the floor some dozen meters away. The chain went taught, the sounds and the sudden cracking of the floor alerting the four asari of his actions despite their inability to detect him or it.

He _pulled_ and as if lodging himself loose from a pit of quicksand he managed to free himself. Landing on the floor, he turned around and sprung to stand between the four conscious asari and the four unconscious asari as he dismissed the nail with a thought.

 _I need more information—none of this makes any sense,_ he thought as he jumped forward and dived straight into the Matron's omnitool.

Immediately reaching out to check the status of the orbital station situation, he let out an exhale of relief as everything seemed to be going well. Then he put out a search for the term ' _kshirae_ ' and began to rummage through the Matron's personal logs and mails on the omnitool.

He blinked as the first result came up on his search, referencing a character in an old asari play who had gone mad and killed her whole family after falling in love with the night winds. A little bit of digging managed to point to an ancient asari city that had been supposedly destroyed over five thousand years ago, though the tone was closer to Sodom and Gomorrah than something like Atlantis in tone. He shook his head, not finding anything else with the term. Though he was fairly certain he might be writing it with the wrong characters, since many of the older dialects used some that no longer existed in modern use. _So, they think Baliya, Liara or Tyra might be a risk?_

Suddenly it all simply clicked into place.

The headache he had had after leaving Serrice, the hallucinations, the reaction he had gotten when he explained his symptoms, the way Tela Vasir had died. Realizing that he was gritting his teeth, he slowly exhaled to calm down.

_This is about Tyra. She's an Ardat Yakshi, whatever that is..._

Was she a danger? _No, there wasn't anything like that when—_ Was he affected? He frowned, exhaling as he crossed his arms. No, that didn't seem likely given how brief the connection had been. But there was obviously something wrong with her, enough to alarm four Justicars who had been facing him in combat.

Shaking his head, he pored over the recent mail on the omnitool as he looked for something that would explain what the asari had been intending with Liara and what her connection to Tela Vasir was.

Among the numerous VI-automated updates on news coverages and what seemed like tips from personal sources, there was one throw away message from an address that must have been automated and generated randomly as a throwaway account. The contents were a single, cryptic phrase along with an extranet link.

' _Primary initiative failed, standard compensation._ '

Following the extranet link led nowhere as it seemed to have been a private site on a server and address that no longer was in use. _The extranet address looks like it was in Ulee, in one of the business spaces for rent at the downtown area._

Trying to track down a single server that no longer even existed there would be difficult to say the least. Someone had gone to great lengths to cover this trail up while carefully plotting it all up. Someone who was not related to the Citadel Council or the STG but was capable of eluding and manipulating them, by the looks of it.

 _It could be someone on Thessia. Perhaps one of the Matriarchs, an enemy of Benezia?_ With so little evidence to follow up, there was no way to tell. He would have to investigate Ulee for that. But with so much more on his plate already, there just wasn't any time for something like that.

 _Okay, what do I need to do?_ He thought and began to run a mental checklist. Clear Baliya, Liara and Tyra of suspicion of being a danger. Kill the suspicious asari matron without getting Baliya, Liara and Tyra dragged in. Give his own appearance at the scene a reasonable aspect that kept his connection from Baliya, Liara and Tyra obfuscated.

Then after all that and once Hosin's situation was handled, track down whoever the hell was behind this.

Exiting the omnitool, he settled a dozen steps ahead of the running Matron so that he was standing between her and the unconscious four.

The Matron's eyes had time to shoot wide open before she ran right into him. He didn't waste time, wrapping an arm around her neck in passing and then snapping it with the force of her own movement. There was a pregnant moment of silence as the three others noticed him and a second later the limp body of the asari fell on the floor as he let go of her.

One of them flinched at the sight, taking a step back as she realized what he had done. But none of them were willing to take the first move, his presence enough to keep them rooted on the spot.

Crouching down, he grabbed the dead asari's wrist and manipulated it so that the omnitool on her wrist turned on. Breezing through the password he had picked up while inside of the omnitool, he fiddled with it for a few seconds, checking through the mail again. More to simply be seen doing something than anything else, really. Then he took out the hypodermic injector and eyed the contents, noting the unfamiliar label before dropping it. Letting go of the wrist, it flopped down to the floor limply.

"Stasis yourselves, now!"

"But—"

"You two would only get in my way! Stasis, now!"

The other two asari hesitated only a second before obeying. As a result a heavy blue field snapped in place over both, sealing their movements and leaving them so dense that even a gun would not be able to hurt them. They were safe, but also utterly unable to act within their respective fields.

Essentially it was just him and the oldest Justicar now.

She stared at him, tense and wary as she looked for any signs of an attack from him. But she wasn't intent on attacking him yet, nor was she afraid of him per se, instead simply observing him as one would a dangerous foe. Whether it was to divine how he would attack her, to find an opening to abuse or to gleam his purpose here, he didn't know.

How old must she be? Asari could live to a thousand years old. If she had spent that millennia training and honing herself, then what limits lay there for what she could do? Already she had seen through him once.

But, he wasn't interested in fighting with her. She wasn't hostile and the quickest way to handle this was quite easy. Or so he hoped. If it failed, things would get doubly dicey. _Okay, play it cool._

Emiya stood up and glanced at the ancient Matriarch.

And then he simply walked out of the room as if his business was concluded.

Spiritualizing out of sight behind a wall, he jumped immediately back to see how the Justicar would react. _Ostensibly_ , she had no reason to attack the four unconscious asari.

"What... What the?" One of the two who had been casting a Stasis field over themselves ceased, looking up and then back at the standing Justicar. "Did she just leave?"

The other cut off the Stasis as well, letting out an exhale of relief as she stood up. "I will call the others for help, she won't be able to get far."

"...Yes, do so," the oldest Justicar said, turning to look at the wounded and still unconscious asari with a thoughtful look. "And tell the medical team to come up along with the Serrice Guard. Learning what occurred here is of the utmost importance."

Emiya let out a sigh of relief, clenching his fist as he realized that his ploy had worked.

As far as he knew, none of the four were being charged with anything, meaning that the Justicars were oath-bound to protect them as innocents. Additionally, the Justicars now had no pressing reason to kill the unconscious four asari, because they had superior numbers and the ability to utterly suppress them, even if they did turn out to be a threat due to the _kshirae_ or _Ardat Yakshi_ risks.

Meaning that given the lack of any other accounts of what happened here in the museum, it would be in the Justicars interests to have each of them arrested and placed into maximum security detention. Whether or not there was a danger of _kshirae_ could now be established properly too, since the Justicar seemed like experts in the field. Then after each was healed, cleared of immediate suspicions and coherent, they could be interviewed and questioned in isolation. Though the Justicar must have been worried about enthrallment, to Emiya the prospect of Baliya, Liara and Tyra being isolated was optimal.

Mostly due to the presence of the Serrice Guard and Justicar acting as a supposed deterrent for him. If this was all some ploy to frame him for the deaths of Liara and Tyra, then while it could have been possible for Tela Vasir or even the young Justicar T'lana to still kill them until now and make it seem as if it could have been his work, after this that window of opportunity would be gone. Before, as long as the times of death could be explained away given that he had left Serrice hours ago, then he could have still been a prime suspect in their deaths.

But with the Serrice Guard and Justicars getting involved and noting that the four asari still lived and were stable, with him long gone out of Serrice there was no longer a solid way of framing him for their deaths. And this had been about _him_ as much as it had been about Liara and Tyra. If _he_ wasn't vital for this scheme of Tela Vasir's, then why wait until he had returned to kill Liara and Tyra?

Emiya nodded, turning and crouching by the dead Justicar's omnitool. He had another iron in the fire that was long overdue his attention in the form of Hosin.

"—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

* * *

;

* * *

The shuttle's door opened a second after it had landed.

Inside there was a hardsuit wearing asari who hesitantly looked out, before rushing out to greet the quarian and asari child who stood outside. On the quarian's omnitool was a two-way comm open, showing a serious turian who waited silently for the family reunion to wind down. The turian opened his mouth to speak but hesitated and after a handful of seconds and a twitch of his mandibles, closed it and held his silence.

It was a delicate situation, one where one false step could have apocalyptic consequences, where every word and gesture had to be weighed against the fate of billions. The collective of asari matriarchs had agreed to meet the demands of the desperate quarian, seeing that the risks simply were not worth taking when all of their home-world hung on the end of a thread, held an inch above untold disaster by the tired and scared hand of one lone quarian.

"Hosin'Reegar, as you can see we have laid out everything as you wished," the turian said as he finally saw an opening between the tearful whispered words of the asari mother who did not seem to be able to choose whether she wanted to be angry, lost or thankful with her husband.

The quarian looked up, his eyes glowing with the reflection of the numerous HUD screens on the inside of his helmet, moving to look at the commline on his omnitool.

"I..." Hosin said, his voice breaking as he cleared his throat of mucus.

A result of a suit malfunction, or was he so emotionally moved? With the visor in the way, there was no way to tell. For a moment it seemed like the Spectre wanted to say something, perhaps considering whether he should attempt altering the deal.

The two-way live feed was being sent along numerous nodes and tightbeam relays, ensuring that the standards of cyber-security and air gapping that the quarian had demanded were being met. This way there was no way for the Spectre, the STG or anyone else to be able to connect to or influence one of the systems aboard the orbital station.

It would have been relatively easy to cut off all means of long-distance communication to the station, since the quarian knew where all of the external tightbeam communication systems were and could not only turn them off, but manually disengage them as well. That would be enough to make certain no one could attempt hacking in, as only passive and navigational sensors would thus remain online.

But it wasn't the same for something like a shuttle that would land inside the hangar of the orbital station, where it could use numerous short-range signals to attempt accessing one or more of the systems onboard. It was the cyber-era; everything had a computer of some sort installed and most such equipment were also capable of connecting to other similar devices or the extranet through the common signal bandwidths. There were simply too many options, even if he went around attempting to turn off and unplug everything, someone clever and dedicated enough would surely find some crack or hole to get into the station's systems once they had managed to simply connect with it.

For that reason the quarian had made the threat of having installed a safety measure which would cause the orbital station to drop down if someone even so much as tried to access it without Hosin's permission and had demanded numerous stops and searches along the way to make certain the shuttle his wife was aboard was not rigged in any way.

Yet...

"Cowardly rat," Rasa shook her head as she eyed the systems she had managed to access by piggy-backing on the Spectre's live-feed to the shuttle inside the quarian's orbital station. "All talk, yet there isn't anything of substance here. Was it nothing more than a bluff?"

Yet someone had still managed to worm her way into the system. The woman shook her head, smiling wryly as her dark locks shook with the motion.

This whole 'blowing up Thessia'-business had really grown on her as she had thought about it. At first she had thought it some strange prank by a delusional suit rat, but once she realized the broadcast was cut off and wholly censored she had realized that perhaps there was more to the matter than she had first thought. Now, no matter what angle she considered, wouldn't the destruction of Thessia be a good thing for humanity?

No longer would Bekenstein have to contend with Thessia as its economic competitor when it came to being the galaxy's center of commerce. No more would the asari have all the time in the world to meddle in humanity's efforts to expand in the galaxy. No more would they have an iron-hold on the eezo supply of the galaxy. It would on top of crippling their economy also utterly destroy the Citadel's associated militaries' ability to replenish their stores.

And those positive outcomes were just from the top of her head.

No matter how she looked at the whole business, it seemed like a rather potential-rich avenue for Cerberus to explore.

So she had decided to take a look at the situation and see if there was anything she could do to help things nudge along the right path. And it was a good thing she had; he hadn't had any real back up measures in place in case he was taken out or double-crossed. It was nothing more than a desperate bluff it seemed.

Of course, the bluff part was merely due to lacking resolve on the part of the quarian. The means and hardware were all there and functional, it just needed a little _nudge_. A good bluff had to look real enough actually to be frightening, after all.

Hosin'Reegar's systems were something the quarian had set up and maintained himself almost entirely, meaning it was far from the standard of most orbital systems. This meant she hadn't been entirely sure what to expect at first, but he was a civilian and he worked commercially. As long as one knew how to look for such things, one could easily find traces of such a person's previous work. Hell, the repair shop's own extranet site had given her enough clues to figure out how to quickly and efficiently get into his systems, as long as she didn't mind making a mess of it.

Which was entirely fine, since no one would be around to piece together the clues once all was said and done.

This was the definition of a quick and dirty job, after all.

"Tsk, tsk. No woman likes a man without _spine_. If you make threats, you should be able to make _good on them_." She laughed lightly, pressing the button which initiated the upload of the package she had prepared onto the orbital station's systems, and the tightbeam relays across the Parnitha system.

It wasn't just luck that she had been able to figure out what was going on. She had long since noticed something strange going on with the transmission relays and various tightbeam hubs across Thessia. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but it seemed like some sort of cyber-security measure against finding the beginning and end-points of any transmissions similar to various Earth encryption and dark web methods. Probably to keep _that man_ from being able to find the STG and Spectre's base of operations.

It certainly was enough to keep her from finding their locations, at least.

But it had also made it possible for her to make use of the numerous jumps and relays to figure out what was going on. Not entirely, but _enough_ for her ends.

Humanity had been independently playing around with data encryption and cyber-security for over a hundred years already, giving her plenty of methods to adapt to her needs here. "As expected, the forced data packet size for each transmission forces me to upload the file in segments..."

It was a good thing that she had been able to infect enough of the tightbeam relays leading to the orbital station that she could use a data compressor to allow her upload to ride alongside the Spectre's commline.

She had thought the matter through after getting a handle on the quarian's system, figuring out everything she needed to make 'the drop' as had come to call it, become reality. Additionally she had set out to cripple the entire communications network at the critical moment to ensure no one would stop it. It was quite easy once she had found a way to do it; with so many systems and relays set to mirror and send out transmissions everywhere, the system was extremely slow by modern standards.

Just simple real-time commlines were enough to cause a noticeable lag if the encryption and mirroring protocols were enacted.

It was almost as if the Council's dogs thought no one would be able to copy the authorizations their transmissions used due to the encryption they had. Too bad the asari council of Matriarchs had nowhere near as good cyber-security, leaving the encryption key within easy reach for someone of her talents. Just the thought made her smile; if a single transmission was enough to cause a several second lag due to all the mirroring, she wondered what would happen once her 'care package' opened itself and activated.

Suddenly every single transmission in the entire network would be flagged as something that ought to be encrypted and mirrored, and thus would be broadcast out into every single other system in the network. And once it arrived there, it would be flagged _again_ as something that ought to be broadcast to every other system in the network. Every message would be copied and mirrored again and again at every step of the way in an endlessly growing self-echo of junk data. Well, until inevitably something would give way at least.

Would the network merely crash, leaving all of Thessia without any communications? Or would it actually bring down other related systems at the same time?

She was quite excited to find out.

It was salarian work, this system. She could instantly tell. It was probably some brilliant ploy to counter some _other_ equally brilliant ploy or conundrum they had encountered, but in their tunnel-vision and lack of foresight they had created a much greater vulnerability in their system.

Typical of them—superb short-term solutions that end up spectacularly blowing up in their faces somewhere down the line.

It was a pity she wouldn't be able to see their faces when everything came crashing down around them. Well, she would have to settle with just watching the main attraction, then.

As the upload on her end to the other six tightbeam relays finished, she smiled as she stood up and turned off the omnitool. Ripping out its battery and flushing the whole thing down the toilet, she exited the stall and cleaned her hands with the sonic cleaner, scowling at the lack of running water there. _Disgusting._

As she exited the ladies' room she mused that it was a good thing she wasn't on Thessia anymore, having taken a starliner to one of the other orbital stations where she would have a front-row seat for the show of a lifetime in one of the upscale bars with a window-view of of the planet.

It was a shame that Kai Leng and Miranda wouldn't be there to share it with her. She scoffed at her own thoughts; who was she kidding? She had made certain to leave them entirely in the dark as to what was going on. There had been a slight disappointment with the realization that _that man_ hadn't been on the shuttle. He wouldn't get to experience the crash first hand, which was a shame. But with the STG still around she was sure that _he_ must have been on the surface of Thessia still.

That was still acceptable, she figured.

Sitting down by a port-side lounge where she could observe the admittedly beautiful green pearl far below her, she mused out loud to herself. "Hosin, Hosin, _Hosin_... I really should thank you, if you weren't such a flake."

Pressing down her order on an adaptive interface by the chair, she waited for her order.

As she received the alcoholic beverage from the blue-skinned waitress, she smiled a false thanks before turning her eyes back to the planet below and beyond the window. She raised the glass, making a toast as her smile turned true with her words.

"Well... It's a good thing I'm here to make you a man of your word, isn't it?"

* * *

;

* * *

"We'll have the—"

Suddenly everyone manning a console on the CIC of the STG starship froze, as if they had all been put on pause.

Nihlus blinked as the commline to the orbital station stopped, and then after a second disappeared as if the connection had been cut on the other end. The turian blinked, feeling the pit of his stomach falling through the floor as he turned around to look at the communications operator to his left for an explanation.

When no one answered, he roared out his confusion. "What happened?! Get the connection back, right now!"

As if the spell had been broken suddenly everyone began to report, all nearly at once.

"Live-feed to orbital station lost! Live-feed with the 24 direct observers stationed around orbital station lost!"

"All communications down! Rebooting ship's communication module—estimated downtime 13 seconds!"

"AI analysis indicates 99.98% of all communications networks in the Parnitha star-system have crashed!"

"Estimated complete recovery of communications network... two days!"

"KX-0331 rapidly approaching Thessia on collision course! 55 seconds till impact!"

Nihlus flinched as he had to reach out for support, bumping into the equally lost and panicking Jondum behind him. Shaking his head, he grit his teeth and clenched his talons. _Get it together or the spirits will judge you unworthy for the rest of your life! Do something!_

"Do we still have a lock on the orbital station with the ship's spinal gun?!" He roared, as much to get control over himself as to be heard.

"Affirmative! B-but... KX-0331 is falling at an unexpected angle! Our firing vector will cause massive damage to Thessia! Optimal firing solution would be _Trelana's Tribune_ in 30 seconds or _Dreamer Trembling_ in 13 seconds _,_ but communications are still dow—"

"Communication module online!"

Nihlus felt his spirits rise as he turned to the operator, spittle flying as he shouted. "Transmit firing solution immediately to _Trelana's Tribune_!"

"Yes, sir!" The operator responded only to turn around a mere second later. "Unable to transmit! Their communications are still down! No estimate on reboot time available!"

"Fuck! Can we move the ship to change the firing solution?"

"Not enough time, sir! Possible firing solution in 25 seconds!"

On the main screen an image of Thessia was brought up, showing the line of fire from the orbiting starship that was chasing the falling KX-0331. They could all see how the firing solution would end with the kinetic slug of the rail gun impacting near a large city on the planet's surface.

Hundreds of thousands would die.

But it was better than the millions if the station were to crash into the planet.

The Spectre clenched his talons as he turned to look up again. "What about the relocating and re-calculating a firing solution?"

"Won't work! We're already too far away, it would take well over a minute to travel and re-adjust the spinal gun!"

"20 seconds till impact!"

Nihlus grit his teeth, looking around at the various starships they were attempting to contact. Yet it seemed like they were the only ones who had managed to get their gear back online quickly enough. Yet it was a worthless achievement, as Nihlus could only stare out and will for someone, _anyone_ who had a half-decent firing solution to take the shot.

But he knew that no one would in the back of his mind already.

Standing in a crowd of deaf-mute observers at the sidelines of this disaster, he knew that regardless of who shot there would be massive destruction on Thessia's surface. _Trelana's Tribune_ would cause the least amount of collateral damage he knew, but was certain that they did not since originally they had been deemed a poor option.

But that had been based on prior models and the STG had been the ones providing the firing solutions and formation orders.

Should he fire? Their firing solution would cause the shot's destruction to reach all the way to Ulee, regardless of timing. If they shot slightly earlier, perhaps it would veer west enough to minimize the destruction while still destroying enough of the orbital station to disable the eezo core.

Still, the collateral damage would be... _immense_. Maybe if he waited until the last second, maybe someone else would realize that...

No.

No one else would take action. They would all think that someone else had a better firing solution; one that wouldn't end complete disaster. And those who had half-decent shots wouldn't dare take them, afraid that someone else with a better shot would also be firing. Every single kinetic slug fired into Thessia would have massive consequences. The asari were normally independent, but he had been given authority here by the council of Matriarchs. He was a Spectre of the Citadel Council.

They would be deferring to him, even now.

 _He_ was the one who had been put in charge. _He_ would take responsibility for this disaster.

It felt like a weight had eased off his shoulders as he accepted that.

Hundreds of thousands would die, but it would still be less than if the orbital station was allowed to continue falling with its incredible mass. By killing them, he would surely save millions. It pained him more than anything else in his entire life had, but he knew what had to be done.

"Shoot down KX-0331 using prepared firing solution."

The silence was deafening in the CIC, as everyone had already understood what was at stake. No one argued and no one refused to obey.

The die had been cast.

"Yes, sir—what? Sir the weapons systems have gone offline!" The gunner began to respond only to suddenly shout out.

"What?!" Nihlus felt the last remnants of his self-control shatter as she slammed his talon down on the panel in front of him. "What is it now?!"

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled as he disabled the weapons systems on the STG starship. There simply wasn't time for talking it out right now, so he had just gone ahead and shut down their weapons.

Returning his attention to the orbital station, he ignored the confused and panicking starship personnel. He understood exactly how they felt right now; it was a disaster and there were only bad and worse kinds of options left.

But that was exactly why he did it. He had the luxury of time on his side, nestled inside the starship's mainframe as he was. He had all their files, their dossiers and expert analyses to go through along with the perspective necessary to find the best of the bad options to be had. Just like with the emergency first aid down by the museum, here he had all the time in the world.

It was his fault that things had gone this out of control, anyhow. He _knew_ how dangerous this situation was, yet he had still chosen to waste time at the museum. This was the result of his hubris, thinking that he could be everywhere at once and save everyone.

Which was why he had to make up for that fact.

Perhaps if he could just get aboard the orbital station and reverse the eezo core he could have salvaged the situation and reach an ending where everyone was saved. But that wasn't going to happen; the orbital station was dead to the comms and transponders, just as everything else was right now.

He had tried to connect with something, anything, but there wasn't much luck to be had with that. _Things would be so much simpler in that case._

Getting here had been more luck than anything else, but now that he was here, he was going to make the best of it.

With the majority of all communications networks down, he had managed to find his way here in his attempts to figure what exactly was going on. Having left University of Serrice's Museum behind, he had tried to jump into Thessia Airspace Control only for everything to suddenly start crashing around him. He had been able to watch in slow-motion as systems began to ping everything else in an ever-expanding and exponentially growing wave of transmissions. Within seconds of real time nearly everything had gone dark, leaving him utterly without means to figure out what was going on or to move around quickly.

Luckily the cyber-attack had not been able to take out quite everything.

There were plenty of private networks, corporate tightbeam relays and other networks that were incompatible with the tightbeam network still around. Of course their coverage was much poorer, forcing him to zig-zag for hours of relative time until he even manage to get into orbit.

Finally he had been able to get into the Airspace Controls orbital center, from where had got a proper handle on things. And what he figured out wasn't good. Hosin's orbital station was crashing into Thessia and no one was doing anything about it. So he started looking for the command center of the STG, hoping to find something useful there. With the mirroring protocols down, finding the STG starship was quite a bit easier disguised though it was.

So here he was, sitting in cyberspace as he considered the orbital station and Thessia. He only had some 22 seconds to act in real time, which wasn't exactly all the time in the world. Once he left the cyber-world every second in real time was worth a million in here.

"Excalibur might work." He mused, before shaking his head.

He probably had enough magical energy to use it, still. Having had a physical body all to himself and a Servant's spiritual core where he could store his excess energy had left him with a decent reserve. It wasn't quite the same as gemcraft in terms of extra capacity, but it give him enough to keep running for a decent time even if his Independent Action were to run out.

But even if his absolute magical energy was sufficient, that did not mean the faucet through which he could use it to power a copy of Excalibur would be enough to handle the falling station, and moreover he had never really been able to test out how powerful his copy of the holy sword was. Would it be able to completely vaporize the orbital station in one blow and ensure that no damage was done to Thessia? There was no way to know without actually trying it, and he hadn't been one to run with the long odds at face value in a long time.

 _Even then, Hosin and his family will still die._ It didn't seem like there were any easy ways out of this situation.

Sighing, he eyed the detailed analysis of the orbital station that the STG personnel had compiled. _I'll have to go all out with this._

Anything he did had to be able to punch through the kinetic barriers and then be able to destroy the fusion core on the station, to disable the eezo core. That would cause its mass to return to normal which would at least stop its acceleration and would also help it break down on atmospheric entry. Probably. But even then, the kinetic energy the falling station had accrued would cause damage on a scale beyond anything Emiya had ever seen.

The station had to be vaporized.

Or at least ground down into small enough pieces that the kinetic energy would mostly dissipate in the atmosphere on entry. That didn't mean he was entirely out of options, but the more he thought about it the bleaker the situation looked.

Maybe if he could just get onboard the orbital station, then...

" _System intrusion located—Containing and formatting._ "

Emiya blinked as suddenly his perceptions vanished. Or rather, the entire cybernetic world was erased around and he was shunted or left behind in nothingness.

Re-orienting himself he frowned and focused on getting his bearing again. _Another attack program? No, that was almost like..._

" _Physical hard-format of drive sector unsuccessful, disengaging drive from systems and unplugging to contain breach. Engaging anti-intrusion systems_."

His eyes shot wide as he realized the implications of that. If the digital space he was in was suddenly turned off or destroyed then his spiritual body would be ejected back into the real world. It wouldn't harm him beyond the magical energy expenditure of having wasted time inside the system, but it would leave him somewhere entirely random and unfamiliar with his surroundings for several seconds in the real world, in real time.

He couldn't afford that.

"Haaah—!"

The veil of nothingness rippled and he jumped between the shifting planes, reaching something beyond the absence of data and landing in more familiar territory.

" _Second intrusion detected—Correction, primary intruder detected on another sector. Analyzing..._ "

Emiya looked around, getting his bearings as he stood up. _It certainly is talkative. And it seems able to react to my actions, meaning..._

"So this is an AI, huh?"

" _Re-defining intruder definitions and parameters—high-level sapience and awareness confirmed, non-reliance on blue box hardware allowing free movement within all networked systems. Raising intruder threat rating to maximum—analysis complete; intruder poses extreme threat to instance—eliminating with extreme prejudice._ "

"And I seem to have gotten on its bad side," he said with a sigh. "Hey, you! Do we really have time for this?"

It did not answer. Whether due to an inability to understand, or an unwillingness, he did not know.

The world shifted again, only this time instead of everything vanishing and leaving him behind, everything was suddenly brought in to surround him. One moment he had been all alone, the next he realized that he was completely surrounded. Rows upon rows upon rows of attack programs—countless beyond counting, numerous beyond numbering—the very same kind he had already once run into in Roane's omnitool. And standing out from that sea of mooks he could see thousands of much larger attack programs, towering over them.

And beyond them in the far horizon he could see hundreds of plants, all spewing more and more attack programs to bolster the already overwhelming number that had him surrounded.

Emiya blinked as he processed that he was suddenly facing an entire army. _Oh, right. Roane's omnitool was a cheap commercial model. Even if the STG or this AI tried to leverage their hardware advantage over me in there or tried to use something like a botnet, there were simply limits to what could be contained on the omnitool._

But this was different he realized.

 _This must be some kind of STG super-computer; something utterly incomparable to the omnitool from before._ Just at a guess, he figured that just the central processing unit's cache had more capacity than the omnitool's entire hard drive. _Tch, I don't have time for this!_

As the first wave of a thousand attack programs charged him, Emiya clicked his tongue as he dashed forward to meet them, roaring out with his first blow.

* * *

;

* * *

Hoana held onto Kurinth, careful to not press down on her even as she drew strength from her friend, inhaling slowly just like papa had told her to.

It was dark, the only sources of light coming from the shuttle's emergency lights and from papa's omnitool as he worked outside.

_I have to be brave, I have to be brave..._

She was sitting inside the shuttle, holding onto the safety harness that held her secured in the pilot's chair. All around the shuttle things lays scattered and broken by the constant turmoil taking place. She wanted to run and hide in her room, in the little nook behind her bed where she knew she could always hide when she didn't want to do her chores. But that would mean leaving mama and papa behind and she couldn't do that, they had told her to stay in the shuttle. She could see them right outside, struggling to reach the hangar bay doors, trying to open them up so they could fly out.

They were moving slowly, almost exaggeratedly so, with mama's blue biotics glowing around them. She might have thought it funny if she wasn't struggling with the same thing. Even just sitting here was tiring, as her breathing came slowly and with great difficulty. It was like trying to run against the wind, only it was blowing from every direction all at once, pressing down on her constantly.

Something made a sound in the distance, metal grating on metal as if something massive had been wrenched loose and dragged for several seconds onboard the orbital station that had been her home for her entire life.

Closing her eyes she tried to shut it all out, just focusing on her breathing.

She was scared and confused, holding onto Kurinth to protect her as much as to draw safety from her friend while she listened to papa working by the other side of the hangar. It had always been a relaxing sound; the clink of tools being picked up and set down, the sound of an omnitool's scanners, the little sounds of annoyance papa would make while arms deep in some broken machine's guts.

"The—the red key, the one with the, yeah that one. Give it, give it here," he wheezed, and she could hear how tired he was.

She knew exactly which tool he meant and knew that he would need the D-pliers right after, since after the outer cover he would have to open the inner wiring box. Did he have one? She still had hers; they were in her pocket she knew. Maybe he would need hers, should she go out?

The shuttle shook again as everything began to turn again. She felt her stomach lurching and could hear her papa cursing as he struggled not to fall. She kept her eyes desperately closed as she could hear tools spilling out and falling onto the wall, followed by other loose objects that smashed with much more force. Each sound made her wince and ball her fists with fright.

She tried to open her eyes, to see if papa and mama were alright. The darkness and the shaking floor, along with the creaking and shattering vehicles all around her didn't help, and she could only keep her eyes tightly closed until everything calmed down again. It was so hard to breathe and she was sure it would never end, which only made the cold creeping fear in her chest grow and grip her heart ever-more tightly.

Finally she dared to look up again. She stared at her mama who was glowing with blue fire, using her biotics to help papa as he hung onto the hangar bay doors.

"Damn it, this isn't working!"

"It has to work, Hosin. Please!" Mama was shouting now as well.

"I overrode the lockdown but the doors are still to heavy! Can you use your biotics?"

Hoana closed her eyes again, working to breathe slowly as she shut out their shouting, not wanting to see them like this. And then the floor began to tilt again, causing them to begin struggling to remain still again.

Now she was completely upside down again, held only in place by the straps of the seat. Outside in the hangar, the loose tools fell onto the ceiling from the wall where they had been fallen down earlier, as the entire hangar continued to turn around and around. It was like being inside of a small box that was being spun, making all of them fall from side to side and making everything fly around from side to side.

She wondered for the first time if she was going to die here.

It was such a strange thought that she wasn't quite sure if she could answer it. She had never thought about death before, even when she had been scared before.

Somehow it didn't feel so scary, since she had mama and papa here with her. Inhaling slowly as the blue glow from mama reached over her again, she closed her eyes and held Kurinth carefully in her arms.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya dispatched another giant attack program.

It was a thirty meter tall creature with numerous polygonal limbs which functioned as both swords and shields for it as it moved and shook while trying to hit him. He had come to realize quickly enough that these things were several times stronger than the smaller attack programs. But not just stronger, they were sturdier, faster and _much_ smarter in comparison. But the thing that most stood out about their behavior was the sheer aggression with which they pursued him.

They did not back down, they did not relent, they did not give up even when torn to pieces. They wanted to destroy him and nothing would keep them from that.

So he'd mentally dubbed them aggressors after a while to better keep mental track of them.

He hadn't stuck in the strange arena he had been transported to, instead having cut a chaotic swath through the horde of bits and tried to make for an exit. Reasoning that it was akin to a bounded field, he told himself that as long as he could figure out where it ended he would be able to break out and move on to actually handling the orbital station.

That had been well over ten thousand attack programs ago.

He had stopped counting a while ago as he had already gotten too annoyed to even attempt keeping track of the passage of time in here. Kanshou and Bakuya danced in his hands as he slashed, swayed and sliced his way through the hundreds of attack programs trying to swamp him.

Black and white blade flashed; left and right in continuous spiraling circles as he moved around and over the countless enemies that stood in his way.

For nearly every slash, six lesser attack programs were shattered and sent flying. Yet the hundreds of plants that were everywhere just kept on spewing more and more to keep him occupied. So he targeted the plants, destroying dozens of them before he realized that even their rate of respawn was much too high for him to be able to even chip the amount of enemies before him.

"Khh!" He grit his teeth as he pulled in his blades to ward aside a charging aggressor's blow.

They kept evolving, growing larger and faster, getting more and more limbs and other features as they attempted to counter or at least injure him. But so far he hadn't been pushed too badly back by the things, as this evolution was quite slow compared to the speed with which he could adapt his tactics. It took the aggressors a dozen iterations before they could figure out simple tricks and at least twice that for anything more complex.

Using the momentum imparted by the aggressor he spun around the thing and severed most of its limbs with one blade and bisecting the unguarded center with the other a half-instant later. Handling them wasn't a problem yet, but he knew that this wasn't working. Sooner or later he would either run out of magical energy or take an unlucky hit, after which it would all just be a steep downhill.

_I need to find a way out. How long have I been here already?_

He had tried to shout at the AI who seemed to be puppeteering the attack programs, but it wasn't paying him any attention at all aside from trying to counter any of his attempts to escape.

Dashing forward he broke loose of the formation of attack programs, hoping to reach the edge of this space, only for the entire world to turn sideways suddenly. He fell a hundred meters down before he could kick off another aggressor and hold on to get his bearings, before the world reoriented itself to normal. None of the attack programs had been affected, forcing him to defend himself against an onslaught that sought to make use of the opening. Gradually his movements had been growing slower and duller, almost as if the gravity and way acceleration worked in here was working against him. There was a strange lag between his actions and the cyber-reality mirroring the effects he'd expect.

He wasn't sure if it was due to the hardware struggling to keep up with his fighting or due to the AI attempting to hamper him somehow, but the fact of the matter was that this place itself was hostile to him.

 _Just like I thought, this is a Marble Phantasm in a sense._ And he still hadn't been able to find the AI itself, either.

Cutting down six lesser attack programs, he kicked an aggressor backwards into an approaching formation of more lesser attack programs, bowling them over and buying himself another handful of seconds on that front to deal with the two other aggressors bearing down on him from the left. Spinning around one of them and cutting off its offending limbs, he managed to block the other aggressor with the one he had just dismembered.

It made sense, if he thought about it.

In the omnitool the AI had been constrained by not only the fact that it had to act through an inferior intermediary, but also by the hardware and the operating system already installed on it. The AI could have probably done things which translated to his understanding of the cyber-world as Marble Phantasm-like reality operation if it had been able to rewrite everything from the ground up with machine code, but the fact was that some things like the network drivers were too dependent on the operating system for changes like that to be made in the middle of a fight.

But here in the system Emiya suspected the AI had direct access to, it effectively had the source code to reality as far as Emiya could be concerned. Though it wasn't perfect, as Emiya still had the ability to fight back.

_Shit, if only I could take control of the hardware. If I could occupy the memory drives and usurp enough authority of the processing, then I could probably break out of here._

Jumping backwards and spinning in the air he kicked the limb of the aggressor that was aiming to cut him down, taking the momentum for himself and using it to hurl Kanshou out like a buzz-saw at a new aggressor type that was charging at even greater speeds than anything before had been able to. The black blade sunk deep into the aggressor's side, severing one of the supporting limbs in the process and causing it to fall on top of several lesser attack programs, crushing them in the tumble.

At the same time he grabbed the halted limb of the aggressor that he had just used for support to kick off of and swung up and around the limb, monkey-vaulting himself onto the aggressor's 'neck' where he locked his legs so that if it had been a living creature he could have choked it to death while riding on its shoulders.

But knowing that it wouldn't work he instead hurled his upper body backwards as if he was trying to perform a back-flip off of the creature from his seated position on its shoulders. But with his legs still locked firmly around its 'neck', instead only managed to unbalance it into leaning backwards. The aggressor was almost twice as wide as he was but only a head taller, meaning that while he couldn't reach the ground with his hands he could reach it with Bakuya in his right hand as the thing managed to catch its balance and avoid falling over.

Stabbing the blade into the ground he crunched with all his strength. But instead of his upper body that was hanging down rising back up to his knees, his knees came down and over him as he pulled the entire aggressor over himself. Driving all the force he could into the maneuver the aggressor's head was instantly crushed on impact with the ground as a dozen lesser attack programs were knocked down by the impact.

Letting go with his legs he sprung off the already vanishing corpse and flew over the approaching lesser attack programs, arriving at the crippled aggressor that he had thrown Kanshou into. Retrieving his sword he executed the thing and got up to move on.

_Okay, can't escape any which way, still unhurt and have plenty of magical energy left—though Excalibur is definitely right out once I get out now—and the aggressors aren't a problem yet._

He was wasting time here, but it was on such a scale that it didn't quite matter. Time flowed faster inside of a computer, meaning that he didn't need to worry about it as much. But if he forcefully broke it down he would be kicked out into the real world, which would mean precious seconds lost as he tried to find another computer to dive into.

In the worst case scenario, he might cripple all the ship's systems which would leave him stranded and unable to act.

He couldn't afford that. Better to struggle for hours in here and spend fractions of a second in real time, than to forcefully break his way out and lose who knew how much time getting back in.

Exhaling as he stood up, he looked around while there was a momentary lull as the attack programs were coping to keep up with his sudden movement. He did have _something_ he could try, still...

_It should be a high-value target, but how to define value? An aggressor would pose a decent back up against the other attack programs, but depending on how the plants work that might be a better option instead..._

What was before him wasn't relevant; what he needed was to forcibly weaken the AI's control over the system. He suspected that the plants were much bigger, since they were much fewer and did their best to stay out of his way. Unlike the lesser attack programs and aggressors they also seemed to be directly created by something else, while the plants spawned everything else here that was attacking him.

Locating the nearest plant he set forward. Jumping up, he began to step on the various lesser attack programs and ran over them like a sheep dog would over a mob of sheep. If it wasn't an aggressor then he could just run past it and feel secure in his speed, and with the throng of lesser attack programs the aggressors had no chance to reach him as long as he kept moving.

Leaping once more, he cleared sixty meters and vaulted over three aggressors that had set up to try and block his approach.

"—Trace," Throwing both of his blades into the pair of aggressors guarding the plant to take them out, he landed atop the plant with his arm outstretched as he shouted; " _on!"—begin projection,_

"Rule Breaker!"

The jagged dagger appeared in his hand just in time to pierce through the plant as he shouted out the true name. Something changed, he instantly realized as the nature of reality seemed to warp.

Emiya blinked, looking up and around.

He didn't know what to expect from this attempt at getting out of here, but having everything freeze was certainly not it. _Did it crash?_ _Damn it, I—_

And then everything went dark and he found himself somewhere else once more, as if he had fallen through the floor, crashing down into something. Finding himself lying on his back in what looked like a small room, he noted that at least he was alone again. Or perhaps it was inside a large box, like a shipping container of some kind. Frowning, he looked around. It was the first time he had seen something so solid in the digital world. Usually everything was one form of wire construct or pane of transparent material. But this was the digital equivalent of a bunker wall, he supposed.

"Where is this?" He wondered, sitting up and looking around and trying to find a way out. Unable to find any obvious means out but finding himself completely alone, he exhaled slowly.

At least he could take a break now.

It felt like he had been fighting for at least a dozen hours back there.

Exhaling with the realization that it was safe to take a break for the moment as he still had plenty of time and the AI seemed to be busy with the repercussions of his counter-attack, he focused on his breathing.

Dropping his arms by his side he closed his eyes and relaxed.

He still didn't have a clear plan as how to go about stopping the orbital station from dropping into Thessia—well, he had some ideas, but they all had snags and problems; _if only I could just get aboard the orbital station, then maybe...—_ but he did know that he needed to calm down and be in top form when he did it. Physically he was fine; his slow and deep breathing had nothing to do with his respiratory needs or his heart rate. Rather it was to calm and clear his mind after the mess that was the encounter with the AI. Like leaked memory taking up processing power on a computer, the mental exhaustion and distractions would only pile up if he kept going.

Better to sit down and rid himself of the burden while he could.

While he was at it he dismissed the red disguise armor he had been wearing for a while now and the noble phantasms he had used earlier. Furrowing his brows, he was fairly certain he could feel the feedback of them vanishing, but it felt off somehow. As if—

"What the?"

Opening his eyes and looking down, Emiya's eyes widened as he saw dancing lights bouncing off of him, tickling him despite the black diamene armor he was wearing.

Something moved in the corner of his vision and Emiya looked down, blinking as he found a strange floating light that seemed to be observing him.

"Huh?"

Reaching out he picked the thing up with two fingers, his eyebrows rising up as he realized that the thing was struggling to get free from his grasp. It was the size of ping ping ball, glowing a simple white light and incredibly simple in structure. This thing was easily a only thousandth of the size and complexity of a basic VI program. _Yet it's aware of me?_

Poking it with a finger, he huffed as it obviously reacted to the touch. Deciding that the thing was harmless enough he let it go, causing it to pause and hover before returning to observing him.

"Do you understand me? What are you, some kind of hitodama or onibi?" He asked, slightly amused by the thought despite himself.

After a second he sighed, realizing that the thing probably wasn't smart enough to understand that he was talking to it, much less able to respond to his attempt at communication.

Moreover, he didn't have time for this. Shaking his head, he got up and realized that if he stood straight then his head would hit the ceiling of this space.

Looking around he had to blink as suddenly there were now four of the small floating lights down by his knees. Looking at where he had been lying down, he realized that they must have been stuck underneath him. And then he spotted many others, stuck in what looked like small cages made out of light behind him.

"Did I break them free by accident?"

Was this some kind of containment cell for undesirable programs? Scratching his temple he tried to remember if he had ever run into something like that before. _They don't look like any of the attack programs or malware I've run into before._

The four free ones seemed to notice each other and were pulled together until they were all within a finger's width apart from one another. Then almost as one they began to move around, bumping into the corners of the small room and into the cages of the other balls.

Well it had nothing to do with him.

 _No time to waste here, who knows how much time has passed by already,_ he thought as he reached for one of the walls and pulled back his leg. Though, given all of his prior experience with computers, he was fairly certain that he still had time. Kicking out, the surface shattered instantly and flew outwards. Not bothering with trying to figure out what this place was he instead simply focused on getting somewhere else.

This time he felt the familiar shift of accessing another server or partition as he appeared back on the communications terminal of the STG ship.

Checking the time now that he was finally free he blinked at the read out. Less than five seconds had passed despite what felt like a day inside. "That's some super-computer."

It was a lucky break for him, that much he had to admit.

Now while the AI was off his back he had to figure out what to do about the orbital station. The starship's main guns had too many limitations, meaning that it was probably best if he relied on his own means for handling it. That meant using a broken phantasm. The question was, which one and how?

 _Caladbolg it is, then?_ Which meant that he would have to use his bow.

He nodded, finally feeling like he was back in control even if he still felt wholly out of his element. Pulling up the long-range visual feed of the orbital station that was coming in live through the STG ship's sensors, Emiya blinked. Checking again to confirm the lack of visual enhancement, he confirmed that it was showing him the un-altered view he would have from here.

 _I can't even see the orbital station._ Swallowing, he fiddled with some of the settings until he found a zoom function on the footage. It zoomed in, magnifying the view a dozen times over until he could finally see the orbital station as a small speck on the center of the screen. _There's... There's no way I can hit that... Is there?_

Clearing his throat, he carefully reached out to check the STG ship's systems. He could still turn on the weapons and take the shot, but it would still result in massive collateral damage. And the communications network was still shot to hell.

Rubbing his brow, he tried to wipe away the dancing lights in his vision. _Wait, what the?_

He looked up, finding that the strange floating light balls had somehow freed each other and were now here with him.

"You... Did you follow me here?"

No, the things seemed equally surprised to see him.

Well, as surprised as a swarm of bouncing balls of light could be. Somehow they were quite expressive, despite simplicity of their of structure and being. Twelve lights seemed to be outlining his torso, flying around him in circling patterns as another six were working on the actual communications terminal.

01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00111111

He looked up, realizing that they were finally trying to talk to him. Tilting his head, he raised an eyebrow as he spoke, "I don't speak _beep boop_."

4d 61 63 68 69 6e 65 20 67 6f 64 3f

That sounded almost like one of those old game consoles that had been gathering dust at his place, back when he was a kid. The ones with the old slot cartridges and pixel displays. Not that he understood it any better.

He shrugged, shaking his head to indicate his lack of understanding which ironically enough seemed to be completely understandable to the light balls. The swarm huddled up once more, before finally forming up to spell out letters in the air for him, much like an old-school digital six-display would.

_r u GOD?_

Emiya blinked, not entirely sure if they were serious. But noting how they were patiently waiting for an answer, he inhaled and then spoke.

"No."

The swarm dispersed immediately, buzzing for a moment before they began to ignore him. He blinked as he realized they seemed to have written him off for the moment, just as he had decided to ignore them earlier. Noting that they were working on modifying a communications laser module, it didn't seem like they cared about him at all anymore. Somehow he wasn't sure whether he should be annoyed or amused by the reversal.

Well he had more important things to worry about at the moment.

Like the asari home-world that was half a minute away from catastrophe.

 _Right, I have the most powerful supercomputer I have ever seen here. If it can calculate firing solutions for the spinal gun, then I should be able to use it just as well._ It seemed like a reasonable presumption, he thought as he pulled up the aiming software. Only to blink twice at the sheer overwhelming wall of numbers, vectors and variables he was presented with. The effect of the nearby gravity well, orbit radius and eccentricity for both objects, relative velocity and angle, loss of delta-V due to firing the spinal gun affecting the shot...

Emiya shook his head, closing his eyes for several seconds.

So many things he had never before had to consider or account for.

But if that was all, then perhaps he could have managed. He had plenty of time in here. As long as the AI stayed off his back, then he could simulate the conditions until he could pull of that one in a billion shot necessary to hit the orbital station. If that was all, anyhow.

The problem was it was physically impossible for him to manage it.

Simply impossible.

It was too far away—the station would have crashed into Thessia long before his arrow managed to reach it. Even his fastest arrows would far too slow and those with sufficient power to manage to pierce through were far from his fastest arrows. Caladbolg would take minutes to reach the orbital station from here, even with the vacuum of space giving it a boost in speed with the lack of air drag.

Letting out a shuddering exhale, he rubbed his eyes.

 _I need to get closer. With tightbeam communications quite literally flying at the speed of light, on paper it should be easy..._ He sighed, his re-check of the comm situation confirming that there weren't any suitable targets to jump to closer to the station.

"Tch."

No tightbeams, no electromagnetic transmissions, no transponders; nothing. It was only through the starship's direct sensors that he could verify that everything was still out there. Even if the orbital station wasn't a problem, this communication blackout would cause billions of credits of damages and it would take weeks to sort it all out.

 _Who is behind it, anyhow?_ It couldn't have been the STG or anyone from Thessia, that made no sense. Nor did it make sense for Hosin...

Right?

 _One thing at a time,_ he told himself with a shake of his head.

Could he fly the ship close enough for himself to jump onboard? Or perhaps ride something smaller and faster, like a torpedo or even a weakened rail gun slug? Or fire a comm buoy he could ride onto to get to a better position to fire? Or if he waited for the station to enter the atmosphere, he could fire at it from the ground? Could he get there in time?

Seconds in real time ticked by as he stretched the computer to its limits, trying to find the best way to solve this problem.

Sighing as he set aside the various plans he had considered and discarded now, he rubbed his temple again. Looking around, he found it peculiar the AI had not come back, but he wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. The STG personnel on the ship also seemed to be reacting rather poorly to their lack of control over their own ship, though that couldn't be helped at the moment.

Exhaling, Emiya looked at the little light balls. Counting their number, he noted they were all still here and they would probably soon be done with whatever they had been doing. For some reason they were adjusting the tightbeam, working overtime to utterly break the thing's firmware and make it do something it had never been intended for.

For the sake making communications halfway visible through the background radiation of space it was vital to keep the wavelength of the lasers distinct from it. Basically tightbeam communications were two people with flashlights sending Morse code at each other at a distance. And to continue the analogy, you could either use the visible spectrum of light or you could just give up with having the other person be able to see anything for it to actually be useful.

With the right equipment it _was_ possible to capture and read a tightbeam transmission set to a more common wavelength, the problem lay in how common some of those were. Space was full of various kinds of radiation that was coming from all over the place, but some wavelengths were more common than others. Detecting such wasn't a problem, but trying to distinguish a message from background noise would be incredibly tedious and it would also have comparatively little benefits. It wasn't like it was particularly safer to use more discrete wavelengths, since encryption of the transmitted data was far more easily manageable for similar benefits.

Tightbeams were essentially lasers, not entirely unlike the GARDIAN-lasers used in knifefight-ranges in starship combat, thus the same general rules regarding light scatter applied; the longer the wavelength, the further it would go before being scattered too much. Thus infrared was the most common option for both weapons and communication.

But the little light balls were taking it beyond even that, tweaking the module all the way into microwave-territory.

The exact stuff that space was already rife with from the big bang, the background noise that few paid any attention to. Furrowing his brows, Emiya couldn't understand what the things where up to. Certainly it would give them very good range, but with all the noise it would be difficult for a receiver of any kind to get anything other than a pure garbled mess.

It was obvious they had some kind of plan.

Which was a lot more than he had.

Emiya sighed, raising a hand to rub his temple. The fact of the matter was that he was still stalling, hoping for a way to enter the orbital station to magically present itself to him. As it stood the alternatives were clear.

He could do nothing and let hundreds of thousands die as the station crashed into Thessia with enough force to glass the planet for hundreds of kilometers point of impact by an explosion that made the nuclear warheads of his time look like paltry firecrackers. Even if the station missed any of the habituated settlements, it would still kick up enough dust and debris to permanently alter the planet's weather.

It might even cause an ice age, altering the ecosystem on a scale that even the asari would consider effectively permanent.

Or he could accept what had to be done and simply get to it and seek to minimize the victims, instead of trying to find a conclusion without any. A broken phantasm would finish it quickly and cleanly. Perhaps he could launch a fast moving comm buoy, or fly the STG ship at full burn into the atmosphere, or perhaps he could ride a kinetic slug fired from the ship's main gun as if it were a cannon ball.

If he simply wished to shoot down the station, he had plenty of options.

But knowing that he still had time made him complacent and reticent to act. Kept him from simply acting immediately, knowing that even if he waited subjective hours he would still have plenty of time due to the dilation present in the computer systems. Unlike those who were paralyzed by the coming destruction, too afraid to try, he was paralyzed by the knowledge that it was likely that there was always something he could have done better.

Maybe if he read through everything one more time; if he could figure some way to to end this without any victims, he could make up for how had failed earlier.

But the facts had been staring him in the face the whole time.

Having saved Baliya, Liara and Tyra, he had to kill Hosin, Roane and Hoana if he wanted to save Thessia. It was as if there was a balance; a finite number of seats of happiness to go around. As if by having chosen three, he had to sacrifice another three. And as he put it that clearly for himself, he felt why he had been stalling for so long grow clear.

"To hell with that," he ground out as he exhaled, gripping his fist tightly.

For what reason had he sold his soul to the Moon Cell? Wasn't it to prevent disasters exactly like this? Wasn't it all, the decades of suffering and struggle, the century of conflicted contemplation and tortuous torpor, just for these moments? To be able to save not just the many who did not deserve to suffer, but also those whom he _wanted_ to save?

Then to _hell_ with _that_.

He'd find a way even if it was the last thing he did.

Pulling out the last known schematics of the orbital station that the STG had gotten their hands on, he began to pore over them again. But it had been decades since those had been verified and Hosin had been thorough in his efforts to isolate himself on the station, meaning there was no guarantee for how how accurate any of it was.

Seconds passed—hours relative to his perspective, as he went over everything again and again. Ever so slowly the orbital station continued inching towards Thessia and eventually Emiya simply found himself staring at the slowly updating long-range visual feed.

Already the station had fallen so deep into the gravity well that it was impossible to stop. Soon it would hit the atmosphere, after which it would be too late. Nothing had changed, no solutions had presented themselves.

Was there really nothing to be done?

He blinked as something happened, the unexpected change on one of the starship's status informing him of a surge in power consumption.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he looked around until he found the source of the disturbance. The light balls seemed to have finally gotten whatever they were doing finished, activating the tightbeam module and beginning to stream out a transmission.

Emiya frowned, moving closer as he took a look at them.

They had gotten the modifications on the laser working, having turned it into a microwave emitter with great effort. And with that, one of their number vanished.

He blinked, perking up as he realized the light ball must have just transmitted itself much the same way he usually did. Except that he had never simply shot himself down a laser without any knowledge of whether or not anyone was receiving on the other end.

Frowning again he pulled out the sensor readings to find out where the little thing had vanished. Looking up for a second he noted that another two had also disappeared and that the tightbeam module had changed where it was transmitting several times already.

Checking the sensors he noticed that the light balls were aiming at various starships, never sending out more than two with any single attempt or destination. _But... the comms are still offline for each one? Where are they going?_

The tighbeam modules on the receiving ships wouldn't be able to make sense of the microwaves, since they were set to automatically filter out them as meaningless background noise. The only things that would be able to pick up on whatever the floating balls were doing were passive sensors, like a spectrograph which would analyze and store the result on a separate computer—

Emiya blinked, his brows rising as he processed that thought.

For the balls of light who had to copy themselves over in ones and zeroes of machine code there were probably a lot more steps in the process. But for him who could enter computer systems through a display screen and jump out through security cameras...

Couldn't he simply jump in through a sensor?

"Huh."

* * *

;

* * *

Hoana yelped as suddenly the shuttle's dashboard lights all turned on as at the same time the deep clunk echoing through the floor told her that the magnetic anchorage had been disabled.

"H-huh?"

She looked up, hoping to shout out to papa and mama that something was happening when suddenly the shuttle was in the air and moving forward towards them.

Blinking back the tears of surprise and confusion, she wanted to shout out a warning, only to freeze as the stranger suddenly appeared behind them and grabbed both of them. Clad in black with a strange red cloak and sleeves, the figure somehow seemed familiar to her.

And then a second later the shuttle was swerving around and breaking her line of sight. Before she could get herself out of the pilot's seat she heard two surprised shouts behind her and she craned to see what had happened. As the shuttle's doors closed and the seals applied, she realized both mama and papa had been thrown aboard the shuttle by the stranger who was nowhere to be seen.

"Wha—what was that!?"

"Are you alright? Hoana, what—"

Hoana opened her mouth, wanting to say something only to freeze as she noticed both were looking over her shoulder with wide eyes. She swiveled around, gasping as she beheld through the open hangar bay doors the burning blue meteorite. It was coming right for them, she realized as she grasped Kurinth and closer her eyes.

"What, who is flying? Hoana, who is flying the shuttle?!" She heard papa shout behind her, but she didn't know and she was too overwhelmed to answer. The station continued rotating, obscuring the vision of their approaching demise as the hangar bay opening turned away with the turning of the station.

The shuttle shot out then at full speed and if it weren't for the artificial gravity and inertial dampening they would have all been glued to the back of the shuttle due to the intense acceleration.

Papa rushed forward to the dashboard, his hands moving so quickly across the haptic adaptive interface that Hoana got dizzy just looking at it. Suddenly the display changed, showing the reverse view. Behind them they could see the orbital station still spinning and behind it—

The vault of heaven caught fire, blinding them for a moment before the automatic filter activated, bringing the visibility back down to something they could handle. Hoana gaped as she opened her eyes, lost for words as she stared at the burning seven petaled flower.

"What..."

Translucent and billowing, she could just behind it see the raging maelstrom tearing her home apart. She could see how the sky around the flower was starting to waver and burn as well, as the overflowing storm raging behind the thin flower could be contained no longer.

Suddenly a shockwave rocked the shuttle with the sound of thunder and fury, as one of the burning petals shattered at the same time as the dashboard's displays turned crazy.

"The fusion reactor! It must have—"

The shuttle was rocked again, this time twice in a row as two more petals of the translucent flower shattered.

"That's Fujimura!" Mama suddenly gasped.

"What! Where?"

Hoana blinked following papa's gaze and peered into the eye of the storm, the blazing brightness hurting her eyes despite the screen having darkened a dozen times over already. And for just a second she thought she could see that dark stranger there, his red mantle raging behind him as he held aloft the burning sky.

The petals were now rapidly breaking, causing more and more of the great burning storm to spill out and over the edge. For each broken petal a burning rainbow and shifting aurora spilled out, spiraling outwards from the center of the roaring inferno. The shockwaves struck the shuttle one by one, pushing it further and away from the station until the final petal broke.

They were already dozens of kilometers away, yet the final burst almost broke the shuttle with the force of its blast. The rear-cameras couldn't handle the intensity any longer and burned out, forcing papa to start hammering away at the interface.

"Damn autopilot, just... Turn around!" He slammed his hand down, growling as he tried something else. "There!"

The shuttle's front view was brought up and the craft turned around, coming to a halt in the air as they simply stared at what remained of what had once been their home in silence.

A seven-colored aurora of burning rainbows, a shimmering veil of light spiraling outwards and covering the whole sky as it continued spreading slowly. Nothing of the orbital station remained, only the specks of dust that had been vaporized still glowing.

"So pretty..." Hoana whispered, frozen in awe as she could only stare.

That day it rained light on Thessia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry I've been gone for so long. But you know how it is with "life" :D
> 
> Super duper alpha to omega thanks to daniel-gudman for feedback and criticism, and to PseudoSteak for proofreading my crazy writings again. This chapter was effectively 60k words long, given how many times I deleted and rewrote scenes and because I wrote it in snippets of 15-30min sessions, I lost coherency and plot threads constantly. Crazy stuff.
> 
> Oh yeah and thanks to my patrons, I appreciate them too and apologize for the long radio silence :V


	26. Escape from Parnitha

Nihlus inhaled slowly, blinking twice as he stared at the main screen.

There was an absolute silence across the CIC, as if no one dared to so much as to breathe. They were all staring at the direct visual feed of Thessia, where the great spiraling shell of light was expanding outwards from where the orbital station had simply vanished. Nothing had shot it down; no one had managed to do anything. Yet it was gone. Had vanished before their eyes as it hadn't ever even been there.

Everything was wrong. Absolutely everything about this situation was utterly wrong.

Was he relieved that Thessia was safe? Or was he... _disappointed_ , that after he had managed to resolve himself to bear the burden of a bad choice, that the situation was utterly taken out of his hands? Confused? Or even guilty about his confused feelings now that he realized everything was...? Was what? Somehow, despite this almost miraculous ending, none of it felt real.

Nihlus realized that beyond anything else, in this moment he felt frustration. At his own helplessness. At the unreasonableness of this entire situation. At how none of them seemed to be able to affect reality anymore. Cause and effect had lost their meaning, reality was but a whirlwind of possibilities beyond their knowing. Lost and adrift on an ocean of circumstances beyond any of their control.

"Rep..." He had to clear his throat, realizing it was as dry as sand. "Report. Someone tell me what's going on."

But no one spoke. It was as if no one knew what to say, all equally spellbound by the lights before them.

"Report!" He repeated, more loudly and finally someone answered.

"Orbital station has been destroyed and Thessia appears... to be fine."

Nihlus exhaled. "Yes, I can see that. But _what happened?_ "

Jondum Bau cleared his throat, having muscled his way to a terminal. "The orbital station must have been destroyed before it hit Thessia. Visual feed is too obstructed by the light phenomenon, but radiation sensors report relatively normal temperature and atmospheric pressure outside of the immediate range."

As if released from a spell, the others joined in.

"Composition of light phenomenon is unknown; does not match that of recorded magnetospheric phenomena. AI analysis pending."

"Communications are still down. Weapons system back online. AI analysis regarding intrusion pending."

"Two tightbeam modules unresponsive, cause unknown. AI analysis pending."

"One comm buoy missing, no logs regarding disappearance available. AI analysis pending...?"

As the reports began to pour in Nihlus frowned. "What is wrong with the artificial intelligences?"

"Both are in a state of standby—correction, unresponsive and appear non-functional."

Jondum frowned at that, giving the Spectre a questioning look.

"Reboot both of them, we can figure out what happened later. Just get them back online first," Nihlus ordered before turning towards the salarian by the sensors terminal. "Do we have any visual recording of what happened? Bring it up if we do."

"Affirmative, bringing up on main screen."

As the recording played out in slow motion, for one frame they thought they could see something blooming outwards beneath the orbital station. But then the next instant it was all lost in the light that would not have come second to any star in brightness, the burning ball of metal erupting and vanishing in the space of a handful of seconds.

And in its wake remained that film of light; the burning rainbow aurora that separated the earth from the sky, through which they could no longer see the surface of Thessia.

"Analysis?" Nihlus called out, hoping someone had something to say.

"It does not appear to be emitting any harmful radiation?" Someone called out after a few awkward seconds of silence.

"Visuals are blocked; tightbeam may potentially suffer disruptions. Impossible to tell at the moment due to comm blackout."

The turian sighed, turning to look at the Spectre-candidate next to him. "Keep at it. Get those comms back and then figure out what the hell happened. Jondum, you're in charge. I'm heading down with a shuttle."

"Sir," the salarian acknowledged with a nod.

Nihlus nodded back and turned to leave the silent CIC behind. He just hoped he wasn't flying into hell.

* * *

;

* * *

Pain.

Excruciating pain. That was usually good for him. Emiya groaned, trying to open his eyes. _Well, I'm still alive at least._

It didn't quite work, for some reason. Just the effort of having tried left him exhausted and enervated, so he focused instead on trying to figure out what was going on.

He realized after a moment that he had blacked out at some point, his memories of where he was and how he had ended up there coming up quite a bit too short for his liking. Trying to open his eyes again he had a bit more luck, and he realized that he was lying on the ground.

Inhaling slowly, his lungs felt like they were full of sand as everything continued to hurt. No, not sand. _Ash_. The nothingness that his material body would turn into upon his death. He was leaking magical energy, causing his material body to waver and slowly dissolve.

 _My spiritual core is damaged,_ he realized slowly.

He had a moment of utter absurdity as he began to recall what had happened. The realization that he could transport himself onto the station through passive sensors, his quick foray through the computer systems and finally his slapdash plan to blow up the station with Caladbolg. Short, hacking coughs that ought to have been laughter wracked his body as he managed to open his eyes and looked up at the burning sky finally. _Should I be glad that it took me so long to top the most foolish thing I'd ever done, or be exasperated that I actually managed to out-do the time I broke into a nuclear power plant in meltdown?_

Raising a hand against the golden-red sky, he noted that he could see through the limb. Its outline was hazy and shedding blue motes of light, indicating how tenuous his existence was at the moment. Trying to shake his head, he closed his eyes again and focused inward to stabilize himself.

It was to be expected; everything had a price. To manage a feat like that, he had to sacrifice something of equal worth.

That said, there was something to be said for _not_ throwing broken phantasms at fusion reactors and then attempting to re-direct the resulting blast with a shield that reflected the damage it took on him. Was it the destruction of the shield, the momentary output of the fusion reactor, the raging mass effect fields of the eezo being scattered or the broken phantasm exploding that had left him in this state?

He couldn't remember.

It was probably a bit of everything.

Things were still more than a little hazy... But even so. It had _worked_.

_It worked._

Gripping his fist as he grinned, he focused on his whole body. Even if he died here and now, it had all been worth it. That much he could declare without hesitation.

He hadn't so much stopped the orbital station, or shielded Thessia while it burned in orbit, as he had blown it up with a Caladbolg and merely held off the worst off the blast with Rho Aias. It had gone off perfectly, causing most of the orbital station to be stuck between the explosion and the shield, grinding it into a fine and hopefully-harmless dust. That was the safest option he had been able to come up with, lacking any kind of experience with matters of this scale and unable to rely on anything else. Most of the energy of the station had been directed away from Thessia, hopefully sparing the planet from the worst of the damage. The shuttle Hosin and his family had been in had nearly not been so lucky, given the time frame he was working with.

Emiya had barely had enough time to chuck them into the shuttle and get the hangar doors open in time for the shuttle to get out before the station had fallen too far into Thessia. The plan had been to activate Rho Aias from the shuttle, keeping himself at a safe distance from the exploding station.

Well, that hadn't quite worked as the first petal broke far too easily. Realizing that it wouldn't hold, he had jumped back to the station and shield, intent on Reinforcing or using Broken Phantasm on the shield.

And that was roughly where his memory turned fuzzy. _Still..._

He had to laugh. _It actually worked._

That hurt quite a bit more than simply merely existing did, causing him to wince. He tried to run a check on himself, but beyond the understanding that his whole physical body was broken and that his spiritual core was damaged, he couldn't gather anything in detail. Even moving was difficult, thus he instead focused on his recuperation.

Without the Independent Action skill, he would have already vanished, he knew. Hell, even with it his shape was wont to grow indistinct and weak. If he let his focus wander, he might well turn to dust and disappear here. But it was much like how projections functioned; as long as he could simply maintain his self-image as something that belonged there, then he could maintain himself somewhat. He reasoned it was somewhat similar to how deluded wraiths managed to extend their existences despite their shuffling off the mortal coil, or by becoming so utterly one with nature that their presences become one.

As his managed to plug up the biggest of his wounds, he finally exhaled and rolled to attempt sitting up. Looking around, he realized he was sitting in a crater. Not a particularly large one, but an undeniable crater nonetheless.

His cloak was in charred tatters, his armor in pieces and he must have been little more than a bloody mess before he woke up. At least there wasn't a pool of blood where he was, only the fine dust that was nearly indistinguishable from the dirt. He'd had plenty of magical energy when they day began. Reserves that would have let him fight for days on end more.

It was almost all gone, now.

How the hell would he get back to his body now? Running right out was out, it would only hasten his demise. Spiritual hacking would also require magical energy, which hadn't been a problem before. But with his unstable spiritual core, did he dare to try another long distance jump? And with the comms still down, it was probably not even an option.

Besides, which way was it? And how far? He had no idea, given that he could have fallen anywhere on this side of Thessia.

He blinked as he heard the sound of something. Looking up, he could see in the distance a shuttle. His brows rose up as he recognized it and realized it was moving closer to land near him. _Hosin. Guess that solves that problem._

They must have seen him fall. He couldn't have been out for too long, then. Nodding at that conclusion, he closed his eyes and waited as he merely breathed while healing.

"Fujimura?"

He perked up at the question, looking up toward the direction the shuttle had landed in. There the form of Hosin could be seen, hesitating as he stared down at him. Their eyes met and he raised a hand in greeting, not having the strength to do much else quite yet.

"...It really was you," the quarian sounded as if he couldn't quite believe it. "How, how are you still even alive?"

"Is he there?" Roane's voice could be heard, slightly further away, behind Hosin.

The quarian turned around, nodding at his wife.

"Yes. And it _is_ him. I mean, aside from the hair and skin..." Hosin seemed quite confused by that, looking up at the sky for a moment. "It really is him."

Emiya's eyes followed the quarian's gaze, staring up at the sky again. It was as if a whirlpool of light shone there, beyond even the cover of clouds as it obscured everything beyond.

"Did the... station do that?" Hosin muttered, too quietly for it to have been meant for Emiya's ears.

Still, he hacked a coughing laugh as he shook his head at Hosin. Talking was still a bit of a problem.

"He looked like that when he broke me out from Ulee. When he took off his helmet," Roane noted as she came to stand next to Hosin.

There was an awkward silence as they merely stared at each other, a dozen meters between them. The confusion and hesitation in them was plain to see, even as they understood that they were only alive because of him. Even so, it was beyond their comprehension.

The sound of running feet broke the silence and Emiya's eyes rolled over the husband and wife to spot Hoana coming towards them. As she spotted him, her eyes shot wide open and she broke out into sprint.

"Hoana!" Her mother shouted in alarm, but the littlest asari did not even notice as she shot past her parents and came to a skidding halt in front of him.

"Saiga! Did you really do that!"

She pointed up at the sky, their eyes almost level as she jumped in place. Emiya looked up, raising his eyebrows as he did.

"Suppose I did," he finally said as he tried to get up. But his legs didn't seem to want to support his weight, forcing him back down with a stumble. "Ow."

Hoana blinked at him, her mouth hanging wide open. "Did it hurt?"

He looked at her, then at Hosin and Roane who had walked closer to him to come stand behind Hoana. "Yes, I wouldn't suggest trying it yourself."

She frowned, before nodding seriously. Then she stepped forward and place a hand on his head, gently patting his messy hair with a smile.

"Wha—"

"Hoana, that's not—"

Emiya blinked, completely stunned for a second before he had to laugh at the expressions Roane and Hosin were making at him. Glancing at Hoana, he had to return the serious praise with a nod of his own.

"Happy to see you too, Hoana."

She nodded, humming happily at him. "Oh! Kurinth!"

The asari child turned on her heel and dashed back to the shuttle, leaving behind the three adults as if a hurricane had passed over them. But somehow the strange tension had abated and the two standing adults finally managed to relax.

"You really did save us, then? It was you on the station? How did you even get aboard?" Hosin asked, shaking his head.

"Who's to say I wasn't there the whole time?" Emiya shrugged and he could see the quarian rolling his eyes behind his tinted visor.

"Fine, don't tell me. Nothing new there! Never could get a single straight answer out of you!"

Emiya grinned. "So you liked the mass effect field pressure cooker then?"

"You _bosh'tet_. You knew Roane wouldn't let me take it apart, didn't you?" The quarian said, throwing up his hands. "How did you even put it together? There weren't any seams, screws, welds or holes anywhere! You must have known!"

"H-Hosin?" Roane seemed to be panicking, her eyes jumping from one to the other as she didn't know what to make of their exchange.

"Yeah, yeah. I knew you'd be going crazy at wanting to take it apart. But," he looked at Roane. "I also knew she isn't the type to take any risks, either. So she'd never let you break it."

Hosin let out an explosive exhale, raising a clenched fist at Emiya as he tried to think of something to counter with. Emiya merely laughed quietly at the fuming quarian. Somehow this exchange of barbs and quips was enough to make the entire days worth of tension simply melt away.

"We could have made millions with that thing," Hosin huffed, finally deflating a little as he sat down on the ground. "Sheesh... What a mess this all turned out to be."

"Yeah, you got that right." There was an unspeakable exhaustion in Emiya's eyes as he said that, as if he was feeling the loss of that other possible future more keenly now than ever. "I'd figured we could have started small. I'd supply some capital and you'd handle the practicalities, then expand as demand exploded."

"Hah, as if. We'd have gotten a loan and started big right off, before anyone managed to snag the blueprints. Get a foot in the market with a bang and keep up the momentum the whole way to the top," Hosin groused, shaking his head before he began to laugh too. "Millions? Billions, more like."

They laughed for a moment together, before the mood turned solemn once more. It wasn't the time to be thinking about could-have-been's right now.

Yet, they sat there in silence as Emiya focused on recuperating and re-consolidating his remaining magical energy. Flesh was easily mended, bones were relatively quickly set and blood vessels were of minor importance to a Servant. But the increasing expenditure of magical energy from his core was all the more worrying as he attempted to plug the numerous leaks in his body with the utmost care. At this rate he had less than a half hour left before he vanished, the Independent Action skill and his own mental focus barely able to hold him together.

Roane frowned as she dusted the ground before sitting down as well, her asari sensibilities telling her to join them as she had no idea what else to do.

"What happens now...?" She asked in a quiet voice, not looking at either of them. "What will happen to us, I mean?"

Emiya said nothing, lowering his eyes to the ground again.

"I had thought to grab the both of you and get you out of council space. Maybe Illium. Omega if they were really desperate and kept chasing. You two would have been too small to really worry about—there just wouldn't have been worth the effort for them to chase you all the way there. You would have probably been able to start over... You'd never hurt anyone, not that I'd been able to tell. Sure, you flaunted the law and made a profit however you could, but you weren't _bad people_. That much I _was_ certain of." He looked up, locking eyes with Hosin and managing to project such intensity that the quarian unconsciously took a step back from him. Gesturing up at the sky, he continued. "So _what the hell were you thinking,_ Hosin?"

Even Roane had to take a step back at the sheer anger in his voice, her eyes wide as she reached out to hold Hosin's hand.

"I..." The quarian began, but hesitated as his mind had suddenly blanked totally. Stumbling with his words, he couldn't quite manage to say a word in his own defense.

"He—he didn't do it! Hosin, tell him! Tell him about the, the thing!" Roane finally jumped in, unconsciously placing herself between them as if to protect her husband.

"That's..." Hosin blinked, before nodding slowly. "That's right—I didn't do it! No, I mean. I, I set it all up so it looked real. But I didn't mean for it to really happen. I made sure that it _wouldn't_ happen, even on accident! I made sure that it wouldn't. But someone hacked my systems, locked us in and made it all happen! I wouldn't put my family in danger like that, you have to believe me. I managed to copy their code, it's right here on my omnitool! I can show you! I swear I didn't do it!"

Emiya exhaled, closing his eyes as he raised his hand to his brow. He had figured as much already and it hadn't been what he was angry about. Having been inside of the orbital station's systems, he had had a good look at everything there. It had been an external program, something that had come through the STG's communication channels. Even the encryption methodology was the same.

But it hadn't originated from the STG's vessel either—he should have been able to tell that much while he had been there, himself—which left him essentially without leads.

Which left him with just Hosin as effectively the sole perpetrator.

Meaning Emiya didn't know what to do. If it was just him, then it might not have mattered; he was already the galaxy's most wanted man one way or another after this... But Thessia's governments and the Citadel would be out for blood; an incident of this magnitude could not go unanswered. And if no convincing evidence could be presented to them, then it was entirely possible that they would merely pin it all on Hosin, while the true mastermind would walk free.

Of course, Hosin was in no way innocent in all of this.

The quarian had been the one who had made this all possible; he had set the pieces in place for Thessia's destruction to be more than a mere novelty or flight of fancy. And the excuse of not having had any intent to truly do it or not, Hosin had with purpose and afterthought made it all possible of his own free will.

Not that he didn't understand Hosin's actions; the desperation and zeal of a father protecting his family was not entirely alien to him. If the situation was right, wouldn't Emiya essentially do the same thing? Threatening to do something horrible to achieve something else—to protect something he thought greater. Wasn't that exactly what he had and would do? Therefore, no matter the results, he couldn't bring himself to be truly angry at Hosin.

So he would seek out the true perpetrator, not only to bring them to justice but to protect Hosin. Rubbing at his temples, he tried to sort his thoughts. _So what, another mystery player on top of everything else already going down?_

It appeared that Emiya would have to be on the lookout for clues for now.

But what about Hosin and his family? _Citadel territory was never an option, and I doubt the Quarian Flotilla would be willing to deal with them. Omega and Illium are right out. Too many eyes looking for a quick credit for something of this scale..._

Even if he managed to find some distant corner of the galaxy where they could be safe, he would have to babysit them for the rest of their lives, wouldn't he? Having drawn them into this and having already saved them more than once, how responsible was he for them from here on?

It was just another headache on top of a mountain of headaches.

Hoana returned then, wholly unaware of the tense stand off as she dashed back to Emiya with the strange lizard-creature in her arms. "Kurinth had run off! Can you believe it! But she came back when I called for her, see?"

"I can see that. Quite like you, huh?" Emiya huffed with a slight smile and then inhaled slowly as he got up. There wasn't any more time to be lying around now.

Someone was drawing near now, probably having come to investigate.

He could hear engines in the distance behind him. Dusting himself off, he looked at his limbs to note that his clothes were in complete tatters.

Turning towards the east he narrowed his eyes as he spotted the hovercraft flying their way. It was still twenty kilometers away, little more than a speck in the sky. But it was already too close to be outrun with the shuttle Hosin had flown here with. By the time they boarded and got in the air, it would already be on top of them. And he was in no condition to fight.

Which meant... _I'll have to talk my way out of this. Wonderful._

"Mama, look!" Hoana excitedly pointed out the approaching vessel, causing Roane to grow anxious. They didn't have any allies on Thessia. It didn't matter who it was, it would be bad news.

"Honey, come here alright?" Roane said as she hurried over to her daughter, hugging to protect her as she glanced hesitantly at Hosin and Emiya.

As the hovercraft drew nearer, Hosin and the others finally noticed it. It was larger than Hosin's shuttle and probably much faster as well. Not that it would matter, given that Emiya was fairly certain he could see a panel where a mass accelerator had been installed on the side. If they tried to escape they would just get shot down from behind.

Before the hovercraft had even had time to land, the door on the side opened up and three asari commandos jumped down and landed shrouded in the telltale blue glow of biotics. Armed with rifles, the commandos drew a bead on them.

"No one move!" One of them shouted.

"Ground clear for landing," another said in a quieter voice, likely to a short-range comm. "Target spotted; he is unarmed."

Or rather they aimed at him, as none of them bothered with the panicking family behind him.

 _They aren't shooting,_ he noted.

And the moment the craft had set down, a familiar face appeared as Miranda strode out with slow, deliberate steps and wearing a mask of cold professionalism.

Except for a moment as their eyes met, he saw a spark of burning anticipation there. Keeping his poker face as he turned to look at the worried Hosin, he considered Miranda's appearance here. Was she the person behind the orbital station's malfunction? He entertained the possibility only for a fraction of a moment.

But no—she must have been on Thessia. More than that, she had been within the area of immediate danger if she had managed to make it here nearly as quickly as Hosin had. She would have been caught up in the immediate effects of the station crashing. Miranda was many things, but stupid enough to be planetbound during an event like this was certainly not one of them. _For now, I can write her off that list._

Had she tracked him here, then? No, that made no sense either. Not unless she had the technology to trace his movements through spirit hacking. _She's probably here due to the shuttle, then. Curious as to who might have been on it when it escaped the crashing station. Maybe she thought I was with Hosin or Roane._

That made more sense; their meeting here was thus more of a unlucky coincidence than anything.

"Well, well. I didn't expect to run into _you_ of all people, here," Miranda spoke as a pleased smirk broke out, crossing her arms before addressing one of the asari. "Shoot his legs, search him and then haul him to the ship. Don't give him any outs, he's _tricky_."

One of the asari commandos obeyed immediately, lowering her rifle's barrel to put a hypersonic round through his leg and pulling the trigger.

The sound of the shot echoed through the clearing, sending wildlife scattering away in all directions at the loud report.

Tearing through the physical body, ripping muscle and shattering bone, the round was quite painful as it punched through just above his knee. Or so it would have if he were flesh and blood. At this point he was little more than a weak wraith; the bullet acting more like a gust of wind dispersing a form wrought of smoke than anything else as it passed through him.

Roane and Hoana flinched at the loud report of the gun and blinking as they realized he had been shot in the leg, gaping in growing panic at the display of violence. But he didn't so much as blink, even as it caused a noticeable dip in his magical energy reserves.

_Fifteen minutes left now. Less if I have to move._

The asari commando blinked, certain that she had hit him right in the bone.

There was no way he should have been able to remain standing with a wound like that. Licking her lips, she looked over at her comrades and then at Miranda, as if asking for new orders. But even she was stunned silent by his utter nonchalance, leaving a strange tense silence as the asari commandos looked at each other with growing apprehension.

"Hosin," Emiya said, completely ignoring the asari and Miranda. But the quarian's eyes seemed glued to the bullet wound in his leg, forcing him to speak more forcefully to the mechanic. " _Hosin_."

His eyes snapped back up to Emiya's.

"The fact of the matter is that you placed millions in danger. Whether you meant to or not, you're not going to be able to just walk away from that."

Those words left them all quiet; Miranda and her party more from confusion than anything else, but Hosin and Roane both understood what he meant.

"I... Yeah." The quarian nodded, deflating with the admission.

Emiya could feel Miranda's cold eyes on his back along with the wavering intent of the asari behind him now. The commandos were confused, certain that they had the upper hand against a group of unarmed civilians despite how he seemed utterly unfazed, even if they were a bit surprised and unsure . Yet they weren't acting. _Miranda is in charge of them. How curious._

Which meant even if he couldn't fight properly, he still had a way out of this.

"As long as you understand that. Anyhow," he began as he turned around to face the dark haired woman. Their eyes met and he smiled, donning a mask of pleasant surprise at having run into her. "Miranda. Took you long enough to show up."

The asari commandos seemed taken aback by his knowing of her name, hesitating as they glanced at the still quiet woman. She hadn't expected this and was trying to decide on the best course of action. She was surreptitiously eyeing him, his ragged gear on his otherwise spotless body. The family behind him. The crater he was still standing in.

And the wound on his thigh that wasn't even bleeding, supporting his weight without issue.

She had _had_ a plan when she had landed.

But now she was flapping; all of her designs knocked completely off track with his non-reaction to the force she could bring to bear. Really, it was the same for him in regards to her showing up. He didn't have time to waste here. If he didn't get back to his body soon, he really would disappear from this world without leaving anything behind. If a fight broke out, he could simply astralize for immediate safety. But then what would happen to Hosin, Roane and Hoana? Additionally, without any idea of where he was or a means of getting back to his body, he was still screwed.

He had to avoid a fight at all costs.

Too bad she didn't know that. Hosin and Roane might be scared of the asari commandos, but Miranda wouldn't be as certain of their odds anymore.

"...What is that supposed to mean, Emil?" She finally asked warily.

He raised an eyebrow at that, smirking at her as he crossed his arms. "' _Emil_ ', huh. You're still calling me that?"

She blinked and licked her lips, glancing at the guards with her as she realized she wasn't sure how to handle him now. She must not have truly expected to run into him, having brought just three commandos with her. _And where did she get them? They don't look like any hired gun outfit..._

"Never mind that. What is _that_? What have you done?" Miranda pressed on, motioning at the sky. It seemed as if the STG information suppression had been quite effective after all.

In the hovercraft that Miranda had arrived in was one more asari; the pilot it seemed. He couldn't see her but he could hear her inside of the craft, where she was fiddling with the comms.

"Matriarch Trellani, this is Falarn, come in, over..." The pilot repeated several times, before complaining to herself as she gave up and returned to staring out through the window at them. "Tch, still dead. I hope she won't have my hide for this..."

Emiya was the only one who could hear the grumbling asari pilot, outside of the craft. No reason not to use that to his advantage.

"Ah, that. It's nothing, just ask Trellani. She's old enough to be in on the loop, no?" He shrugged with a glance to one of the asari.

Miranda blinked as if she had been slapped, glancing at the asari commandos who seemed equally surprised at having been recognized. "How did..."

He didn't bother explaining himself, figuring the air of mystique and nonchalance would play off better with leaving it at that—he didn't actually have any clue as to who this 'Matriarch Trellani' was and why she was working with Miranda, after all. "But if you don't have any actual business with me then I'll be taking my leave, I've some last minute business to still take care of."

"Wait, Emiya _,_ " she called out, only to pause for words as she tried to think of what to say.

He smirked, pausing in his step as he turned around and tilted his head at her, projecting amused exasperation at her. "Well, what is it?"

She hesitated for just a second as she reached for something to work with, before she licked her lips and glanced at Hosin and Roane. "I would like to propose a trade. An exchange of favors."

He raised an eyebrow at her, crossing his arms as if saying 'oh, this I _have to_ hear' silently.

Reassured by his attention, even if his expression seemed to sprout some doubts in her, she continued. "You've gone to great lengths to protect those people behind you. I can get them out of Thessia. I can give them new lives. Away from the Citadel, away from all this."

Emiya blinked at that, saying nothing.

She hadn't said what she wanted in return, but even so he knew it wasn't a very good option in the long run. Certainly the organization she was a part of had the means to hide Hosin and his family. But at what cost? Just as she said, he had gone to great lengths to protect them.

To her and her organization, surely that made them great leverage against him.

He glanced at Hosin, noticing that the quarian had perked up at that. As their eyes meet, the unspoken prompt passed between them. _Well?_

"It's your choice," Emiya said and crossed his arms again, sighing and gesturing with one hand at Miranda. "She's a part of a secret organization intent on human supremacy in the galaxy. They'd have the means for it."

Hosin nodded slowly, glancing at Miranda after a second. "And do you trust them?"

"Her? She's good for her word. Exactly that and no more. The rest of her organization? About as much as I'd trust your scratch warranty."

The quarian scoffed at that, shaking his head. There was a tense silence as Hosin held hands with Roane who was still holding Hoana. Finally, looking up at the sky, he seemed to have made up his mind.

"If I turn myself in—to the Citadel, I mean—do you think... They'd let Hoana and Roane go, like we agreed to before?"

"Hosin! You, you can't, not again..." Roane immediately protested, grabbing her husband by the arm.

"If I give them everything. The code sample on the person who hacked my station, I mean. They'd agree to that much, right?" Hosin said, putting a hand on Hoana who did not seem to quite understand what was happening.

Emiya said nothing, sighing after a few seconds.

"Oh, I meant, everything except what I've got on you. I don't mean I'd rat you out or anything, that's not what I meant at all—"

"Do it."

Hosin froze. His blinking wide eyes visibly behind his visor, the surprise obvious on his face.

"Everything you know about me would probably be a sweet enough a prize for you to manage a good deal with them," Emiya shrugged. "So do it."

"Wait, this isn't—" Miranda protested but quieted at Emiya's look at her.

"But, I mean... Wouldn't that be bad for you?" Hosin asked.

Emiya shook his head. "No, at this point the cat's out of the bag already. It's better if they get a slightly better handle on me, before they get too antsy about everything they _don't_ know about me. It would be better if they don't adopt any over-enthusiastic policies just to see if something will stick. So go ahead."

"Then," Roane began, faltering for a moment as his eyes turned to her, but forging on after a second. "Then can't you just make up with them? If you just join hands with the Citadel, couldn't you negotiate it all yourself? You have the leverage for it, don't you?"

He inhaled, then shook his head.

That wasn't what he wanted at all; it wouldn't do.

She licked her lips, looking as if she wanted to say something but was unable to. He had proved himself to be something utterly beyond her understanding already so many times today. What did she understand of him? None of them really did, did they? So what right did she have to try and tell him what to do? Faced with that, what _could_ she say?

Closing her mouth and looking down at Hoana, she sighed and deflated with defeat.

"That's that, then. Well, I'm sure if you entrust it to your wife, you can get decent enough conditions out of a deal like that," Emiya said with a nod. Turning to look at the obviously frustrated Miranda he shrugged. "There you have it. I've no need of your services at this time, Miranda."

Perhaps rebuffing her so quickly wasn't the best idea, but it was Hosin's decision in the end. And it wasn't like he had no cards left for placating her, so it was not as if he was leaving her desperate and out of options here. Stick and carrot, carrot and stick. Besides, this would work out even better for him.

"But, I'm sure Emiya Shirou would be interested in what you have to say." Miranda perked up at that, more confused than anything else. "Well, I have to go now. Goodbye, Roane, Hoana. Hosin, can you handle it from here?"

"Umm, buh bye, Saiga!" Hoana waved at him and he had to huff to repress the smile that it generated on his face.

"Ah, uh... Yeah?" Hosin answered, but as Emiya raised an eyebrow at the hesitant tone, the quarian nodded with more confidence. "Yeah. _Yeah_ , I think I've got it from here. Thanks for, well... Yeah. If you ever need anything, I'm sure you can find me."

Emiya nodded at that, then turned to look at Miranda. "It was nice seeing you again, Miranda."

And with that he simply astralized, disappearing from sight in plain view. The asari commandos who had been well beyond confused at the utter lack of tension all swiveled and began looking for him all around them. Expecting a short range Blink, they were left utterly lost as he failed to appear anywhere in the vicinity.

It was better if he left now.

His presence was drawing too much attention and conflict already. From now on, he doubted there would be any more calm days. Just staying on the move and doing his best from one struggle to another.

It felt almost nostalgic.

Jumping into Miranda's omnitool, Emiya sent her a message and disabled the silent mode she had it engaged on. At the soft chime, the dark haired woman was startled out of her confusion. Opening the omnitool, she blinked at the message displayed.

It was a set of coordinates on Thessia along with the words, ' _Chop chop, the clock is ticking._ '

She frowned, staring at the omnitool before shaking her head. Looking up at the confused and lost asari commandos, she barked a command. "We're leaving!"

"Huh?"

"What about them?"

She shook her head, not even bothering to consider trying to grab the family anymore as she with hurried steps made for the hovercraft they had arrived in. "Forget it, there's no time. Get in or I'll leave you behind!"

The three asari looked at each other, leaving Emiya tense for a moment as they gave a lingering look to the quarian and his family before grimacing and letting them go.

As the four hustled into the craft, Emiya jumped back out of the omnitool. Invisible, he gave Hosin, Roane and Hoana one last look before he stepped into the hovercraft that was taking off. He probably wouldn't see them ever again.

_Good luck Hosin._

* * *

;

* * *

Nihlus exhaled slowly.

These shifting lights, a pattern of swirling rainbow-hued aurora dancing in the sky, were beautiful despite how ill at ease they made him. He had been flying through it for a while now, taking samples and attempting to disperse it in various ways to allow visual surveillance of Thessia to resume. But so far he had little luck with it.

The origin of the lights, while something of a mystery, was also patently obvious. The orbital station was gone without a trace. Not even minor debris remained of KX-0331. No one could have survived whatever had happened to the station.

At least Thessia was alright, the comms notwithstanding. Not that the damage was insubstantial or anything; the repairs alone would cost millions, without even considering the losses to various businesses and public unrest from the lack of comms.

According to the reports that had been able to get through from the surface, it did not seem as if any major catastrophes or riots had occurred. Countless people had come out into the street to gawk at the strange phenomenon, but aside from that it seemed as if things were mostly fine.

For the moment at least.

 _Perhaps it could be explained as a rogue high-velocity comet on collision course with Thessia? A public statement explaining the lights in the sky and communications jam from unexpected radiation on impact with a new type of kinetic barrier?_ He shook his head.

There was plenty of time for excuses later, for now he had to —

" _Bau to Kryik, come in._ "

The Spectre flared his mandibles with irrational annoyance, his bird of prey instincts protesting at being broken out of his hunt. Shaking such petty emotions aside he returned the call to the STG ship.

"This is Kryik."

" _We've received an FTL communique that Councilor Tevos is arriving to Parnitha and that she is looking for Spectre Vasir, but she is still unreachable. Can you advise as to her possible current location?_ "

Nihlus paused, staring at the comm panel for a second in surprise. Why was the Asari Councilor here? This was still an active danger zone; all VIPs had been advised to remain out of the system since Hosin'Reegar had made his demands. And even before that, it had been made clear that Redhax might attempt to take a hostage to break out of the quarantine.

And again it was Tela Vasir—what was the asari Spectre doing and where in the spirits' name was she? He would make sure to report her utter disregard for the mission and Thessia's crisis once this was all finished and done with.

"Negative. Last communication was following meeting with the assembled Matriarchs. Why is the Councilor here? Wasn't she notified of the quarantine?"

It took a moment for his reply to arrive, during which time he began to fly lower and lower towards Thessia's surface.

" _I queried the Councilor but she deflected. She seems insistent on landing in Thessia as soon as she arrives,_ " Jondum said over the comms, somehow sounding both annoyed and defeated at the same time.

"Stall her as long as possible; we don't need this situation to get even more out of hand anymore. Failing that, send for all available units to be added to her security detail."

" _Understood._ "

"And get me in touch with Vasir, I need to figure out what's going on with Councilor Tevos and she's most likely to know."

" _So far she has remained out of contact, but I will put a priority notice through to all comms that come online. Shall we attempt an analysis on the results of your samples?_ "

"It seems benign enough. Let it wait for now, focus on restoring comms for now."

" _Roger. One last thing, the visual feed of the station being destroyed revealed something more under a more thorough inspection. I've forwarded the relevant data; it appears that the shuttle managed to escape before the explosion._ "

"Wait, which shuttle? The one Roane Lorrais used?" Nihlus opened the video file and noted the time-stamps marked for him. His mandibles flared as he leaned back in his chair, not certain what to make of the video. "It couldn't have escaped the blast that late; it would have been too close."

" _Indeed, but it may have well been able to land on Thessia nonetheless. A potential lead to follow up on, sir?_ "

Nihlus inhaled slowly, closing his eyes before he nodded. "Yes, I'll start on it immediately. See if you can get anyone else in the area to start looking for the shuttle. Once Thessian Airspace Control is back online, see about cordoning off the system."

" _Of course._ "

"Good, keep me posted. Nihlus out."

The call cut off and the turian exhaled as he returned his attention to Thessia. He had a shuttle to find.

The surface was closing fast as he began to make a circuit towards the rough center of the aurora. If he assumed the shuttle was on a rough parallel course with the falling orbital station, then he could cut down the amount of area he would need to search by quite a bit.

Of course finding a single shuttle on a planet would be nearly impossible, he would need to—

Nihlus blinked, pausing and slowing down the shuttle as he stared at the notice on his terminal. Someone was broadcasting on a radio frequency. Inhaling slowly, he patched a call through on the frequency on the broadcast.

"Spectre Nihlus Kryik speaking, who is this?" He asked, more suspicious than anything else. This was probably just a waste of time...

" _Ah, yes. Hello. This is Roane Lorrais... We never met, but you must know who I am._ "

Nihlus blinked, stunned despite himself. He stared at the terminal, before clearing his throat and answering.

"Yes. What is this about?"

" _My husband would like to turn himself in, and I've contacted you to facilitate that matter. Could we perhaps meet somewhere?_ "

"...Very well, forward me the coordinates and I'll be there," the turian managed to say, almost not believing what was happening. Even as he received the next reply, he was already sending a notice to Jondum Bau for backup.

Still, it seemed like things were finally starting to work out for them.

"I'll be there in three minutes."

* * *

;

* * *

Even before the hovercraft began to descend and look for a suitable place to land, Emiya jumped straight out and into the water.

He was running on fumes already, wasting no time as he dived right in and found his body. Ignoring the strange schools of fish that had gathered around the stone coffin, he let out an exhalation of relief as his spiritual core ceased leaking the moment he was back inside his body. Opening his eyes, he groaned at the headache that assaulted his senses. Trying to raise a hand to his temples, the hardsuit's helmet got in the way and the thunk of his gauntlet against the visor only made him feel even worse.

 _Right, won't be able to walk like this. I'll need to rely on Miranda, again._ Shaking his head, he glanced at the HUD read out for how the hardsuit was holding up. Power and oxygen was still fine, though his body was starving on top of everything else. As he jumped off the muddy sea-bottom and began to swim upwards, he focused on breathing and the sensation of his limbs.

Breaking the surface of the water, he spotted the asari commando who had been scanning the ocean. She jumped back, raising her rifle and shouting out for the others.

"There's someone here!"

Walking out of the water, he reached up to take off his helmet. The brightness of daylight would have been blinding even without the great dome of light in the distance. Shaking his head, he eyed the armed asari until Miranda arrived.

_Alright, she thinks I'm a different person. Act surprised but wary until she mentions me._

"Miss Lawson," he said as he blinked at her. "What are you doing here?"

She smirked then and he could see that she was far more comfortable dealing with him like this. Presumably believing that with comms down, she had an edge here.

"I heard you were in a tight spot and came to help, Shirou."

 _Well, that's a 180 of her earlier attitude. Is she taking a more cautious approach after what happened earlier?_ Shaking those thoughts out of his head, he nodded slowly.

"I see. Well, I wouldn't object to a ride to civilization."

Both of them ignored the asari commando who were completely baffled by their conversation. Boarding the hovercraft, they settled down by the back. The asari pilot gave him a once-over before scoffing at them as she took off, while the three asari commandos seemed almost unsure of whether they should be keeping their rifles aimed at him or collapsed on their backs.

Strictly speaking, judging on how they had handled the situation earlier, they were here to kidnap him. Or _him_ , whichever they could manage. And while he wasn't as vulnerable anymore, it was in his best interests to keep things from escalating for the moment.

"Where to?" The pilot asked.

"Ulee," Emiya immediately suggested before Miranda could say anything. "Tela Vasir was being directed by someone to kill a famous Matriarch's daughter and to frame me for it. I think there's something more going on there."

There was only so much room on the playing board, he reasoned. It was not as if someone capable of hacking the orbital station could simply appear out of nowhere. Even _he_ had left traces of himself as he acted. Thus, the mastermind had to be someone who was connected to the existing factions.

And his first lead at the moment was the mysterious man behind the scenes who had been directing Tela Vasir and that young Justicar he had killed.

He would entrust the rest to the turian Spectre and the STG for now. How they handled it would also be telling of their priorities and loyalties, if nothing else.

"As in Tela Vasir, the _Spectre_?" Miranda blinked, frowning at him as whatever she had been about to say was forgotten. As he nodded, she continued. "You're sure she wasn't acting on the Council's orders?"

"Yes; or at least the other Spectre knew nothing of her activities. I couldn't find any leads on her, but someone else who was acting as her backup had received instructions from a location in Ulee. The specifics don't matter, but she received a mail with a link that no longer works from a server."

"I see." Miranda nodded slowly, her face revealing nothing as she peered at him with suspicious eyes.

Well, even if she didn't take him to Ulee it was fine. As long as he got to a city, then he could find his way forward. Of course, losing her trail would be a pain, but—

"You heard him; to Ulee."

He blinked with some surprise, just as the four asari did.

 _She took the bait,_ he thought with an exhale of relief. While he wasn't entirely sure, he had the feeling there was something more going on than obvious on the surface. Something which an organization like Miranda's would be both aware of and interested in.

While the three commandos were baffled by this turn of events, the pilot only shrugged and took a heading.

The flight was quiet and more than a little awkward, but Emiya had no complaints. The downtime was giving him time to focus on his spiritual core and focus on planning ahead. The first thing he did was attempt to reach out with his cybernetics and get a handle on what was going on. But aside from the hovercraft itself and a few omnitools, hardsuits and guns, there wasn't anything for him to really connect to.

The Thessia local extranet was effectively down, leaving him just as uninformed and in the dark as the rest of the planet. Every once in a while he could sense another local short-range signal, before it would fade again with the hovercraft moving by. _I'll have to wait until we get to Ulee, then._

Which left him with plenty of time to worry about himself, then. As a Servant—as he had been in the Moon Cell and before he had been given his mission by Archimedes—he didn't normally have a 'material body' as such. Rather he existed as a spirit that could exert itself on the world akin to a poltergeist and materialize. This was possible due to the spiritual core keeping him together.

It was his heart and the container of his magical energy, the one thing that allowed him to exist. The boundary between the self and the outside that kept his mind and soul from fraying into nothingness.

And it was broken now. Or there was a crack in it, anyhow.

It was like an egg whose contents were already seeping out. It was only a matter of time before he vanished if he remained in such a state. Losing limbs and taking immense damage was trivial to a Servant as long as they had the magical energy to maintain their integrity, but the moment the spiritual core was damaged it was game over.

Emiya exhaled slowly, noting how it was somewhat stable now at least. Though with his other problems, it put a severe damper on what he could do. His physical body could supply enough pressure to keep him stable. Perhaps it would heal in time. Perhaps it wouldn't.

It was a crippling wound, anyhow.

He'd be stuck in his body for the foreseeable future.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he thought as he looked out through the side of the hovercraft, watching Thessia's landscapes rolling by. He would have done it again, in a heartbeat.

Of course, that was only the most recent of his problems. The buzzing headache at the edge of his consciousness that was threatening to knock him out the moment he lost focus; the numerous small glitches still in his cyberware; the ever-escalating situation with the authorities. There did not seem to be an end to his problems.

Slowly but surely, he was being cornered and running out of options. Somehow it felt nostalgic. Hadn't it been just like this, back then?

"Something on your mind?" Miranda asked, staring at Emiya with a raised eyebrow.

Broken out of his thoughts, he blinked as his face went carefully neutral. "Hmm?"

"You were staring at me. And smiling?" She half said, half asked.

He blinked again, clearing his throat after a second. "I was just thinking about something."

"Hmm..." She didn't pry deeper, inhaling slowly and crossing her arms as she leaned back to regard him coolly. Or rather, it felt like she was holding herself back. Once or twice, he caught her surreptitiously glancing at the asari commandos.

Arriving in Ulee, they headed for the outskirts of the city. Unlike Serrice and many of the other cities, Ulee did not hold its appearance in quite as high a regard. Thus there weren't nearly as many hidden underground parking halls and there certainly wasn't one here. There were dozens of skyscrapers and another dozen long warehouses, with large parking grounds sprawling the grounds between the various buildings here.

There was a continuous stream of asari walking to and fro, bustling between the various businesses and their parked vehicles. Coming and going in a steady stream of blues and purplish hues.

Finally as they found a free spot and landed Miranda addressed them, specifically eyeing two of the commandos. "You two; go and see what you can find out at the place. Do as thorough a search as you can, but do it quickly."

Emiya moved to stand up, intent on leaving the hovercraft, only to be forcefully pulled back down into his seat.

"And where do you think you're going?" She stared at him. "You do remember you are a wanted man, don't you? Besides, I still have questions for you."

He shrugged at that, settling back down into his seat.

"You two, go stand outside and keep watch. We don't want anyone nosing about and getting an eyeful." Miranda said, nodding at him meaningfully. The pilot and the last commando grumbled, getting out of the hovercraft all the same and leaving the two humans alone.

"Why are you still on Thessia?" She asked as soon as the asari were out of earshot.

He considered the question, trying to think of something to say. But even a second's hesitation proved too long, it seemed. She smirked, nodding her head.

"You're stuck here, then. Or at least waiting for your brother to show up. But he's too busy right now, isn't he?"

Emiya inhaled slowly. "Well, say I was. What of it?"

"Then I would suggest that we can help each other out. There is no reason for us to continue in such adversarial roles, Shirou. If you wish, I can arrange for a way off Thessia for you. I can _help_ you, we can help each other."

He said nothing, simply staring at her.

"Look at you. You're a mess, don't try to hide it. You're tired, beat and alone Shirou," she continued, leaning forward ever so slightly.

 _She must have realized that because I directed her to my body. She thinks we're essentially alone, then._ He sighed, noting that it was essentially true.

Interpreting his action as repressed frustration, she continued on a different tack.

" _Or_ , if you truly wish to leave on your own, go right ahead. I won't stop you," She said. The glimmer in her eye told her that she knew she had him, turning her words from fair to almost teasing.

He was wanted on all of Thessia. It was just a matter of time until trouble found him again if he tried to strike out on his own.

Sighing again, he crossed his arms. "And what do you want in exchange. Skip the ' _nothing, nothing_ '-assuring bit and just get to it."

"You're certainly direct. Well alright then; this does concern you after all more than it does _him,_ " Miranda said and nodded. "Do you remember how you escaped from Mars, years ago?"

Emiya blinked, his expectations entirely side-stepped. With a frown, he nodded. He felt like he was forgetting something here. Something that would change everything about the situation.

"My organization... _Cerberus_ , managed to obtain that skycar after you abandoned it." She paused, staring at him to see if anything she said was eliciting a reaction. "Our experts took it apart and tested the various components, hoping to understand how you managed to do what you did."

 _Ah. That was it_. He had been rather careless in merely thinking it would be enough to dispose of the skycar by flying it into the ocean. _It did cause a huge incident, but why would they be interested in the projected eezo? But wouldn't it all have vanished by now?_

Did they think it was possible to mass produce eezo? Perhaps to break away from dependence on existing sources? But that idea was flawed from the beginning, even disregarding his own output as a constraint. Regardless of how much of the matter he created, it would never managed to match that of dedicated mining operations. And unlike such operations that could continue pumping out material in perpetuity, he would eventually reach an equilibrium where what he created could only keep up with what was disappearing.

"I see that you know what we found, then. That makes this simpler." Miranda smiled, leaning back as clasped her hands on her lap. "What would it take for you to hand over the production method for creating artificial eezo."

"...What makes you think there is such a method?"

She scoffed, her long hair fluttering with the motion. "If it was a naturally forming substance, how would you have smuggled it onto Mars without any ever being found elsewhere? And so much of it? No. It is artificial in nature, I am sure of it."

"And what is your interest in it? Why so much effort for merely some eezo?"

Miranda stared at him, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. There was something about all of this that he was missing again. His projected eezo played a part in all of it, but he couldn't see how. _It must be related to what I did back when I got off Mars. Right?_

The only thing that came to mind immediately was how he had managed to disrupt Earth's airspace control with the projected static dump swords. The giant blades he had left behind and then dispelled, to manage the skycar's static build up. Something like that could be weaponized into large volume high-static zones to restrict mobility in space, couldn't it? Controlling the areas around a Mass Relay; limiting how fast ships could fly should be possible with something like that. _But that's not a property of the projected eezo, right?_

He was probably entirely off base. Without looking into it himself, he had no idea what they were thinking and why they would want the stuff.

"What do you know about element zero?" Miranda finally prompted, the calculating glimmer in her eyes receding.

"...The usual."

"So nothing, _really_." She nodded, stating it with no malice or mockery. "Much like everyone else in the galaxy. There are numerous theories that explain the many effects of eezo, but the fact of the matter is that no theory today can accurately model all the disparate parts of its function."

Her hair wavered as she shook her head with another scoff.

"One theory explains perfectly how mass effect fields may lighten and heaven objects, yet when that theory is observed more closely it fails to account for numerous other applications. The changing scale of observation alone disproves most theories regarding how eezo supposedly works."

Emiya frowned, not entirely unfamiliar with the issue she was talking about. He had looked into various eezo theories early on, only to find that many of them didn't quite accurately describe the various phenomena he had observed with eezo. There was a theory for starship eezo cores; there was a theory for biotics; there was a theory for artificially induced biotical abilities such as implants and eezo drugs and more. There was even a model to explain how biotic cooking worked.

And none of them quite fit with one another, even as they could explain their own niche of reality. Like puzzle pieces that made a picture that made sense but as a whole did not fit together at all.

It was somewhat reminiscent of the grand unified theory problem back in the 21st century, where the larger-scale theories of the known universe did not fit with the theories of the small-scale. He wasn't an expert on those subjects by any means, but the way he understood it, the general theory of relativity is utterly incompatible with any of the quantum theories. And that was even without bringing in the magical side of reality into the equation.

Apparently it had something to do with gravity and intersecting parallel realities, according to some magi. But he had never had any real interest in that subject.

 _And now they also have eezo to fit into the picture. And my projected eezo._ He almost felt guilty about it; throwing in completely contradictory pieces that could easily throw back scientists for decades like that.

"And this is where the exotic variant eezo comes in to the picture. Its effects are similar to regular eezo, yet pronounced in different ways. As a research material, its worth cannot be understated."

Emiya raised his brow, curious that she would be willing to admit how valuable a card he apparently held. Yet given that he was their only lead to the material, tempting him like that might be the best way she could think of to ensure success. _But it still doesn't explain why they're so desperate for it._

"Of course, beyond that it is nearly worthless. After all, what use is there in an eezo core that will vanish with use?"

Something about the way she said that piqued Emiya's attention, but there was still something missing. The something he was still missing was somehow related to his eezo disappearing, then? But what use could that possibly have? _Like... Making a gun and committing a crime with it, only for the eezo to vanish and thus turn the weapon useless and proving somehow that it couldn't have been used as a murder weapon?_

That was about the only thing he could think of, but it didn't seem enough. Besides, regular eezo also disappeared when it was used so he failed to see the point. Really, it was a shortcoming with his projection and nothing more.

Not that it mattered. There was no way for him to really divulge the method of creation for the eezo. Miranda was certain that she had him dead to rights; ' _he_ ' wouldn't have directed her to himself if ' _he_ ' had other options—or so she must have thought.

The side-door of the hovercraft opened then and one of the asari who had left to investigate stepped in. "The place was completely clean. Asked the neighboring businesses and checked the tapes, but aside from the three separate moving firms that brought in and plugged the gear, no one seems to have been in the rented locale."

Emiya didn't react, having confirmed much the same himself while he had been sitting in the hovercraft with Miranda.

"And what about the money trail?"

The commando shrugged. "Unmarked credit chit, apparently."

 _So essentially a dead end,_ he noted to himself.

"Hmm, I expected as much." Miranda scoffed, shaking her head as she leaned back and crossed her arms. "There has been a string of anti-human activities recently. Very public incidents pinned on human perpetrators, flaming of tension between humanity and the other races, business deals being called off inexplicably and the like..."

Sighing, she shook her head which made her long dark tresses of hair swaying and bobbing with the motion and drawing in the eye. Even the asari's eyes seemed glued to her as she raised a hand while continuing.

Noticing the asari, she offered a professional smile motioning for the commando to leave them. After they were alone again, her gaze returned to him.

"There's been no direct proof, but circumstantial evidence has linked to a certain commonality in all these incidents." Her cold eyes burrowed into his, narrowing ever so slightly at her next words. "How familiar are you with the Shadow Broker?"

Emiya frowned, his brows scrunching up.

He had run into the name before, but never before had he had a direct link to the entity. It seemed like after a number of minor operations had been burned by Emiya, the Broker had decided to change tack and avoid him altogether. While the somewhat legendary and infamous figure had his finger in many a pie, few of them were of real interest to Emiya. The mysterious entity was merely an information broker, and one who seemed to value the status quo above everything else.

Therefore he as ' _Redhax_ ' and the Shadow Broker had reached a sort of equilibrium, where neither bothered the other since their areas of interest simply did not seem to intersect.

"Five years ago, after your brother dealt our organization a rather crippling blow, we sought to reinvent ourselves. And in the process, we discovered how insidious the Broker's agents had been. All things considered, it turned out that one disaster might have helped avert another greater one down the line."

Emiya blinked, not having expected her to smile wryly at him at that comment.

"After dealing with them in our own organization, a great deal of effort has been dealt in combating similar subversive elements in the rest of human territories through various means. The results of which you have recently witnessed; the Citadel cybersecurity bill was a blow aimed directly at humanity's budding cyber-independence."

Emiya's brows rose up into his hairline at that statement. _Wait, wasn't it aimed specifically at me? Or... No, of course. Why aim such an overt move at merely one enemy when it could be poised at a whole slew of troublemakers._

"The death of a asari spiritual leader's daughter at the hands of a human would fit his MO so far," she concluded. "And you know what they say, don't you? ' _The enemy of my enemy_ '...?"

 _The Shadow Broker... What would he have to gain in destroying Thessia? No, no. The most likely scenario would have been that the Spectres managed to take a shot, which would prevent the worst of the damage._ It would have been a major catastrophe, one that would have affected millions of lives. _Does the Shadow Broker find Cerberus or humanity that worrisome?_

He didn't know the mysterious figure well enough to think that. But neither did he really trust Miranda completely on the matter. It seemed like the only option was to take her on her word for now and verify later himself.

 _Well, what's one more double-cross at this point?_ He sighed, before finally nodding.

"Alright, I'll show you how to make the eezo."

Miranda's smile was as bright as it was crooked; he could almost see the numerous small wheels turning in her head, thinking of how she should continue pressing him. How to ensure he kept his word, and did not change his mind after the fact.

As it was, this entire discussion had been a subtle power play. By keeping him in such a public place, hidden only by the darkened windows of the parked hovercraft, she was subtly enforcing how she was the only thing keeping him from being found. Or something to that effect, probably. In contrast to himself earlier where she had gone for overt force to quickly subdue him, she seemed to be working on a subtler tack now.

Too bad he meant his words entirely and utterly literally; he would show her exactly how he made his eezo once all was said and done. That, and nothing more.

"But only once I'm out of Parnitha."

"But of course." She nodded, not at all bothered by the condition. Letting in the other commandos and the pilot again, she said "Get us off Thessia and towards the rendezvous point by—"

"Actually, Matriarch Trellani wishes to see you. _Immediately_ ," the asari pilot said.

Miranda frowned, closing her mouth as she stared at the pilot for a second. "In Usaru? That will take at least half an hour. How did she even call you?"

"She's here, in Ulee."

Emiya said nothing, watching the curious byplay by the sidelines. It was obvious that Miranda wished to leave immediately, but that the asari commandos were adamant in obeying their actual boss.

Finally, she nodded. "Very well, then."

* * *

;

* * *

Tyra blearily opened her eyes.

Everything was dizzy and confusing; a runny oil painting of whites and brights, dancing shadows in front of her eyes and whispers behind her ears.

"Guh..."

She shook her head, feeling an extreme lethargy still hanging over her mind even as her sight grew clear enough to make sense of. She was lying in a bed, in a featureless room with white walls and ceiling. Looking around, she spotted another bed next to her, with Liara lying there.

Their eyes met.

Both blinked, more surprised than anything else.

"Huh."

"Nn."

"...Where are we?"

Tyra shrugged, looking around as she tried to sit up in the bed. There was a window, but it could not be opened and she recognized it as ballistic glass, the kind of material sufficient to defend from most small arms. _How do I know that...?_

Shaking her head, she noted that the door was closed and that Baliya was nowhere to be seen. Or that commando Liara had recognized earlier. Or Tela Vasir. _Well, she's dead so that only makes sense._

And suddenly she realized what she had done. Nausea welled up, but she held it down as she closed her eyes and balled her fists.

It wasn't the deed that managed to unsettle her so much, not by itself. It was do or die, she understood as much. It was the hot blood, pouring onto her. The stiff body relaxing as it died on top of her. The fading mind's horror and panic as it slipped away...

Tyra raised a hand to her mouth, fighting back the sickness.

"This... Is a hospital, isn't it?" Liara quietly noted as she looked around. "Then, we are safe now?"

"I... guess," Tyra responded. "But where are the rest...?"

Liara had no answers, no doubt wondering much the same.

The door opened and someone walked in, surprising both of the Maidens. They blinked at the stern and stone-faced Matriarch, wearing a hardsuit and armed with a pistol on her hip. The two exchanged glances, completely at a loss.

"My name is Okama, a servant of the Justicar Code."

The two Maidens immediately perked up, both equally wide-eyed and surprised.

"Ah, uh..."

"Right, uh, is this about... Saiga again?" Tyra asked.

The insusceptible Justicar said nothing, merely walking closer until she stood between the two beds. "For now, I wish for both of you to recount what has happened in the last week. Do not lie, for I shall know it."

They hesitated for a second, before Liara began to recount her first meeting with Saiga, only to realize it had been Tyra who had actually first met him, causing some confusion as they fumbled with who should tell what.

Moving on to the dinner he had made, and finally how they had gone to his apartment the first time, they explained the events that already seemed like they had occurred years ago by now. The Justicar said nothing, merely listening and motioning for them to continue as she nodded on occasion. Even as they explained meeting Tela Vasir and the subsequent days under her watch, followed by the arrangement to head for his house at a seeming whim, the Matriarch said nothing. Finally when they began to describe how Saiga handled the situation, his various idiosyncrasies and hidden weapons, did the Justicar show a reaction. It was almost as if she was confirming something to herself, nodding almost instinctively to the words she was being told.

Tyra hesitated a moment as Liara explained Saiga leaving them behind, but decided that perhaps there was no need to reveal her gaffe. It wasn't _that_ important, right?

Except...

 _What if he's dead?_ What if he hadn't been able to survive the encounter? He was a human; Tela Vasir had been a Matron and she hadn't been able to resist the intensity for long. _But hadn't he seemed just fine, though?_

Regardless, by the time she managed to shake herself free of her own confused thoughts, the timing for sharing that tidbit had already passed.

It was only when they got to the part concerning their escape from Tela Vasir in the museum that she began to ask them questions.

"Are you certain those were her exact words?"

Liara hesitated. "Umm, not verbatim... But...Yeah?"

The Justicar nodded, letting them continue until the fight was about to break out in their telling, at which point she raised hand to silence them.

"Will you agree to a meld, to verify the truthfulness of your statement?"

"Umm, that is..." Liara was obviously hesitant.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Tyra refused, causing her roommate to blink and stare at her in surprise.

The Justicar's eyes narrowed and Tyra felt like she was being weighed down by a biotic field due to the intensity behind those eyes alone.

She hesitated only for a moment, before exhaling and revealing it all. "I—I think that would be a really bad idea... I don't think it would be a good idea for you to meld with me. Or... Or anyone, really."

She looked down at her hands, scrunching up the blanket with her fingers as she realized she was scared. Scared of what she was becoming; what she might have done; what might happen to her. It was all threatening to overwhelm her.

"I am surprised you admitted it so easily. Very well, you are both innocent enough in all this, it seems."

"Huh? What?" Liara asked as Tyra looked up, wide-eyed.

The door opened again and in hobbled Baliya, relying in a crutch to keep off her other leg. She smiled and nodded at the two wide-eyed maidens.

"Huh? Huh?"

"Matriarch Baliya woke some hour before either of you and managed to prove your innocence for the most part in what has transpired," the Justicar explained, as stoic as she had been the whole time until now.

"I figured a recording might help out if we managed to survive Vasir's wrath, and what do you know, it did..." The curator chuckled easily.

"But, but I thought the museum was locked down, and that you couldn't access its systems?"

Baliya shrugged. "And I couldn't. But, well. Any good archaeologist always brings along everything they need for taking notes and recordings. My omnitool managed to record the whole thing from start to finish."

Liara's mouth hung open as she blinked, while Tyra swallowed as she realized that the Justicar had been attempting to see if she would attempt to lie her way out of this. A glance at the Justicar was enough to confirm her thoughts as the Matriarch's eyes hadn't left her form once, boring into her with unwavering steadiness. She flinched, looking away.

Noting that with cool indifference, Okama turned to look at Liara instead.

"For now, it has become apparent that you are mostly innocent in all this. Liara T'Soni, you are to remain here until the various authorities have interviewed you and see fit to release you. The Sisterhood of Justicars has no outstanding issue with you." The Justicar paused, looking back at Tyra. "Tyra T'Sanis, you however will be placed under custody and transported to a monastery where you shall remain in seclusion until the Matriarchs there deem otherwise."

Tyra felt the world crumble away beneath her, but managed to steady herself by holding onto the bed for support. She blinked, not quite understanding what she had just heard.

"What? What do you mean? She hasn't done anything wrong, she's—" Liara however immediately leaped to her defense, shocking Tyra with the vigor with she was staring down with the apathetic Justicar.

It was Baliya however who spoke next. "It's for her own good, Liara. Tyra, you understand, don't you? How dangerous your condition is?"

"I—" She tried to say something, anything. But the thought of being locked away in some distant corner of the galaxy, trapped and hidden away...

It terrified her.

"Condition?"

"Yes." The Justicar finally answered again. "But I suspect it will not be a very long stay. Your condition is quite severe, but not one that requires more... _permanent_ solutions."

Tyra shivered at that, even as she felt hope and relief welling up in her chest at the realization of those words. "It's... It's that ' _ardat yakshi_ ' thing, isn't it?"

"Yes. You must have gleaned it from Tela Vasir's mind, no?" The Justicar spoke and continued without waiting for a reply. "Tyra T'Sanis; during your stay in the monastery you will be taught about your condition and how to handle it, assuming you do not prove a danger to society at large. But for the sake of Liara T'Soni, I shall explain it here and now in broad terms for your benefit."

Liara blinked before she nodded once, glancing at Tyra out of the corner of her eye.

"Among asari there exists a genetic condition that causes severe side-effects to occur while melding with another. At their most severe, these effects will effectively always kill the other partner in the meld, overloading their nervous system and ending their life before the meld is ended. This condition has never been common due to the obvious limits it places on reproduction, but it has nonetheless been seemingly always present among asari in one way or another.

"The term most commonly used today to refer to it is that of an 'Ardat Yakshi', referring to an old dialect and meaning ' _demon of the night wind_ '."

"But, I thought those were merely myths; bedtime stories and folk tales to scare children with?" Liara cut in.

"Indeed, that is the result of several thousand years of propaganda to hide this condition," the Justicar spoke with candor, causing all three in the room to mentally stumble over the sentence.

"Excuse me, what?"

"When it was discovered that when melding and creating offspring with members of the other races the likelihood of an Ardat Yakshi being born sank, the Matriarchs of the time decided that as a whole all of asari ought to stray away from marrying their own kind."

"Wait, wait... Are you saying that the prejudice against purebloods is because of some, some genetic disease?" Liara was shouting now, having stood out of her bed and getting right in the Justicar's face.

"Yes."

She stepped back, blinking as if she been struck by those words. Her eyes sought Tyra's and for a moment as their eyes locked, there was a wisp of something behind those eyes. Of old pain and anger. But then it was gone as Liara sat down on her bed once more.

"But, but Tyra isn't a pureblood. How come..." She motioned with her hand, trying put her jumbled thoughts into proper words.

"We do not know. Perhaps the systematic outbreeding has not been going on long enough, given how long lived asari are. Perhaps there is more to the matter than just genetics. There are theories that it might be a epigenetically triggered condition instead; something in the environment triggering a change in an adolescent asari. And since the first and only sign of the condition is upon the first meld, it is nearly impossible to pare down possible causes. Regardless, it is a matter that must be handled with extreme care."

"How bad is it?" Tyra finally asked, looking up. "My case, I mean...?"

"You appear to be a borderline case. There are only a handful of 'true' Ardat Yakshi, with most only causing varying levels of discomfort and pain to their partners and no permanent damage. But you will have to wait until the monastery to know for certain. I am only an expert in finding your kind."

Tyra nodded, breaking eye contact with the Justicar as she felt some hidden intent behind those words. Almost a warning, even. _Do not give her cause to hunt me down, is that what she's trying to say?_

There was a long silence, as all present simply digested what had been explained.

Finally, Baliya broke the silence. "Well, I have to go. I've been trying to get into contact with Tevos to get everything sorted out. Liara, did you hide the gun somewhere during the fight? The Serrice Guard haven't been able to find it yet."

"Huh? No, it was... Umm, it must have fallen at some point..."

Baliya blinked.

"Huh. Did he take it when he—no, never mind it's nothing. It doesn't matter, they'll find it I'm sure." Heading for the door, she nodded and left.

Leaving the three asari in an awkward silence. The two Maidens glanced at the Matriarch, not entirely sure what was going on.

"Was there something more...?" Liara hesitantly asked finally.

"...For reasons that you do not need to be concerned about, it has been decided that you two will require an armed guard for the time being. That is all there is to it." Justicar spoke with a tone of almost anger, which only served to further dampen the mood.

"Ah, I see..." Liara nodded. "Umm, would you happen to know what happened to the fourth asari who was with us? She is a commando by the name of Shiawe and—"

"She is in another room," the Justicar answered curtly.

Liara closed her mouth with an audible click of her teeth and nodded.

Suddenly the Justicar looked up to the door, obviously noting something even if she wasn't quite surprised or wary about it. A second later the door slammed open as someone rushed inside.

"Where is Liara! Is she alright!" A Matriarch shouted as she barged in, a nurse holding onto each of her arms and trying to keep her from running inside in vain.

"Ah... Yes?" Liara blanked, staring at the complete stranger.

Their eyes met and suddenly there was another layer of awkwardness in the room. The Matriarch blinked, licking her lips and then suddenly declaring. "Ah...Wrong room—no, wrong hospital!"

As she turned around and marched right out on stiff legs.

The two Maidens blinked, utterly at a loss as to what had just happened. They looked at each other, asking silently whether the other recognized the stranger, but neither admitted to such an acquaintance. Suddenly they realized someone was chuckling. Tyra and Liara both stared at the Justicar who had for the first time cracked a smile as she shook her head.

"Little Aethyta hasn't changed a bit, has she?"

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya blinked as he stepped out of the hovercraft.

It was a walled garden, lush and perfectly maintained. Some of the flowers and trees here were probably worth more than the hovercraft he had just stepped out of. And up ahead lay a palace so opulent as to shoot straight past being merely extravagant into territories obscene. Looking around, he figured they were to the east of Ulee proper. Not that far away, but enough that the sounds of the city had muted into a distant and indistinct murmur.

 _Right. Matriarch Trellani,_ he reminded himself.

Having finally gotten something to work with in terms of his cybernetics, he familiarized himself with the asari into whose abode he had stepped into. It took a certain kind of person to work with Cerberus and his expectations were quickly proven true as he went through some of the more recent activities of Trellani.

Outwardly she was an outstanding and metropolitan patron of the arts, whose holdings in the industrial sector were enough to allow her to patronize— _matronize?_ —some of the biggest names in music, vid and literature when it came to Thessia. But once you scratched the surface, a history of blackmail and industrial espionage revealed itself. More than half of her famed artists had been poached through various means, ranging from honeypots to substance addictions of all types.

And beneath _that_ lay an extensive and deep connection with the Eclipse sisters, one of the premier mercenary outfits in the galaxy. Glancing at the two commandos escorting him, he noted their connection to that organization some two decades prior. They were stone-cold killers.

He was broken out of his thoughts as the dancing troupe of scantily-clad asari greeted him the moment he entered the palace proper. Sashes of a silk only available on Sur'kesh and smelling of scents only available through batarians, the sheer face value of this welcoming committee dwarfed anything he had seen before.

Glancing to his side, he noted the annoyance on Miranda's face and figured she must have been already through this spiel once before.

Ahead at the end of a hall stood an elegantly dressed Matriarch, whose entire appearance was crafted in such a way that the rest of the hallway would inevitably draw the eye to her and her alone. _That, or the dancers and hall are all coordinated to match whatever dress she decides to wear._

She clapped once and all movements ceased, the dancers falling gracefully down and disappearing beneath their dancing silks and sashes, creating a winding path that drew the eye up to the Matriarch.

"Greetings, I am Trellani and I welcome you to my humble abode, Fujimura Saiga. Though I would have wished to greet you in Usaru, I hope this affair stands acceptable," she began and paused for effect. "Consider everything you see around you my treat to you. Be it food, drink or something... _more exotic,_ do not hesitate. It has all been brought out just for _you_."

He cleared his throat before answering. "Thank you, your welcome does me honor, Matriarch Trellani."

"Shall we head for the dining room and partake in the feast that has been prepared for your arrival?" She continued, motioning for them to follow her deeper into her palace.

Beside him, he could see Miranda frowning in the corner of his vision. Obviously she was not happy with this arrangement, but it appeared that neither did she wish to object outright. _So the alliance is tenuous at best, then._

"Lead the way," she said through a put-upon smile that barely veiled her annoyance.

Walking through the hallways overflowing with art pieces and various works, Emiya was even fairly surprised to spot a genuine i'usushij in a display case along the way to the dining hall. He would have liked to take a closer look, but it wasn't the time. Overall it seemed as if the Matriarch had gone to great lengths to line up the route they took with dazzling pieces and staggering works of all sorts. There was not even a hint of restraint to be seen anywhere.

Arriving in another spacious hall with the already somewhat familiar brazier and arranged dishes all over the middle of the room, he spotted another quartet of dancers sashaying among the various ingredients and spices arrayed on the floor. Just like with Benezia, back on the ship. Only the amount and variety of foodstuffs on display absolutely dwarfed the first display of biotic cooking he had witnessed. Just the amount of spices and herbs available made him almost dizzy from the smell—though how much of that was due to his lingering condition he didn't know.

Somehow the lack of windows and natural lights made him feel queasy, where with Matriarch Benezia it had managed to set a mood.

He realized right about then that he hadn't eaten in hours—probably days counting the time out of body—and that his body was screaming for nutrition and energy. Not just due to the exertion and strain he had put himself through, but also due to his body struggling to keep up with the demands on his life energy that his spiritual core was making. And his cybernetics were energy hogs in their own way as well...

_I really shouldn't have put off self-maintenance for so long..._

"Matriarch Trellani, is this really the time? We are on a rather tight schedule, and..." Miranda finally protested as she realized that the asari truly intended to throw an absolutely massive feast just for them.

Trellani spoke unhurriedly, gesturing at Miranda as she did. "What hurry is there? Especially without your companions?"

Emiya blinked, glancing at Miranda who was reigning in her annoyance with an almost admirable alacrity. "Their presence is irrelevant, your guards proved sufficient guides and I can handle it from here."

"Oh, then you intend to leave Parnitha? I'm afraid the Asari Councilor Tevos has arrived with much of the asari fleet stationed at the Citadel as her honor guard. There is no way to leave Thessia now," Trellani said before she smiled, spreading her arms in a welcoming manner. "Let us not make haste in waste, but sit down and consider matters with the proper time and care they deserve instead. Come, sit, eat, drink and rest."

Miranda blinked, glancing at Emiya as she frowned. This revelation was obviously not to her liking.

 _Well, it seems like I'll have to figure my way out on my own then. With communications down, then my best bet is probably that ship, then..._ His stomach chose just then to growl, causing the two women in the middle of their powerplay to pause and glance at him.

Even the dancing biotic chefs' looked slightly surprised.

Shrugging, he sat down and looked up. "Well, I'll eat at least."

The Matriarch looked torn between being offended at the breach of etiquette and pleased that she was getting her way, finally choosing a false smile as she nodded for the cooks to prepare something. He was certain their skills were first-rate, but he had no attention for anything beyond the food placed before him right then.

Not having recognized any of the ingredients or dishes presented to him, he did cursory checks to figure out what he was being given. It wasn't as if he could use Structural Analysis on food, or anything. Somewhere around the third portion he realized that Miranda had sat down as well, looking at nothing as she seemed deep in thought.

No doubt she was trying to figure out how to get them off-world and to the Mass Relay at the edge of the star system. Well, he wasn't too worried. Tela Vasir's starship was still parked in Serrice, sitting in lockdown and without an owner, with a large enough eezo core and fusion reactor to make a run for the Relay. Without any FTL communications or faster ships to outrun it, he should be able to get out if it came down to a race to the relay.

And then what?

He paused. _What should I do right now?_

Liara and Baliya were handling the Mars ruins now, which meant there was little point in him wasting time with it. Hosin would be working with the STG and hopefully convincing them of the truth behind the orbital station's crashing.

Therefore, he should...

 _Look for the Shadow Broker, then?_ He frowned. _No, I still don't know if it was the Broker who did it. And it can wait for now since everything seems to have ended well enough. I should instead continue tracking down Henell; she might still be alive and she'll be able to help Baliya._

Nodding to himself, he decided on his general course of action.

It would also get him far away from everything, allowing tensions to cool down after everything that had happened. If he simply left for another system and was discovered, he felt fairly certain the situation would immediately explode out of hand.

Beside him, Miranda and Trellani were discussing plans to get him off-world. But to him it seemed as if the Matriarch was unwilling to act, hesitant at being noticed even in all the chaos that currently reigned on Thessia.

"No, I am afraid that is impossible. With everything that has happened, all flight off of Thessia has been banned. The Council of Matriarchs agreed that it was necessary, given everything that has happened," Trellani said and glanced at him. "I would have objected if I believed it could have helped of course, but it would have done us no good. You must understand."

"Then what do you suggest? That we stay here until they leave?" Miranda asked, obviously only holding onto her temper by a thread at this point. "That could take weeks. Months, even."

Having noticed that he had finally looked up, the Matriarch smiled pleasantly at him as she ignored Miranda.

"I trust that the fare is to your liking?" She inquired.

"It's quite good," he noted, before amending his opinion slightly. "Not as good as Matriarch Benezia's, but quite good nonetheless."

He could make better.

Definitely—there was a taste that was throwing the whole out of balance. Even he, despite never having tasted any of the dishes before could tell that much. But he dismissed it as he simply focused on filling his stomach, which slowly began to settle down.

"I am glad," Trellani said with a another smile that managed to hide the twitch at the other Matriarch's mention quite well. There was a glint of something in his eyes and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

 _Something is wrong,_ he realized then.

Emiya paused, raising a hand and blinking at it. It's outline was hazy and almost bending in his vision. _Huh. I'm being drugged again._ Which was about when his face hit the table in front of him, barely missing the plate that had been in front of him. _Really should have seen that one coming._

It was the fact that the food was being prepared before him and that they were all eating essentially the same foodstuffs that had lowered his guard; neither of the others had shown any symptoms. He had certainly gotten himself into another troublesome situation again, in trusting Miranda's word as being the word of her allies as well.

And with his spiritual core the way it was, simply hopping out wasn't an option.

"Huh?" Miranda perked up, finally noticing what had happened. "Shirou?"

"Finally. Goddess, but does he put it away," the Matriarch said and sighed. "Any more and I would name him an _elcor_ on two feet."

"Madam, it was a six-stage dose; it could not have worked before he had consumed all of the dishes. It only took so long as we had prepared the last dose in the dessert, which he declined. I had to re-dose one of the other dishes. Apologies for the unforeseen delay," one of the chefs defended their work, by which the Matriarch seemed slightly more satisfied.

"I see, that does explain it."

Miranda stood up abruptly then. "What is the meaning of this, Trellani?"

"I should be the one asking _you_ that, _Operative Lawson_. Did I not make it clear that none of your actions could be traced back to me?" The Matriarch answered Miranda's accusatory tone with one of her own. Even in his unconscious state Emiya could feel the flare of biotics.

"...The quarian?"

" _Yes the quarian,_ you fool! You just let them go! Right back into the Spectre's waiting arms!? Goddess! What were you thinking? If they investigate it will lead them right to me!" Trellani exploded and Emiya could hear the table being slammed so hard several platters and utensils clattered from the impact. There was a loud exhale, though he couldn't tell who it was. "Well, no matter. He is here now and it will be fine. You should be glad that your subordinates aren't nearly so incompetent, else-wise I would not have hesitated to cut this little alliance short."

"What?"

He could almost hear Miranda's teeth grinding, no he actually could now that he focused. This was certainly an interesting turn. That, and annoying. _Well, my cybernetics still work. Guess it's time to call in the ride and get out of here._

"To think so many faced such trouble with this little man. Well, the Ulee police will be here to take him away shortly. Overall, this day has shaped out to be rather productive. With so many Matriarchs disgraced and my catching of this most heinous of criminals, it would seem my star is only beginning its ascendancy..." She laughed as she continued talking, either unaware or uncaring of the annoyance Miranda was exuding.

 _She must be having an interesting conflict of interests now._ Well, that was none of his concern right now. Instead he focused on trying to figure out what he had just eaten. He had given everything a cursory scan and had watched the cooking process out of the corner of his eye, but he hadn't managed to catch anything. That was probably another dimension of biotic cooking he hadn't even considered yet; the ease with which any number of substances might be included and mixed right under the victims nose. It was probably some form of compound substance that only took effect when digested all at once.

Miranda seemed unaffected despite having partaken in the cooking, for starters.

"That is not acceptable," she finally said and the silence was deafening in response as she continued. "The Illusive Man will not agree to this."

"... _What_?" Trellani's voice was much acid as it was a question when she finally spoke.

"He's a priority VIP that I need to get off Thessia. I can't let him be caught here."

The silence stretched, until finally Trellani sighed. "Fine."

He could hear her walking away as Miranda let out a quiet, relieved sigh of her own.

"I'll just have to figure what to tell him later, then. _Kill her_."

 _Oh, shit,_ he had time to think as he reached out and acted.

Four asari guards who had been hiding in the periphery of the room stepped out, pulling out their guns at the same time as the chefs who had been standing on the opposite side of the room readied their biotics.

Miranda reached for her pistol and her own biotics instantly as she realized what was happening, but she also realized that she was outnumbered and outgunned. "Trellani!"

She must have known she wasn't going to get out of this alive as she took aim at the Matriarch's back. The eldest in the room cared naught, trusting her biotic barrier to protect her as she walked away.

Triggers were pulled.

But only a single shot fired as the lights went out. Miranda blinked, realizing that she was still alive in the darkness. A second later she realized the beeping alarm sounds all around here were from the overheating warnings in the various guns of the armed asari around her. Then an omnitool lit up in the darkness, only bright enough to light up the outline of the surprised owner.

"What the—"

Miranda didn't hesitate to put six rounds into the asari as she dodged for cover in the darkness, cursing as she banged her knee into a chair on the way.

"Get the lights back on!"

"What's going on?"

The asari around them were all shouting, confusion and hesitation plain to hear. At the same time, Trellani was roaring for them to get Miranda before she escaped.

Through all this, Emiya let out a mental sigh of relief. _That was a close one._

Turning his focus back to his own body, he tried to force himself back awake but to little luck. But he did still have control over some functions of his body, like the gag reflex.

Flipping the mental switches and forcefully pushing the change through, his body convulsed once and then he heaved out the contents of his stomach. _That should quicken my recovery. As long as I don't choke on my own puke, at least..._

Noting that one asari had turned her back to Miranda while being in the human's line of sight, he turned on her omnitool as well and giving Miranda just enough light to gun her down as well. And just when the last bullet broke the biotic barrier, he turned off the omnitool to deny Miranda her guiding light as he set the hardsuit to plug the downed asari's wounds without patching her up enough to be in fighting order any time soon.

Patching through Miranda's omnitool at a low enough volume to not surprise her, he scoffed. " _You certainly know how to pick them._ "

"Emiya...!" She grit her teeth, uttering his name like the foulest curse. "This is all your fault, you son of a bitch! You're the one who blabbed Trellani's name!"

" _Hey now, don't blame me on her sordid affairs and paranoia._ "

"You... Did you plan this from the beginning? Sending me after your brother?!" She hissed a little too loudly, causing a nearby asari in the dark to turn her way.

The asari peered into the darkness, certain that she had heard something. Mere meters and moments away from stumbling upon Miranda. So he took the audioclip and played it on another asari's omnitool, behind the one who had heard Miranda.

" _This is all your fault, you son of a bitch!_ " Echoed loudly and a second later three asari had shot the surprised commando with enough shaved iron to cause acute poisoning, including the one who had nearly stumbled upon Miranda.

_Close one._

"What the...?" Miranda whispered heatedly, realizing what had just happened.

" _You might want to grab my bo—_ rother _now and head for the exit. I'll guide you,_ " he said hoping that she did not notice his hasty correction mid-sentence.

Whether Miranda noticed or not, she listened to his quiet orders and grabbed his unconscious body. Stopping and moving as he told her, he freely used his connection to everything around him to guide them out while numerous asari shouted and ran around like headless chicken.

"What does he _eat_ , he's so much heavier than he looks..." Miranda complained, despite the mass lightening field she had used on him.

" _Down the hall and hug the wall_ ," he instructed while ignoring her muttered complaints. " _Wait four seconds, until they pass by. Then continue—_ "

But she interrupted him. "No, I'm not going anywhere. We're staying here until you tell me what the hell you're doing! Why put your brother in danger like this?"

He paused, trying to think of something. It wasn't like he had had a plan since arriving here. Not like she was imagining, anyhow.

"So, you're really..." She shook her head and then instantly pulled her gun to aim at him, pulling the trigger. The gun that had been working perfectly fine until now overheated instantly, failing to fire as expected. "You're really here."

As she started looking around, ignoring her pistol he felt a cold shiver run down his back. She had been aiming for his head, too. _I'd forgotten how intense she could be._

"Show yourself! Emiya!" She was shouting now, too incensed to care about being discovered by the asari all around them.

" _If you're just about done with that, then continue to the left,_ " he coolly continued.

"Emiya! I know you're here! There's no way you'd let him get into a dangerous situation like this without being here yourself! I don't know how—but you did it on that starliner, five years ago! So show yourself!"

" _Unfortunately, that's not possible. As for Trellani,_ " Emiya paused, grasping for words.

He had made a mistake, not having understood how careful Trellani was. He hadn't even been aware of the Matriarch in any meaningful capacity before Miranda had showed up. But this wasn't the kind of relationship where honesty would be worth a damn. If he gave her an inch, she would no doubt take all the miles she could.

So he had to fib and put the blame on her.

" _I had expected you to take the opportunity as it presented itself, but you disappoint me,_ " he fibbed with words as vague as possible.

Miranda paused, obviously not having expected his tone. "What? But...?"

" _It doesn't matter anymore, just get a move on,_ " he urged.

"...Fine. But this isn't over, _Emiya_." Without further grumbling she holstered here pistol and moved to pick his body up again. Following his instructions, they ran down hallways and hid around corners as more and more asari were pouring in through the various exits. "Wait, are we heading for the landing pad we arrived through?"

" _Yes. I imagine your plans have taken a sudden change with Trellani's change of heart, so I took the liberty of drawing a plan for getting off Thessia._ "

"You have a ship?" She asked with a startle.

" _Yes,"_ he said and checked his progress. So far, no good. _"But it's not in Ulee and it'll take a few minutes to get it in the air._ "

She said nothing, probably merely nodding at his words while re-evaluating their positions. With the loss of her allies, she no longer had a position of strength to negotiate with. But on the other hand, with his body unconscious he needed her to keep him safe for now. Thus he had to make sure she didn't try to take him hostage against himself, or decide that she had to give up his unconscious body.

Therefore he had to give her enough rope that she felt she could still hang him without having to let go herself.

" _I assume you have measures in place to get through the blockade by the Mass Relay,_ " he spoke as he focused on trying to get a connection to Tela Vasir's starship.

Finding a connection to Thessia had taken a while, but he had managed as some of the major connections were already getting back online. However, getting around the starship's lockdown continued to be an issue. It was sitting behind the museum, powered down and locked without Tela Vasir's authorization to get it moved. Despite his best attempts, it wasn't responding to anything he could do from here.

Which meant he had to actually dive into the route he had managed to find and then in his spiritual body dive into the ship's computer to manage it. But could his spiritual core handle that now? He might vanish the instant he stepped out of his body, regardless of whether it was in cyberspace or meatspace.

"Yes," Miranda answered. "Of course we came prepared. Once we pass through the relay, I have a signal that will let us pass through. But it won't be any good if we can't get to the relay itself first."

" _Leave that to me. For now, I have to attend to something else. Be right back,_ " he said as he decided that there was nothing to it but simply doing it.

"Wait, what did you mean by disappoi—"

Whatever she had meant to ask him was cut off as he jumped out of his body, diving through his cybernetic implants. He had calculated the most direct route to Serrice, no simple feat given the sporadic communications coverage Thessia supported right now. He could feel the seconds shaving away at his life, the clock ticking on his existence as he popped out into the real world back in the University of Serrice's Museum. Leaping through walls and then the hull of the ship, he dived right into the ship's computer.

 _Yeah, the comms are fried and there wouldn't have been any other way in,_ he noted as he fired up the engines and set the autopilot for his actual location. A third of a second later he phased down through the floor of the ascending ship and leaped right back into the museum, intent on heading back to Ulee. All in all, it couldn't have taken more than twenty seconds.

Yet as he fell back into his body, it was pure exhaustion that overtook him. He was dry; completely and utterly empty now. A handful of seconds more and he would have vanished completely. _Need to be more careful with leaving my body, huh_.

Focusing inward, he tried to wake up but to no avail. Giving up, he instead focused on his external senses. Dismissing the notices of the cyber-bill signal as he couldn't do anything about the spreading signal anymore, he connected to the surrounding omnitools and security system again. As long as he wasn't here once it reached anyone then it was fine.

" _The ship is on its way, it will be here in fifteen minutes. Head for the landing pad outside._ "

"Huh? Right," Miranda blinked, as if she had been so deep in thought that she had utterly forgotten about him. Grabbing his body again, she moved out.

* * *

;

* * *

Baliya sighed as she stared out of the window of her room.

Nominally she was a patient, merely assigned to a private room, but in practice she was still being kept under watch. She had managed to clear most of the problems with the video she had had the foresight to put into recording, but there was still so much more to be handled that it felt overwhelming.

Not least of which was the realization that _Fujimura_ had come back to save them.

She had realized early on that there was more to the man than met the eye, but she hadn't thought much of it at the time. He was a good-natured and honest man—if a bit clumsy and thoughtless at times, and stubborn and headstrong to a fault—thus she hadn't had many worries. Humanity's history was as short as it was tumultuous, so she was certain he was a veteran of some such or other bloody conflict. A man tired of war, seeking respite in a distant land where nothing would remind him of the past. Asari Matrons had a tendency to settle down in places they hadn't visited much in their youths, especially those who had seen much conflict, she knew.

It made sense to her, that he had merely wanted a fresh start.

Of course, as it had turned out he was something much, much different.

Fujimura Saiga was a man who had brought all of Thessia to a standstill at the revelation of his true nature. Even now she could see the throngs of asari just outside still gawking at the horizon, could see the burnished golden seven-armed spiral in sky. He was someone who would without hesitation take on everything the galaxy could throw at him and not even blink as he accepted the challenge.

But that didn't change who he fundamentally was.

A good-natured and honest man.

So she had put a priority call through to Tevos. She needed to explain that, before things well and truly went out of hand. He had no malice, yet he would refuse to give up until the bitter end. _His_ bitter end, specifically. Because he was a stubborn and pig-headed fool of a man, who wouldn't blink even if the rest of the galaxy tried to stand in his way.

Baliya sighed again, rubbing her head.

"Tevos, where are you..."

As long as she could get those two to sit down and simply talk, she was certain that it would all work out. He was circumspect and had an annoying fondness for misdirections and half-truths if he thought it necessary or expedient, but if pressed he would not lie. Not to those whom he respected and liked.

"And how am I going to make that happen? Simply message him and tell him to come for a talk? Start a social media campaign?" She shook her head, chortling at a strange thought.

If she told him the water boiler for her coffee broke again, could she and Tevos ambush him when he came to fix it?

Somehow, she couldn't deny the possibility.

"No, I should ask those two. I may have known him for longer, but they would know," she mused out aloud. Those two were at a more sensitive and curious age, after all. They reminded her of a young Henell, the two of them.

Young T'Soni with her shy, asocial stubbornness, born of as much her pureblood heritage as their obsession with the ancient past. And T'Sanis, so full of life and hope. Or had been, anyhow.

That thought brought another pang of sadness as she remembered what had happened at the middle of the video she had recorded. What had happened to Tela Vasir. What Tyra had done. Baliya had instantly realized what it was, having seen it before, right down to not quite being dangerous to overwhelm her partner in the meld and kill them.

In a sense, true Ardat Yakshi—those few and all the more dangerous for it—were arguably better off. The first true meld of an asari would stay with them for their whole lives; that first love which they would never forget. For a true Ardat Yakshi, they would remember the bliss of their partner and their own ecstasy, only realizing once it was over and done with that they had slain and devoured their partner.

For Tyra there would be no such mercy, merely the shock and horror, only agony and desperation and the memory of the memory of the asari she had killed. Nothing to dull the memory, nothing to veil the pain, no excuse or justification to hide behind. Only that ugly memory and truth of what they were. It was theorized that Ardat Yakshi went as much mad with the grief as they were overcome with the addiction their first kill brought. But those merely on the spectrum had no such refuge.

Tyra would bear that memory with her for the rest of her life. Just like so many other asari over the millennia had.

Baliya shook her head.

The door behind her opened and she looked over her shoulder. Spotting the nurse, she opened her mouth to question her, but upon spotting the food the nurse was bringing in she understood that it was merely lunch time.

"Thank you, leave it by the bed. I'll eat it soon."

The nurse nodded and then left, leaving Baliya alone once more with her thoughts.

She had faith in the monastery. She had lost a friend to the condition once, but _she_ had come back all the stronger for it. Tyra would be alright, eventually.

But she herself needed to focus on the the findings they had made. Liara understood them as well, but only she could explain them to anyone else with any credibility; so incredible were the findings they had made. And with the disappearance of the Prothean gun itself, all that remained of that was their word and experimental records.

There was still a mountain of work to be done, but one thing was certain. Parts of the gun had matched a very specific range of dates and imprints, specifics only seen in a handful of items that had been found here and there around the galaxy. Their planet of origin was not known, per se. But records and external evidence was clear on the matter, meaning even if they did not know where or which planet it was that those priceless artifacts had come from, they knew its name.

Even Liara must have recognized that as they had finished the experiment. The Prothean gun Fujimura had brought in from Mars had been originally made on the legendary lost world of Ilos and it had been repaired and used well after the end of the sixth age.

It was the find of the millennia, something that would throw nearly everything they knew about the Protheans into question. Just thinking about it made her heart beat a little faster.

_No, no. Stay calm._

Hadn't she spent centuries arguing down those who had tried to piece together fanciful tales of a mystical seventh age of the Protheans? She had to be careful with this matter. Methodical. _Exact_.

With those thoughts she turned to the meal. Sniffing at the instant meal's quality, she scrunched her nose and ate. She would need her energy for when Tevos arrived. So much depended on her now.

"What did they spice this with?" She muttered, pushing aside the platter after a handful of bites.

Well, maybe if she could handle this quickly enough, she could have Fujimura's cooking before the day was even over. He couldn't have left Thessia yet, right?

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya's finger twitched.

He was starting to regain conscious control over his body. Already he had some measure of control over his breathing and he had raised his pulse and metabolism to help flush out the knockout drug.

Minutes passed as he divided his attention between his own recuperation, guiding Miranda and keeping a thumb on the various computers around him. Without his constant attention, Trellani would have already long since found them. He was seeing some odd movements, but for the moment it seemed as if it was still working, leaving him time to focus on himself.

"...Guh..."

Miranda stopped immediately, rocking him which only made his perceptions swim even more. "Shirou?"

" _Good, then I don't need to do this any more,_ " he said and cut the connection to her omnitool. No point in dividing his attention between two supposedly separate people if he could help it.

"Hey, wait a minute, Emiya!" Miranda objected, setting him down as she began to fiddle with her omnitool. "Emiya! Tch, he's gone. Where the hell... Damn it, he bounced the trace right back to me?"

Emiya blinked as he finally got his eyes open again. _Wait, what trace?_

As he tried to sit up, his limbs felt like jello and only responded after what seemed like an eternity. Still, he managed to get himself somewhat facing Miranda. Even without the lights, they were so close to the external windows that some of the daylight was peeking in. Just enough for Miranda to notice his movements, beyond the range of her omnitool's immediate illumination.

Hastily tucking the display away, she turned to look at him. "Oh, you're awake. Can you walk?"

Already used to her rapid changes in personality, he merely shook his head. "No, not yet. What happened?"

Miranda frowned. "Trellani double-crossed me; she wants to capture you. No doubt she thinks it would be an excellent way to bolster her reputation."

"...Right. No wonder the food tasted off. Thank you, Miss Lawson," he muttered as he leaned back against the wall and pushed himself up to his feet. Satisfied that he could at least stand, he nodded. "Should we get moving? Where to?"

"Your brother called us a starship for exfiltration, do you know anything about that? And don't worry about it, we made a deal didn't we?" Miranda said with a crooked smile he could barely see in the dimness.

"A starship? No, nothing on Thessia at least."

Taking a tentative step away from the support of the wall, he breathed slowly as he fought the wobbliness of each action. It was getting better, but he wasn't in any condition to fight.

"Hmm, I see..." She opined as she walked up to him to offer a shoulder. Glancing at her, he didn't say anything and merely accepted the proffered support.

They started walking down the hallway, both noticing the familiar decorations on the walls and floor from when they had been lead to the dining room before. Finding their way back to the landing pad from here wasn't a problem.

"Shirou... Did your brother tell you anything about Trellani?" Miranda asked out of the blue as they continued walking.

Ignoring the sensation at his neck from her breath, certain that was just a side-effect of his myriad conditions, he shook his head after a second.

"I had never even heard of her before you showed up," he said truthfully.

Miranda made a thoughtful hum at that before they returned to their silence. She was deep in her own thoughts while he was busy trying to figure out where the asari around them were going.

But it wasn't to last.

"They're here!"

The shout echoed through the hallway and even before Miranda had drawn her pistol the asari had vanished behind a corner, leaving only the echoing sound of her running feet behind.

"Damn it, Emiya. Couldn't you have continued for a little while longer?" Miranda cursed under her breath, but Emiya heard it anyway. But the fact was that he hadn't noticed anything; the asari hadn't had any armor, gun or omnitool on her person. "Let's hurry!"

"Yeah, I can move now," he said and managed to get himself into a jogging pace.

"Good!"

But a mere twenty meters later he could already hear the approaching steps of numerous asari from two of the hallways ahead.

"Incoming, at least five asari."

She slowed down, glancing at him with a scowl before she raised her gun. "Stay behind me. We'll break through them."

"Right," he nodded.

It was the right choice; Trellani had spread her personnel out to find them, meaning that the longer they tarried the more of them would show up. Without hardsuits and guns, it should still be possible as long as none of them were very skilled biotics.

"There they are! Get them—" The first shouted as she rounded up on them.

But three reports from Miranda's pistol put her down; two impacting against her barrier and the last one punching through.

The second asari raised a hand and sent a Pull flying at Miranda, forcing the human to step aside and respond with a biotic attack of her own as a Shockwave followed from the third asari, all coming prepared having heard the gunshots. Forced to stop, Emiya jumped to take cover by the wall as Miranda shot down another of the asari while struggling with the biotic output.

As he did, he realized they were being flanked and trapped as he could hear running footsteps from behind them as well in the narrow hallway. He grit his teeth, unarmed and weak as he still was there was no way he could hold off an attack.

_Isn't that...?_

Except, perhaps if he bluffed. Reaching up, he fumbled with the lock on the case for a moment before he managed to take out the i'usushij he had seen while coming in.

Holding it gingerly, he took a closer look at it, even before considering using Structural Analysis.

Just from the surface patterns he could tell that this was a rare piece. It had rusted gracefully, forming a coating of patina that did not affect its original dimensions much at all and barely eating into the metal. The style of the blade was an older one and evidently from one of the western city states, with the hilt and pommel displaying the swirling waves and patterns that were a commonality among the smithy-states lining the coast of the Serrinan sea. If one squinted and turned the i'usushij in the hand, one could almost see something reaching out, grasping for the wielder's hand by the hilt among the patterns and figures.

Shaking his head, he muttered the words under his breath.

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

Luckily his oldest spells required minimal effort, even in his current enervated and exhausted state it wasn't a problem as his magical energy flowed out and into the ancient blade. The internal dimensions, metallic alloy make-up and the internal void all lit up in his mind's eye as nodded to himself.

Eezo by itself was a remarkably inert element, the name element zero as much for its mass altering potential as for its lack of reaction to most chemical solutions or processes. It did not rust or degrade, meaning that even ancient caches of refined eezo as on Mars were still perfectly fine after tens of thousands of years.

But that was only when it lay inert and untouched.

It had been found that with hundreds of years of use, eezo cores on ships would begin to degrade and slowly decay. But aside from a few attempts at exploring the cause behind the unknown phenomenon, no real answers had been found as to why this happened. It was also why many of the ancient i'usushij were also no longer functional. With the built-in circuit that worked through the interaction with the planetary magnetosphere, there was always a current running through the eezo, even if very small.

Thus given the minimal amounts of eezo used in the internal line used to form the activation 'circuits', in the modern era all of the blades would have become useless and non-functional. Even his best attempts at deciphering the complex and multi-layered circuits of the numerous blades in the University of Serrice Museum had met with little success beyond figuring out the simplest of functions for activating specific biotic functions.

Repairing blades was nearly impossible, given that to gain access to the internal structures to observe and attempt fixing it would require that the blade be effectively completely destroyed. There had been some petitions to attempt cutting a single i'usushij into sixteen cross slices for further study, after which the blade would be vacuum welded back together. But that motion had been shot down rather adamantly in a joint move by the conservative majority of the Serrice University board and the Citadel Committee on Paleotechnology.

Of course it was a different matter to him, since Reinforcement was utterly devoid of such issues. Though he hadn't done so with any of the museum pieces, beyond tampering with his own replicas. As long as he could recognize some of the patterns in the blade from his studies, he would have a biotic weapon to use against the asari.

Emiya blinked as he realized that this i'usushij was different however. _There's so much eezo! The circuit looks like it's still mostly functional, beyond one part where it's cut off._

It wasn't a particularly impressive piece overall, nearly only a third as complex as some of the most intricate examples in Serrice were. But a fault in the eezo circuit had cut off the loop, meaning that no electric current could flow. While it meant that the i'usushij was broken, it also meant that most of the original circuitry still remained.

_Meaning..._

He exerted another minimal bit of his willpower and life force, reaching out to mold the insides of the sword as he closed his eyes. Exhaling slowly his breath came out as metaphorical smoke, his lungs having transformed into his bellows. Molding the two ends of the broken loop of eezo together, like pulling two broken metal wires and connecting them once more, he pulled his magical energy out and opened his eyes.

_This was a rather easy fix._

And given that he had already tampered with it, he might as well take it with him, right?

"There they are!"

The shout broke him out of his satisfied reverie, raising his eyes from the blade in his hands just in time to see three asari come sliding around the corner of the hallway. They were now trapped, Miranda still struggling with two in front of them.

She heard the shout, nearly turning around to look behind her in what would have been a catastrophic opening either of the two asari biotics in front of her would have gladly taken use of, but...

"I've got it," he said as he raised the sword into a high guard.

He was still weak, but that was alright. To create a current against Thessia's magnetosphere caused it to be resisted, like a magnet being pushed against another repelling magnet. Thus, none of the maneuvers used to activate the circuits were the same moves as used when using the i'usushij as a mere blade. Rather they were curious blade dances; moves one would never normally put the sword through. Only this way could one reliably use it as both a biotic implement and as a blade.

"Haaah!" One of the asari rushing at him shouted, throwing forward a concentrated biotic lash.

Certain that it wouldn't hit Miranda behind him, he leaned out of the way and spun on his feet as he made a figure eight twirl with the i'usushij. _This thing better still work..._

Finishing into the spiraling reverse, he imparted all the momentum into the blade by making it spin around itself like a drill bit in his hand as he thrust the tip straight at the asari who had thrown the first punch. _The circuit is just like in the i#41 find from Trelle, meaning that this should—_

The biotic throw shot forward like a lightning bolt, catching the asari square in the chest and sending her flying back all the way to the end of the hallway where she hit the wall with a loud thump. The two other asari came to a skidding halt as they realized the one in between them had been blasted back. They blinked, staring back with their mouths hanging wide open in surprise equal to Emiya's own.

"Holy..."

Glancing down at the i'usushij, he blinked. He hadn't ever seen a throw that strong before; it was easily beyond anything any of the Maidens he had seen could dish out.

As the two asari turned back to look at him, he had already recovered his wits and stood in another similar guard. Taunting them with his eyes as he smirked slightly, he relished in the sudden hesitation in their eyes; his heart was beating a mile a minute already from all the running and that one move.

Tense seconds passed and then he heard the last asari Miranda was dealing with get thrown into the ceiling. Miranda turned around and seemed surprised to see them merely standing there.

"...Let's go," she said instead of wasting time with questions and he nodded. The two asari gritting their teeth, hesitating at what to do between the pistol and the i'usushij pointed their way.

Turning the corner away from the hallway and leaving the slowly trailing asari behind, they turned to run full tilt down the hallway. It was a long way anymore. Getting to the massive entrance hall they had arrived through, coming in this time by a side-entrance, they made for the outer door that led to the landing pad.

The sunlight blinded them for a moment, just long enough for them to get five steps outside and realize that they were surrounded by asari on all sides. Ahead of them by the middle of the landing pad itself stood Matriarch Trellani. Having changed out of her flowing dress with bright, sashaying scarves, she was wearing a purple hardsuit lined with golden engravings.

"Fufufu, as expected. A trapped animal will always seek to run away the way the came in," she crooned as she stared down at them.

Miranda gritted her teeth beside him, eyes scanning the yard as she took in their welcoming committee. None had guns, but most had hardsuits on. Even with the pistol and i'usushij, they were outgunned given that each of the asari around them was no doubt a veteran adept. And in his current condition he wasn't in any shape for a prolonged fight.

 _Two minutes and the starship should be here. The comms might be back online, I might be able to use its main guns. Or just bluff them by saying it's waiting for our signal. Failing that, I could just give up. Is there any point in hurting any more of them? There's certainly none in a bloodbath... H_ e thought as he breathed slowly to even out his heartbeat.

"Trellani, you're here. _Good,_ " Miranda replied with a confident tone of voice as she holstered her gun. "That saves time."

The Matriarch was no impressed, raising a lone brow at the human. "Oh? Did you mean to be caught?"

Miranda merely smiled, crossing her arms over her puffed out chest and rolling her head to make her long dark tresses sway in the air. "You'll want to let us go now, Trellani. Elsewise I'll have to reveal to the galaxy at large your dealings with _Mirala_."

Trellani stilled.

"...You most certainly will not, especially once I have you beaten down and locked away," she finally snarled at Miranda.

"Come now, think this through calmly. Or has age only parted senility and arrogance into you, Matriarch?" Miranda mocked her, smirking with savage joy. "Your dealings with myself and with him are of little consequence, given that you have your whole staff to testify to your good nature in this regard."

She motioned to all the asari around them, causing many to blink at the gesture.

"They, and your security recordings will be proof beyond question that your intentions were only to capture him. That he somehow managed to escape while disabling all of your security systems is no shame, given he has already eluded the best and brightest of the galaxy today. No, rather! You managed far more than either STG or Spectre could, did you not? Who could argue against that?"

Trellani actually seemed to be considering that, but her eyes still gleamed with suspicion.

"How about this, Matriarch Trellani..." Miranda proposed. "I shall stay here while our friend leaves. Then, when the police arrives you may hand me over to them."

"Hah, what use would that be?" Trellani barked a laugh. "At this point, I cannot let either of you go."

Emiya glanced at Miranda then, certain that she had been here on some mischief or other in her organization's attempts to grow closer to this Matriarch. Miranda's arrest would only most like reveal Trellani's own culpability in something else, even if Miranda did not speak a word and the silence stretched for another moment as she tried to think of something to say. She had managed to get a foot in through the door already, now she only needed to convince Trellani to let them go.

Easier said than done.

Trellani smirked, opening her mouth to speak. "Then—"

But she was cut off by the starship that came barreling from the sky, coming to a hover some twenty meters above the landing pad, going from full atmo-speed to a complete halt nearly instantly. It was enough to cause a massive gust of wind to blow, shaking trees and knocking over several asari. Even Trellani almost fell over, only balancing herself with a quick use of biotics.

She turned around to stare at the ship, freezing completely.

Even Miranda beside him was staring at the starship with her mouth hanging wide open in shock and horror. "That's... Tela Vasir's...!"

"Hmm, ride's here," Emiya noted dryly, causing Miranda's head to whip around to look at him.

It was especially small for an asari ship, but then again it had only been built for the Spectre's specifications. Fast, faster and faster still—it was built to fly anywhere and everywhere before anyone had time to react he guessed. Not exactly famous per se, it was still a unique craft that many would recognize from the various interviews the Spectre had given over the decades. Though it had the usual flowing lines and organic design of asari starships, the lack of the usual long vertical 'fins' made it stand out.

Miranda had an indecipherable look in her eyes for a second before the cogwheels began to spin in her head. Adopting a mask of arrogant joy, she turned to look at Trellani who was backing away from the slowly landing asari corvette.

"Well, Matriarch? How will it be? Let us go, or will you tangle with our pick up?" Miranda asked, as if things had been progressing along the plan the whole time.

Trellani turned back to stare at them, backing away from the landing vessel with slow steps. Her eyes were uncertain, flickering between them and the ship as she gritted her teeth.

Though nothing was said, Miranda nodded and began to walk forward, Emiya only a step behind her. The walked past Trellani who seemed to have resolved herself to the perceived fact that there was little to nothing she could do.

The corvette landed softly with the nose facing away from the manor itself, allowing both the rear end ramp to open up to allow them to board the vessel and for the main gun of the ship to be facing away in a gesture of lack of hostility. It was just small enough to fit on the landing pad, though which meant for shuttles and skycars was made wide enough to fit several of them at the same time, though the ground beneath it cracked and gave way nonetheless.

At the edge of the ramp, Miranda turned around. Her eyes had been darting at the insides of the ship to see if anyone was coming out. At this point, while the ship's arrival was a welcome surprise, she did not wish to actually meet the Spectre who owned the ship.

But none of that showed on her face as she turned around to face Trellani once more. "We'll be in touch once everything has calmed down, I'm sure. Thank you for your hospitality, but we'll be taking off now."

"...We shall see. I will not hesitate to throw you to the officials if my reputation and self shall be on the line," Trellani finally spoke with a disdainful but slight nod.

Miranda nodded and boarded the ship.

Meanwhile Emiya's eyes were poring over the insides of the ship due to one simple reason. The comms on the starship were still fried, meaning that unless they could manually get the ship into the air they were dead in the water. And the longer they tarried, the more likely it was that their bluff would be called. _Alright, where the hell is the cargo bay hatch's operation panel...?_

Finally spotting it after his sixth step up the ramp, his steps hastened only the slightest bit. Getting inside, he calmly walked over and with only a moment's hesitation pressed a button to close the hatch they had entered the cargo bay through. Letting out a sigh of relief as it worked, he glanced at Miranda.

She had drawn her pistol as soon as the line of sight to the asari outside had been broken and was now surveying the ship's insides with caution. Their eyes met and she frowned.

"It's empty?"

"Seems like it. I don't think the autopilot was set for anything more than to just land here. Let's hurry to the CIC and get out of here," he said.

It was a good thing Miranda had been able to stall and distract Trellani; he had hoped the reboot of the comms he had started would have been enough to clear the system for his hands-free use. But it hadn't, and he wouldn't have had any use of the starship as backup if it had come to a clash.

"Oh. _Oh_." Miranda blinked, holstering her pistol. "Can you fly this thing?"

"Probably," he said as he jumped up the access stairway towards the CIC.

Though technically corvettes were only slightly smaller than frigates, according to most definitions they were the smallest proper warship, this vessel was quite a bit smaller than the usual. It seemed as if the ship had been designed to be able to function with minimal personnel, with a great deal of the functions being automated and much of the ship's size stemming from various redundancies and fail-safes. _The maintenance costs for this ship must be something else..._

"She really was that easy to push, huh... How much does that guy know?" Miranda said suddenly and Emiya paused in his run to look over his shoulder. It seemed as if she hadn't meant for him to hear that, thus she blinked as he stopped in front of her. "What is it?"

"...Just thinking which way to go. This way, yeah," he responded and continued. _What was that about?_

Getting to the cockpit—as it turned out all of the ship's functions were essentially slaved to a single seat, rather than a complete Combat Information Center as was usual in warships—he jumped into the chair and looked over the controls. There was no way he'd be able to fly away from here without messing something up; there were way too many systems and controls here and they appeared to be heavily customized by Tela Vasir. It was really just another anti-theft measure when he thought about it. Much more effective than merely having a key.

But he could get the autopilot on again, having roughly figured it out from his dive into the systems.

"Straight for the Mass Relay?"

She nodded. "That would be the smartest thing to do."

Nodding he fiddled with several of the haptic adaptive displays until a map of Parnitha system appeared. Pushing on the highlighted orbit of the Mass Relay, currently behind Athame, the autopilot began to calculate a route immediately.

"It's done," he said and looked up. "But the comms are offline."

"That's no good. We need to be able to show the signal to the fleets blockading the other side of the Mass Relay if we wish to get past them."

He nodded. "That, and the Mass Relay won't activate without the comm protocols."

Fixing the comms would also allow him to use the corvette without having to be in the cockpit. A second later the mass effect field of the starship flared again and it began to take off. Even as it began to take off the planet's surface, it's internal gravity remained the same.

Putting down the i'usushij he had been carrying, he nodded to himself. _The Janiri's Sickle, huh. It's not a bad ship._

It would probably be enough for a clean getaway, even. Of course, what he did after all of this was something entirely different.

* * *

;

* * *

Nihlus paused, his mandibles flaring as he glared at the quarian sitting opposite him.

The mechanic was an annoyance, but at this point that was nothing. Taking a calming long breath, he glanced down at his omnitool and frowned at the message. Looking back up, he spoke up as he stood from the chair.

"Excuse me, I have to take this call." Moving to the door, the asari commando let him leave and locked the door behind him as he left. Finding a secluded enough spot, he pressed the buzzing alarm on the glowing haptic adaptive interface that allowed the call from Jondum to come through. "Talk to me, keep it short."

" _Tela Vasir's ship just left Thessia on a beeline for the Mass Relay; three of the STG's ships are in pursuit and were ignoring my hails._ "

The turian paused, feeling his headache return with a vengeance. Taking another breath, he ground out the query. "It's _him_ , right?"

" _Who else could it be? Tela Vasir is dead—he's the only one who could probably get it off the ground on such short notice._ "

"Yes, I thought as much," the Spectre answered as he reached for his waist compartment to take another energizing tablet. Tossing it into his mouth and swallowing it dry, he continued speaking a second later. "Send one of the Councilor's escorts to the Mass Relay. The fastest ship they've got—have them inform the blockade of the situation. See if you can find anyone trustworthy to send after them."

_To think we're being forced to use couriers for communication now. What a ridiculous oversight. I'll have to petition the Council to implement a secondary communications system; we're far too vulnerable to an attack like this..._

" _Sir?_ "

Nihlus blinked, realizing he had spaced out. It was probably due to the tablet he had taken; at least the headache was gone. The exhaustion was getting to him. Rubbing his eyes, he continued. "How is the Councilor?"

"... _Calm, but clearly something is on her mind. It's unusual to see her this restless,_ " the salarian answered after a second's pause.

"Right, well keep her safe. With everything already shot to hell, the last thing we need is for her to get put in danger as well. What's the timetable on support?"

" _Two hours for the closest Spectre, still. They're coming, sir._ "

Nihlus scoffed. Being reassured by his subordinate was quite something, still he said nothing. "If that's all—"

"Spectre Kryik!" Someone shouted.

"I have to go," he finished lamely and cut the call. Turning to face at whoever had called out, he glanced at the asari with a tired expression.

_A Matriarch? She's..._

She seemed vaguely familiar.

"Doctor Aurana T'Meles, University of Serrice, may I have moment of your time?"

He blinked at her introduction, before curtly replying. "What do you want?"

"I will only need a bit of your time, it has to do with the classified tapes at the University of Serrice's Museum earlier toda—"

He was already walking away, ignoring the Matriarch. She squawked behind him, trying to catch up to him but he was already beyond her reach as the door closed to the impromptu-interrogation-slash-negotiation room.

"Please excuse the delay, now where were we?" He asked through an all too false smile.

"No problem, I believe we were discussing the terms of living regarding our extended incarceration?" Roane Lorrais said with a smile just as false.

He scoffed. "I believe we settled on calling it 'protective custody' already."

"Ah, right you are."

Nihlus hated these types; scavengers, who only negotiated when they had a strong card to deal with. The kind who would settle if they weren't in a position of absolute advantage and who would take every mile with the inches they were given when they could.

But it wasn't like the family were holding out on him; they had freely given everything that could have been considered pertinent. But following the immediate things, they began to talk about everything else they knew about the man they had known as 'Fujimura Saiga'. The turian would have felt revulsion at their easy manner of selling out their comrade, if it didn't turn out that the damn human had told them to do it.

He could already feel the headache coming back.

_I need a bloody vacation._

* * *

;

* * *

"Mass Relay in 200,000 kilometers. Initiating transmission to relay," Emiya said as he flipped through the numerous screens and controls deftly, seated in the cockpit. It was a little cramped, as he was quite a bit taller than the average asari, but it wasn't unmanageable. "Connection established. Uploading transit data."

"Good," Miranda approved.

In the cockpit, he could sit but she had to stand behind him.

They had fixed the comms by just switching out the hardware, the entire module made in a way that made hot-switching not only possible but much easier than attempting to repair the busted comms unit. With his ability to directly access the ship, Emiya had reached out and gotten more familiar with the other systems now that he could.

And, of course their departure and radio silence had not gone unnoticed.

"And our pursuers?"

Glancing at a screen, he replied. "Estimated distance... four light-minutes and growing. Still no direct signs of them, the tightbeam hails from earlier that we're catching up to aside. We appear to be faster."

Their ship could not detect the pursuers while they were in FTL behind them, but neither could the pursuing ship do anything until they slowed down. But since the Janiri's Sickle appeared to be much faster, by the time they arrived at the Mass Relay the distance would have grown enough that there was nothing the STG could do.

Miranda nodded behind him.

He was a bit surprised those two would still be chasing after him given everything that had happened, but it gave him more options. He could predict their actions to an extent already, meaning if it came down to it they could actually be quite useful. Especially since he had no idea what Miranda was really planning.

"Are you sure this will work?" He asked, looking up and over his shoulder.

She smiled down at him reassuringly. "Of course; the ship whose captain we've bought should be right in front of us as long as you do not deviate on the exit too much. You only need to adjust our course a slight bit once there. Once we transmit the signal and let them board us, the boarding party will let us get aboard and hide on their vessel while they search this ship. To the rest of the galaxy, it will merely appear as if Tela Vasir's starship had flown through the Mass Relay on autopilot without anyone on board."

"Hmm..." He voiced noncommittally.

The asari military was loose enough that corruption of this scale was believable, but he wasn't entirely certain of the trustworthiness of Cerberus' captain. To buy someone who captained a major warship would require deep pockets. Was he really worth that much to Cerberus? _There has to be more to this than just some experimental eezo..._

If the galaxy could be fooled to believe he hadn't been there, then what stopped Cerberus from simply taking him while they could?

"Of course, we will only have minutes to act on the other side of the Mass Relay until our pursuers catch up. In the worst case scenario it will be a Spectre, meaning that we might have to hide until they are satisfied with their search. Otherwise the captain's word ought to be good enough to dissuade our pursuers."

He inhaled and nodded. "Sounds simple enough."

"Then, let's do it," she said with a confident tone as she crossed her arms.

He said nothing, merely monitoring the progress towards the Mass Relay. Finally, the autopilot began lining up with the Mass Relay lengthwise. Already the mass and other relevant information had been transmitted, allowing the relay to have booted up for them by the time they arrived.

"Lining up... Entering transit, hold on," he said and took a deep breath as he repressed the nausea building up his gut.

 _It's no worse than any time before, but with everything else..._ His head swam and his eyes felt like they were blurring out. The bright streams of light spun around and for a moment he felt as if he had fallen out of his own body. The momentary worry that he had exited his body in the astralized state and fallen behind the speeding starship ran through his mind, but as he gripped the cockpit's seat so hard that he tore the lining he realized it was nothing.

Exhaling slowly, he ignored his senses and focused on calming his body down. He had never had seasickness, but he figured it was similar to what he was feeling right now, that or perhaps virtual reality nausea. With his senses still a mess, all of them reported slightly differently what was happening, with all the conflicting sensory information messing with everything else.

He counted down the seconds as he could feel the ethereal wave of space-time warp reversing. _Halfway there already._

"Are you alright?" Miranda asked suddenly and he looked up at her. She seemed to be frowning at him. "You're pale."

"Yeah," he nodded and turned to face forward again. "It's nothing."

She put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry. This will soon be over."

Nodding, he focused on the readouts again. "Exiting relay transit in five seconds."

The starship slowed down, exiting the tunnel created between the two massive relays, settling down to speeds that were merely preposterous. The Janiri's Sickle reversed thrust as he scanned the numerous warships that were waiting on this side. Half a dozen cruisers and at least a dozen frigates had formed a bubble of sorts around the Mass Relay to block it from all directions. Already the biggest of the ships was opening up and fielding a handful of star fighters by the looks of the read out as a response to their unscheduled appearance.

"We're being hailed. No electronic intrusion attempts so far."

She nodded, he could feel the bobbing of her hair as she did. "They wouldn't dare attack a Spectre's ship, regardless of their orders. Broadcast the signal now."

Emiya inhaled and pushed one of the haptic adaptive interfaces, sending out the signal that they had uploaded from Miranda's omnitool onto the ship's systems. It was a modified automatic mayday signal, with some static and distortion added in. Most would probably assume it was just due to poor reception, but he figured the captain of the cruiser ahead had been told to expect it. Adjusting their course slightly so that they were heading for the marked ship in a slow drift, he made sure to avoid powering any systems.

Depending on how jumpy their reception was, they might get shot for one wrong power spike on the sensors.

Furrowing his brows, he listened passively to the comms. Looking up at Miranda, he nodded. "The cruiser ahead is broadcasting its intent to board us. One nearby ship is objecting, but none seem to be stopping them."

She smirked and leaned back.

"Good."

As the cruiser approached, it continued to grow in size, turning from an indistinct speck on the wide-screen to a massive behemoth that could swallow the much smaller corvette whole. What struck him most about it however was the state it was in; it was falling apart by the seams, held together by little more than paint and willpower.

It must have been centuries old by the looks of it. _And it's still in use?_

"Let's go," she said and offered a hand.

Accepting it, he gingerly extracted himself from the cockpit with her help. Getting to the doorway, she motioned for him to go ahead.

"Go on, I'll be right behind you. I just want to check one more thing," she said with a reassuring smile.

He blinked, holding a carefully neutral and tired expression as he nodded. Leaving the i'usushij behind, he began to walk toward the side-docking hatch through which they would be boarded. While the cargo bay also had enough airlocks that it could be opened in space without problem, it probably wasn't compatible with whatever the cruiser could board with. Through his cybernetics he could sense that she was powering down the eezo core and engines, and a few seconds later Miranda was walking up behind him.

"It was nothing. Let's go," she said with the same reassuring smile as she noticed his staring.

Saying nothing, he merely nodded and continued walking. _It'll take a minute to start up the corvette again. So, she's sabotaged the ship to make sure I don't try running? Or a condition with the captain they bribed?_

Walking to the hatch, he could feel her eyes on his back the whole way. She was keeping her distance and though her pistol was still by her hip, he could sense the biotic tension rippling just beneath her skin.

She was getting ready for a fight. Was she nervous about the boarding or him?

_Hmm..._

Clenching his fist to test his condition, he estimated himself to be at about a third of his usual at the moment. But his stamina was likely to be terrible, meaning he couldn't afford getting into a protracted fight.

Arriving at the double set of airlocks, he could feel the larger ship pushing against the corvette. Already they had heard the sound of the magnetic anchor locking onto the corvette, rumbling through the chassis of the entire ship. The sounds of a vacuum seal could now be heard being applied to the hull.

A second later he sensed a ping to the Janiri's Sickle to open the hatch and he allowed it to process without interfering. With a hiss, the first airlock opened to reveal a team of three asari commandos all armed and ready. Behind them, just beyond the immediate range of a grenade was another team of three and behind them yet another team in one long staggered chain.

Miranda raised her hand in a greeting, speaking up. "Bringers of trouble oft come unabated, lo the eastern skies have yet naught but sorrow."

Glancing at her, Emiya wondered where she had gotten that phrase from. Regardless, the asari all flooded into the ship as the second airlock opened up to give them access.

"Is there anyone else here?" One of them inquired, looking them up and down as the others kept an eye out for anyone else.

Miranda shook her head. "No, just us."

"Alright, get onboard," the asari said and nodded for them to head the way she had just come as even more asari poured into the corvette.

Nodding, Miranda looked at Emiya. "Let's go."

Not waiting for a reply she lead the way onboard the cruiser. He followed three steps behind her, already reaching out with his cybernetics to figure out what was going on. They were walking through a long extended tube of sorts, supported by a piston to which the magnetic anchor that had locked onto the hull was attached. It gave them a walkway between the two vessels in space, without having to use a shuttle or flying into the other vessel. Thirty steps away, he could just hear the asari behind him speaking again in the corvette.

Barely above a quiet comment, it must have been to a short-range comm. "None onboard, repeat none onboard, over... Two entering, second is priority target, handler advises radio silence."

Emiya exhaled slowly, relaxing as from the cruiser an acknowledgment returned which only seemed to have heard the first half of the transmission. _Guess that one's for the records, they can just cut off the later half and say they saw nothing. But what was that last part?_

Entering the cruiser just behind Miranda, he blinked as he noticed that the lead starship of their pursuers had just come through the Mass Relay.

It was the STG vessel and it was sending a tightbeam communication to the cruiser they were boarding to cease all activities and to let them take over. The asari captain responded by telling them that there was nothing aboard the Janiri's Sickle, so they needn't bother.

Inside the cruiser no one seemed to pay any particular attention to them as they stepped aboard. Miranda nodded at the head of the commando team standing by as she walked past them, and he followed after her.

"So what happens now? When do we leave?" He began and Miranda paused in her step to look at him. The friendly smile, one of relaxed camaraderie and relief at having survived a common ordeal, did not reach her eyes.

She hadn't been nervous about the boarding then. _She hasn't been told about the STG either, so it's me she's worried about, huh._

"What's the hurry? We'll have to wait at least a day here and we're already safe. There's no need for rushing, is there?" She asked with a teasing tone.

"Hmm," he voiced noncommittally before stopping and crossing his arms. "And if I choose not to come with you after this? Does the offer of letting me walk still stand?"

She blinked, narrowing her eyes at him as she turned around to face him. They stood alone in an empty well-lit corridor, with five meters between them.

Slowly the pleasant expression drained out of her and what remained was only a cold calculating stare.

"That's no longer an option, _Emiya._ "

 _And there it is. Okay, time for plan B._ He raised an eyebrow, not exactly surprised that he had been found out but neither willing to simply take the bait. He did though focus on the cruiser's security systems, pulling out a short recording of him and Miranda entering the cruiser from the corvette and sending it out as a tightbeam transmission to the STG starship. A second later it was hailing the cruiser he was aboard again, no doubt making inquiries as to why they had been lied to moments before when they had asked about Tela Vasir's ship.

"And why not? The deal was simple, wasn't it? You get me out, I show you how the eezo is made."

"Don't bother, I know it's you." She shook her head, ignoring his words. "I wondered, why would you send me away to pick up your brother if you had a ship. It only started to make sense afterwards. You were actually stuck where I picked you up. That white-haired you was nothing more than a mirage, a projection of some kind.

"It clicked when we made it to Ulee, once the trace on you came right back to me. The way you managed to become ' _Redhax_ ' was due to the operation you had on the Citadel. Even if the salarians have kept a tight lid on the specifics, I think I have figured it out. You can hack things without an omnitool, can't you?"

He blinked and she laughed.

"Surprised that I knew about that, are you?" She smirked.

Actually, he had forgotten that the STG had tried to cover up the entire incident. The fact that she hadn't even known about his cybernetic implants was what was surprising, since after their first meeting on Thessia he was sure she should have suspected it.

"And then the incident at Trellani. I thought at first—for just a moment, mind you—that you had some profound insight to offer about her when you said you were disappointed. That you had expected something of me. But no, you were merely bluffing, weren't you? You have a bad habit of telling the truth when you should lie, you know? You admitted to never having even so much of heard of her before, didn't you? You went in completely blind, trusting me to protect you. I am really quite flattered that I managed to make such an impression," she said with a laugh.

 _Huh, she really is gloating, isn't she? She's had this chip on her shoulder for a while. Well, that's fine by me,_ he thought as he said nothing while putting the finishing touches to his counter-stroke.

"You were there the whole time, awake through it all, weren't you?" She asked, gleefully drilling with her eyes for a reaction from him. "Weren't you, _Emiya_?"

"...Not really following you here, Miranda. What's your plan, exactly?"

There was a second's pause and then she sighed with a shrug.

She raised her arms, showing the hallway's walls. "I'm sure the asari captain would also like to know, given that she must have no idea what's going on right now."

Emiya glanced at the terminal by the wall, one of many throughout the ship through which any other part of the vessel could be contacted through an internal system.

"Captain, he is able to access and hack systems wirelessly, activate the radiation contamination protocol!" She shouted, before looking at him again. "See, this asari cruiser is rated for nuclear waste and weapons disposal, meaning that it has sections where..."

Emiya blinked as his sense of the various systems he could sense with his cybernetics vanished around him. A second later a blast door behind them closed with a whir, leaving him with no way to return to the corvette. _Ah, so it wasn't just for the sake of talking. She was informing the captain they had paid off as to what was going on._

"All radiation is shielded and contained here, moreover on a lucky coincidence this ship is quite old. Most of it isn't even compatible with modern omnitools! You can't pull any of your tricks here," Miranda said as she finally drew her pistol on him. "And that's the end of the line, _Emiya._ "

They stared at each other, until finally Emiya sighed and raised his hands for a shrug.

"Well, you've caught me. There's just one thing..."

"Oh?"

He smirked and opened his mouth—

And then the floor vanished beneath him as everything was plunged into darkness, as an booming thunderclap echoed through the hull of the ship. It felt as if he was inside of a church bell, as the air itself shook so strongly that he could feel it right down to his bones.

Three seconds later the emergency power kicked back in and Emiya realized the artificial gravity was gone, as was all life support.

He blinked. _Wait, what?_

"Emiya! What did you do?!" Miranda shouted, somewhere behind him suddenly.

Kicking outwards to reach the ceiling, he spun himself around and then kicked off towards another wall in the zero gravity. Lacking a down, movement turned into something entirely different. He needed to get out of Miranda's eyesight before she thought to use her biotics or shoot him.

At the same time he reached out with his cybernetics to figure out what was going on, now that the containment field was down.

" _Everyone put your damn weapons down and lay on your stomachs before I blow your heads clean off! This is Spectre business! You're all under arrest for suspicion on high treason and sedition!_ "

The soundclip of Tela Vasir he had picked out and set to play after a timer was still playing out, just as he had intended.

But why had the power gone out?

"Oh," he muttered as he realized the cruiser had been shot by the STG ship that had been in pursuit. The fusion reactor was _gone_ , life support was dead and there was a massive hull breach.

Several of the other starships that had been participating in the blockade were now closing in for rescue operations but the STG were apparently declaring it a theater of operations. They were boarding the cruiser and sending out warnings for everyone else to steer clear on the Citadel's authority.

"Oh _shit..._ " He finished.

"Emiya!"

He wasn't sure which came first; the impact of the gunshot to his back that sent him flying through the zero gravity hallway bathed in a dark red light, or the angry shout.

But the biotic throw came definitely after both, as he kicked in the air desperately to gain enough spin to avoid the blue projectile by a hair's breadth.

Trying to control his rotation he barely managed to reach a wall enough to himself towards the opposite side—the ceiling, previously—and propelled himself forward. Without gravity to pull him towards any one surface, the danger of getting stuck in the middle of nothing again was very real. At least the corridors were small enough that the risk of that wasn't that great.

 _With the power out, none of the major blast doors can be opened. But there's a panel by the end of the hall where I can break into the labs and continue through,_ he thought as he continued moving. He still had a basic map of the cruiser in his head, plotting out his movements to escape. It wasn't exactly how he had envisioned this going down, but it couldn't be helped.

The problem was that Miranda was keeping pace with him. No, rather she was slowly gaining on him. Having to conserve his stamina, she was able to kick off more strongly to move forward even if her movements were less efficient overal. At least she wasn't shooting at him anymore.

"Emiya!"

Though she didn't seem intent on staying quiet.

 _I'll take what I can get,_ he thought as he rounded the hallway corner and managed to retain most of his momentum despite the ninety-degree turn. The panel was just ahead, he just needed to— _She's building up a biotic attack._

Rolling himself up for impact, he halted for just a second. _Wait, if I roll with the force at the right point, then..._

He kicked off a wall instead of ducking for cover and a second later the biotic attack blew past him. In its wake he was pushed with thrice his previous speed towards a wall at an oblique angle as if gravity had suddenly struck a hold of him. Reaching out with his arms he rolled against the wall as if it was the ground and retained again the momentum and turned it into the jump towards the ventilation panel at the far side of the long hallway.

Just as he impacted against the thin grate covering the panel, he could hear Miranda's incoherent scream of rage behind him, blending together with the crumpling metal almost seamlessly.

Diving into the darkness of the air ventilation system, he followed the claustrophobic straight path until he found the labs. It was lucky that the asari built their ships over-dimensioned since they had always had such an ample supply of eezo. Any other race would have handled ventilation through much smaller pressurized vents or by making each room its own contained system.

As he pulled himself out into what was marked as the laboratory, he blinked as he realized it was just being used as a storage compartment currently.

Not giving it a second thought, he kicked out and moved to the door leading out into another hallway. Disabling the locks while listening for Miranda on his trail, he exhaled once as just the last set remained. Behind the door would be a hull breach, meaning he would have to hold his breath while he passed through the next sections. If only Miranda hadn't left his helmet and backpack behind at Trellani's.

 _I'll have to project a helmet to seal myself in, but I'll just be holding my breath with that..._ Lacking the system for ventilation and using the air capsules, it wasn't much. But it was better than nothing at least.

Focusing on oxygenating his blood, he uttered the words of power under his breath. "—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

_I don't have much more magical energy to waste. Maybe three or four projections?_

Dismissing those thoughts for now and taking one last great gulp of air he created the sealing helmet to complete his hardsuit. It had none of the more advanced functions, but at least it would keep him separated from the cold of space. At the same time he pulled open the sideways rolling door just enough to be able to slip through. He had to keep a tight grip to keep himself from being pushed out by the rushing air that was escaping through the now open door.

Once safely on the other side, he repeated the process on the other side in reverse to close the door and to re-apply the vacuum seal in the section he had just left behind. It was an expenditure of oxygen, but he didn't know how many asari were still there along with Miranda.

No point in letting them all die.

Done with that, he turned around and kicked off as he continued his way through the cruiser's insides. He would have to take a slightly roundabout way, which was a slight annoyance given that the cruiser was rather large. It was such that the largest sides could already be measured in kilometers; not a distance he could cross in one lungful regardless of how trained he was.

Finding a sealed room with oxygen still inside, he headed right for it. The trick wasn't finding a room; it was finding a room that he could enter and exit without having all the air escape when he tried to open the door. Luckily a few of the rooms had double airlocks for whatever reason, giving him way points where to take short breaks and open up his helmet.

Five minutes had already passed since he had left Miranda behind.

It seemed like he had completely lost her, which made sense given that she hadn't brought a helmet with her either. Though with the vacuum he wouldn't have heard her coming either way. But that also went for the asari chatter on the comms. There were reports of the STG boarding the cruiser, yet no one seemed to have seen them since, nor were there any reports of casualties either.

It was he was making his way down another long dark corridor that he realized that his suit was actually leaking. Pausing to check whether it was his helmet, he realized it was the spot where Miranda had shot him in the back.

 _I'll have to fix it in the next room with air I find,_ he thought as he continued jumping forward. Stopping now wasn't an option, especially since he had even less air to go with now than he had previously thought.

Something flickered at the end of the hallway and Emiya paused, narrowing his eyes. He continued floating through the air, the lack of air or gravity meaning his momentum continued to carry him until he hit the wall again.

_What was that...?_

And then the three round burst hit him in the gut and sent him spinning backwards. The hardsuit held, but lacking any hard plates the impact was still considerable. Almost losing his breath, he spun and realized he was about to hit the ceiling headfirst. Bringing up his hands for protection, he performed a back handspring to recover and push away back towards the safety of the corner.

 _There's no one there!? But how—Cloaking?_ But a second later another three round burst clipped his shoulder, skimming layers of the protective hardsuit off. He realized just then that the rounds he had taken to his chest had torn open a bigger hole and that he was leaking oxygen rapidly now. Pressing his right hand flush against the hole to seal it in, he grit his teeth as he stared to the direction the shots had come from. Lethal force—no attempt at negotiation—physical fatigue and weakness—hampered mobility and detection—running out of air. The factors ran through his mind in an instant and the conclusion was reached. He couldn't hold back if he wanted to survive. The point of origin was the same between the two bursts; almost like someone was walking along the floor.

Magnetic boots?

Peering even more closely, he couldn't see a thing. But maybe if he touched the floor? Pushing off until he was kneeling on the floor, almost as if artificial gravity was back online again. Putting his palm flush against the floor, he stilled his breathing. Stilled every muscle in his body, stilled the very heart beating in his chest and closed his eyes.

In his mind's eye, a blade was chosen.

 _Thunk—_ A boot against the floor. The arm shot upwards from the ground, drawing the line and a he shouted, "—Trace, _on!"—begin projection,_

Three feet of tempered high carbon steel shot out like a bolt of lightning from nothingness, crossing the hallway only to suddenly stop as it impacted against _something_. As the green liquid began to pour out and coat the slowly floating away blade, the form of the cloaked salarian finally became distinguishable. A second later the cloak failed as the shields of the suit failed.

Emiya exhaled as he opened his eyes. Glancing at the salarian he weighed attempting to save the salarian despite everything, but seeing his condition he gave up. The blade had punched through effortlessly, only stopping once it was deep enough for the crossguard to hit. And the impact had been enough to crush the salarian's rib and snap his neck instantly.

Shaking his head, he moved on before any of the salarian's comrades might show up. He needed to fix his suit first and then re-think his plan. If there were more cloaked salarians on the cruiser looking for him, then this wasn't going to work.

Ten minutes later, he had dragged the salarian with him to another air pocket, fixed his suit and figured out a handful of things.

Judging by the omnitool the salarian held, the STG had essentially put the entire asari cruiser into quarantine to catch him. Since the asari captain had refused to power down her ship due to his Tela Vasir broadcast, the STG had just blown out the engine and now had most of the asari under arrest in specific sections of the cruiser where they still maintained life support. And now they were combing through the rest of the cruiser for any traces of him while making sure to cut off any avenues of escape and turning off electronics to hamper him.

They were using both the drones from before and cloaked salarians, with even more to come as backup arrived. All the while, the other ships around the Mass Relay had returned to their blockade. Sending that confirmation of his presence on the cruiser had really gotten the salarians up in a tizzy, he realized now.

That he hadn't run into anyone was half due to Miranda's scheme to isolate him and half due to luck. _I have a cloaking device and a pair of magnetic boots that don't fit me._

That said, he still didn't have any means of resupplying his oxygen beyond taking off his helmet, he was trapped on a cruiser dead in the water and being hunted down by the STG, running on fumes and without any of his most effective tricks available.

"Well, at least I'm out of Parnitha," he muttered with a weak laugh. Getting up, he shook his head. _Enough of that._

Since the way up ahead was probably going to only have more opposition, he decided to double back through sections he knew were still safe. Since the inside of the cruiser was no longer safe, then the solution was obviously to head outside the ship. With the magnets, he should be able to stick to the hull on the outside and get to the corvette that way. Which meant that he had to find the airlock nearest to the Janiri's Sickle, preferably with a pocket of air nearby he could normalize in before he tried to go out.

And it was only as he reached one such airlock that he realized how he hadn't quite thought that choice through.

The lack of oxygen, the darkness, the cold and the vacuum. At this point they were no longer entirely alien to him, as he had on multiple occasions gotten familiar with it all. But the conditions of space were one thing when you had a working hardsuit or a starship as a boundary.

But as he held on at the threshold between the cruisers inside and the nothingness just outside, he realized it was something quite different to leap out with nothing to hold onto.

The Janiri's Sickle was no longer tethered to the asari cruiser. The salarians must have thought it too risky to leave a ship they knew to be able to outrun them within such easy reach. He could still barely see it in the distance, the weak blue glow of the Mass Relay just enough to light it up against the darkness of space. Miranda's sabotage must have left it dead in the water, so they had simply pulled it loose and left it there.

_How far away is it?_

Twenty kilometers? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred?

Without anything for proper reference there was no way for him to really tell. It seemed to be roughly moving parallel to the cruiser at least. If it was drifting away, he couldn't tell. Yet, it was his only way out. He couldn't turn around anymore and the longer he stayed on the cruiser the worse his odds became.

"Guess I just have to jump."

If he didn't have to move or strain himself, he could hold his breath for fifteen to twenty minutes. Whether or not that would be enough to get him all the way to the corvette...

He would just have to find out.

Sitting down and crossing his legs, he took off the helmet and set it aside with the two magnetic boots. He would need those, too. Starting with slow, deep breaths he focused on relaxing every muscle in his body. As the minutes rolled by, and he continued breathing more deeply with each inhale and more shallowly with each exhale, until he could feel his limbs start to tingle.

And once the stomach cramp began, he exhaled completely. Grabbing his helmet and putting it on and the two magnetic boots. Just before sealing the helmet, he took one last deep breath as the tingles had turned into a sensation not unlike an electric charge in his limbs.

Opening the airlock and putting one magnetic boot against the hull, he swung himself out until he was crouching against the hull while holding with one hand onto the boot. Looking up, he could see the corvette. It didn't seem any smaller, nor had it seemingly changed relative position much. The boots worked through a simple switch, but they were strong enough that he could hold on and even tense up quite a bit without them giving way. That was good since without something to hold onto for the jump, he probably wouldn't be able to get enough power.

Like a coiled spring that slipped free, he sprang off the hull off the cruiser. His body straightened out, and he activated the cloaking device he had gotten from the salarian.

As he continued gliding through the nothingness of space, he closed his eyes. Now, all he could do was wait. His heartbeat slowed down as his every muscle relaxed. The mind and spirit became as still as mountains, as his body sailed towards the corvette.

Time passed, but lacking any frame of reference he couldn't have told how much. It was unlike yet quite similar to his dive through the oceans of Thessia, in many ways. Obviously it was nothing like swimming, as there was nothing pushing against him in any direction. There was no resistance to his movements and it felt more like falling than being pushed or pulled toward any direction. Merely a uniform motion as a sum total of all the forces that had interacted on his body as he had kicked off the cruiser.

Slowly exhaling to manage the build up of carbon dioxide in his blood, he kept himself from attempting to count the seconds passing by. Any mental effort would only be wasting oxygen—he had to be perfectly relaxed to minimize its consumption.

An instant was an eternity and an eternity was an instant, until finally after an indescribable amount of time he opened his eyes as he began to sense something with his cybernetics, and he saw the corvette looming ahead and growing bigger fast. Exhaling the rest of the air in his lungs and drawing what he had in his helmet and suit to replenish what he could, he extended his arms and prepared to latch onto the hull with the other magnetic boot he still had in his hand.

Without it, he would probably fail to stop and just bounce off into space.

The impact against the corvette's hull almost drove all the air out of his lungs, but he managed to latch on with the magnet. Without a frame of reference in the void it was hard to tell, but he had jumped off the cruiser's hull with all his strength. Consequently, he had slammed with all that strength into the corvette's hull. He even managed to scratch the paint with his helmet.

After that, all that was left was to pull himself back towards the nearest airlock.

Even though the distance left was minimal compared to what he had just crossed, it was a hundred times more excruciating. His lungs screamed for air, the burning pressure seemed enough to make his chest explode. Having to slowly pull himself forward, inching along the surface of the corvette was draining what little strength he still had. Every step was equal to a mountain in effort, as he continued moving.

At the end, his legs were cramping and his fingers were having trouble holding on, but he kept going.

Only as he finally entered the airlock, flooding his surroundings with air and dispelling his helmet, did he let himself breathe. The exhalation came out as a whooshing breath and as he inhaled he almost lost control over his legs. Sitting down—or collapsing, really—he rode out the lightheadedness and the various visual and tactile sensations as he simply breathed.

And before he knew it, exhaustion had overtaken him, and he had fallen asleep.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard opened her eyes, exhaling as she pulled herself out of the sleeping pod.

"Nnnh... What?"

She rubbed her eyes, feeling as if she had been seeing a very peculiar dream just a moment before. But with the world of waking, that vision she felt she had been having had already disappeared. The darkness of the crew's resting bay was comfortable to her eyes as she shook her head and got onto her feet. There was a slight crick in her neck from the size of the pod leaving the molding at an slightly uncomfortable angle. It couldn't be helped; one size fits all sleeping pods for all crew was simply how it was.

"Lieutenant Shepard," the non-commissioned officer whose bed-shift was coming up spoke with a salute towards her.

She mumbled something, waving a hand as she yawned. Not the most proper of appearances for a ship's second-in-command to have, but she didn't particularly care at that moment. Switching out and letting the chief get into the sleeping pod she had just been using, she headed out to prepare for the day.

Or rather, her _shift_.

As aboard a starship day and night lost most of their meaning. Lacking any celestial object for reference, the day rhythms of each Navy vessel depended on a myriad of other factors. On the SSV Tokyo they used a three-shift divide for one standard galactic day, with one third spent resting and the other two working. On patrol ships there might have been time for R&R hours, but on this mission there simply wasn't time for that.

Even with computers handling the biggest share of the nitty gritty work, every man-hour was worth hundreds of thousands of credits out here in the beyond the fringes of the galaxy. Hopping back and forth between the Skyllian Verge, the Attican Traverse and occasionally dipping into batarian space, it had been one lightning raid after another. They had been following the trail of four bands of batarian pirates, tracking and analyzing their movements for well over a month now.

And all that work would be culminating in one final operation before they would return to base. Perhaps they would even go all the way to Arcturus Station, if their findings proved what the Alliance Intelligence had been suspecting for years now.

After a shower and some grub, with a cup of coffee in hand she began to make her way towards the CIC. Spotting the wide and straight back of her mentor as soon as she finished walking up to the CIC, she walked forwards.

"Good morning, Shepard."

She smiled, walking next to him and setting down her coffee. "Captain Anderson, good morning. Anything catch fire while I was gone?"

The Captain huffed despite himself, shaking his head.

"No. But we will be arriving at the designated gathering point within a few hours."

She nodded, glancing at the galaxy map and perusing some of the astrogational and communicator notes by the terminal. This far out in the black of space, very little information could be exchanged in real time. Even with FTL tightbeam technology, it was practically impossible to maintain a regular communication with larger bases. At best they could drop off and fly near communication buoys that would allow them to exchange information with other starships in the area.

And one such message had been received through the tightbeam while she had been asleep.

Shepard grinned, showing teeth as she turned to look at the Captain. "Torfan, huh?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Olive Birdy and Tactical Tunic up at spacebattles for proofreading.
> 
> Whew. Took a mite bit longer than I'd wanted. Mainly because BABYLONIA WAS FUCKING AWESOME. Also, SOLOMON GET YOUR SHIT READY, I'm COMING FOR YA! That said, I think we're all in agreement that thank fuck we're off Thessia, eh? Also, I would like to thank all my patrons up until now one more time. Their support has been really inspiring, but now I'm going to stop using pattreon because I'm getting tired of their shit. This shouldn't affect anything, and I'll keep the page up so if any of the patrons still want to throw the requests at me then I'll see what I can do to make it happen. For now, I'm not going to look for any alternatives either, so let's just keep going like before all that stuff, yeah?


	27. Restlessly, ever-turning

Sitting alone at the helm of a turian frigate, a lone hardsuited figure sat with one arm resting against his chin. Narrowing his eyes, he eyed the hologram projection of the FTL tightbeam communication he was receiving.

" _It's good that you've come; Kryik is still tied over at Thessia and you were the closest Spectre. This should calm things down a little, especially with the rumors of Tela Vasir having turned traitor,_ " the salarian Special Tasks Groups operator said.

He said nothing, merely nodding once.

It was not as if they were lacking in manpower at the moment. Not counting the blockade forces of asari starships, there were sixteen additional salarian vessels around a single silent asari cruiser. The problem would have been the fact that even among the Special Tasks Group there lay internal divisions.

While he had not directly experienced the intense obsession some of their number held with cybernetics, he knew that some of them would be willing to subtly undermine the Council if they believed they could get their hands on Redhax. His presence here would serve a long way in quelling such intentions, the numbers and odds shifting against them as he entered the scene.

"Are there any critical matters I should know about?" He asked, eyes narrowing at the STG operator.

" _No, at this time matters are under control._ " Meaning that the salarians would fall in line once he took command. _"Simply be advised to refrain from approaching the asari cruiser; maintain a minimum 100 kilometers distance at all times._ "

He nodded, understanding that it was as much a quarantine effort as it was for preventing collisions. "So he hasn't been found yet."

" _No, sir. The cruiser is very large and there are many unmarked passages, so it will take a while longer still. But we are making good progress. We managed to narrow down his position to a section of the ship earlier as one of our operatives was found dead there. It is only a matter of time now,_ " the salarian reassured the turian.

He said nothing to that, simply nodding. If Redhax was not found, it would be necessary to review all of the camera footage for signs of foul play. Whether it be someone siding with the human, or the salarians making a play of their own would be a question all of its own at that point. But for now he would extend enough trust to the STG so as to take them on their word.

"Hmm. And Councilor Tevos is already in Parnitha system?" He asked, deliberately moving on.

" _Yes, but Nihlus Kryik is managing her safety detail and there does not appear to be any further danger. Last update was two minutes and fifteen seconds ago._ "

"Alright. What of Tela Vasir?"

" _She is confirmed deceased, as of six hours ago by a group of Justicars. There appears to have been something unusual going on, and the reports so far are conflicting in nature. It also appears that it was her personal starship that was stolen and used to escape Parnitha system._ "

The turian nodded; he knew the corvette's specs well. "And what of the Janiri's Sickle now?"

" _It was boarded by the personnel of the asari cruiser, but it appears the asari captain had been bought out and that it was a ploy to escape once on this side of the Mass Relay. After the cruiser was disabled, we cleared it and disconnected it from the cruiser. It is powered down and orbiting the Mass Relay now. We thought it prudent to ensure that it was not used again to escape._ "

He nodded, that should be enough. But...

"And the reports of possible long-range teleportation?"

The salarian hesitated for a moment. " _Preliminary analysis concluded that it was limited in range, since it was not used to escape Thessia. There were numerous vessels in orbit that could have been used, thus we are assuming that a 100 kilometer gap should be sufficient._ "

In space, between star-traveling vessels a distance like that would be nothing. But for a person on foot? It was a ridiculous notion, a mobility that overturned all rules of engagement.

Noticing that he had been quiet for a moment, the salarian spoke up as if hasty to draw the comm to a close soon. " _Shall I send the preliminary report to you now? It should contain most of the details._ "

He nodded and the salarian initiated the transfer, after which the tightbeam cut off, leaving him alone once more. Or so it would have appeared.

"Continue heading towards the Special Tasks Group's starship. Notify me of any changes or tightbeam communiques," the turian Spectre said. The only acknowledgment he received on the empty CIC was the beep of a console, but that was enough for him.

Saren Arterius exhaled as he eyed the approaching Parnitha mass relay one more time, noting that it would still be half an hour until he was there. He had been contacted by the Councilors directly, told to head for the mass relay as quickly as he possibly could.

 _Of all the things..._ he grumbled as he returned his focus back to his main display where his numerous data points and charts were.

A three-taloned hand reached out and pulled back the zoom on the galactic map. Slowly inching away from the chaotic borderline of the Skyllian Verge until the edges of the map could display the entirety of that quadrant of the galaxy. Numerous small lights dotted the various star systems, drawing lines and regions, all showing the various settlements and pushes into the yet-uninhabited regions. Among them the blue seemed to be making the most headway, as a pale shade of green had been in a slow retreat for months now. It had been a scant twenty years since first contact had been made with humanity—since the Turian Hierarchy had been held back from striking down the dangerously ambitious and expansionist Systems Alliance.

And now humanity was at it again, pushing aggressively into the Skyllian Verge.

The Citadel did not care; it was uninhabited territory they thought. Saren knew differently. He could see the tendrils of the Batarian Hegemony, reaching outwards and into the verge. Their slavers, raiders, traders and diplomats—all practically one and only one profession in batarian culture—made their homes there. Long had the other races filed complaints over batarian aggression in these regions, and long had the batarian officials boldfacedly denied any part in such activities.

But that was how the batarians operated; every dealing of any importance held an element of subterfuge and treachery. Those 'rogue elements' were the outstretched fingers and hands of the Batarian Hegemony, and if the Systems Alliance continued their unchecked expansion, conflict was inevitable.

On the face of the matter, Saren did not care for the matter one bit. The batarians had left the Citadel years prior, refusing any dealings after the Citadel had refused to intervene in the brewing conflict between them and humanity in the Skyllian Verge. He was a Spectre; someone whose interests lay only in the good of the Citadel as a whole, after all.

But that was only on the face of the matter.

If one were to dig just a bit beneath the surface and look ahead, he could see how the chips would fall.

If humanity was allowed to grow unchecked in this manner, they would continue to spread too widely. Already they had spread into dozens of systems, utilizing barely nothing of the resources they already had at their disposal in a handful of decades. Barely over a century in space—and less than half of one with element zero technology—and yet they had already so much. It was as if the mad monkeys could not stand their own kind, spreading out as far and wide as possible at any opportunity.

The more closely he looked at humanity, the more he could see how they were barely being held together at the seams. The name Systems Alliance said it all, already. It was an 'Alliance' of various human interests, _nothing more_. It was not like the other races could all be nearly as united as the turians; they all had various factions, disagreements and troubles brewing beneath. But none of them spread themselves out so thin as humanity did, so far from their own existing borders.

If this continued, then humanity would not only grow uncontrollably, but would also sooner or later fracture into countless smaller factions.

Arguably the only thing that had legitimized the Systems Alliance government in the eyes of the rest of humanity had been the threat the turians had presented. It was necessary to keep an external pressure on humanity, a border beyond which they could not freely pass, lest the control the Systems Alliance could enforce on its own members slipped. For once the Citadel had to deal with two, three or however many more human fronts, none of which were beholden to any others words or promises, then it would be too late.

Saren Arterius honestly believed that humanity, if left unchecked, would grow into another catastrophe that could equal the Rachni Wars or the Krogan Rebellions. If for completely different reasons. But that _was_ the danger. The mighty turian navy could defeat another Rachni or Krogan menace on its own today, without even factoring in the other Citadel races' contributions, of that he held no doubts.

But humanity was tricky and slippery. Handling war with humanity on one front and peace on another was something he was not sure even the whole of the Citadel could handle.

Wasn't the disaster at Thessia the fault of humanity? By all accounts he had gathered so far, all it had taken was a handful of humans to throw the asari home world into complete chaos. If it ever came to a war with a human government, the worst allies they could have at their backs were another human government.

Humanity had to be contained; had to be checked. At least _until_...

Saren sighed, shaking his head.

He had numerous dealings in the area, having focused on the Skyllian Verge for much of his career as a Spectre. He could funnel funds and guide the development of the various factions the dealt in that corner of the galaxy. Indeed, he had been building up the Torfan installations behind the scenes for years. Despite having no direct authority or influence there, he had managed to convince the batarians on the small moon to dig deep and to reinforce their bases until the end result was something that was enough to weather even orbital bombardments from a dreadnought.

At least those that the Systems Alliance could build, anyhow.

And inside those bases lay defenses sufficient to bloody even the most disciplined and well equipped force. It would be a bloodbath, a failure large enough to completely decimate the System Alliance's attempts at gaining control over the Skyllian Verge as a whole.

He had studied humanity's history in detail. Especially the histories of the states that had come to form the current government, and he could predict the effect the public backlash would have on the expansion effort following Torfan. This ought to be enough to hamstring any concentrated efforts for a few decades.

Another year of preparation would have been preferable, but...

 _This will have to do,_ he thought with mild annoyance as he mentally changed gears. He had too much on his plate right now to focus solely on humanity.

Quickly checking the various efforts of his numerous contractors to chart out the planets and systems of the Skyllian Verge, he dismissed those as well. He wasn't likely to find a legendary lost world through such means, elsewise he was certain his patron would have long since discovered the location. But it could not hurt to be thorough.

Next he checked the update he had received from the asari matriarch. He blinked, realizing with some amusement that Benezia was pointedly not returning to Parnitha, despite the danger her only daughter her been in recently. The Matriarch had been trying to get closer to him for a few years now, but it seemed that her determination stemmed from more than a mere flight of fancy. _She could be a potent ally. Perhaps I should bring her in to the fold, after all..._

Well, it remained to be seen how well she handled the search for the missing Professor Henell. He had a desperate need of Prothean experts, one fueled by the growing impatience of his benefactor. Something he found rather strange; for an immortal, _it_ seemed to have very little patience.

Dismissing the rest of his other matters, he finally reached for the preliminary report the STG had compiled and began to look it over.

Saren was long since familiar with the background information regarding Redhax, but much of the new data gathered regarding the civilian person hidden behind the moniker left him disquieted. That a single human on Thessia had apparently been enough to cause all of that chaos on the extranet, was all but a complete confirmation of all his fears regarding humanity.

But any satisfaction he might have felt was pushed aside by the growing confusion and apprehension as he read on. From the initial conflict all the way to the current situation aboard the disabled asari cruiser, nothing about the human made sense.

Except...

Immense physical abilities; the ability to use technology beyond the current understanding of the galaxy; changing the properties of objects at the merest touch.

It all seemed to fit.

"That damn Harper," Saren grit his teeth as he spoke the name. Few today knew him as such, the man having adopted the moniker of the Illusive Man in his efforts of racial supremacy instead. "Did he find another _monolith_?"

They had both been affected by the Shanxi artifact, but Harper had been able to sense it across the galaxy, had been able to understand and read the language and characters of those affected by the monolith. If there was another and Harper had found it, could he have used it to create this entity known as Redhax? Had the humans taken up the challenge of creating 'meta-humans', just as his brother Desolus had once tried to do with turians? _He was adamantly against using the monoliths in any form back then, but perhaps his will has been eroded by the artifact over the years?_

"Sovereign called them husks... But could Harper have figured out how to control it for himself? He did resist the Shanxi monolith, didn't he?" He pondered out aloud, as he continued skimming the report. Was it possible to fight against that looming darkness, after all?

"Huh?"

Stopping at a particular line in the report, he checked the video footage that had been sent to the STG vessel after they had come through the Parnitha mass relay. Two humans had stridden onto the asari cruiser, one the already familiar figure of Redhax, the other a known Cerberus operative who had also been captured and taken into custody on the disabled asari cruiser. One of Harper's had been caught, but Redhax still remained on the loose.

"Who sent this to the salarians...?"

If Redhax was working with Cerberus, why reveal his escape? Saren would have suspected touched up footage, except for the fact that the asari commandos taken into custody had confirmed the footage as actually having taken place.

Exhaling loudly, Saren rose up from his seat as he walked around on the empty CIC. So the Illusive Man wasn't behind this after all? Or had there been some disagreement, causing Redhax to part ways with the female operative? _I'll have to interrogate her, first thing._

But what angle should he try for? She had not spoken a single word to the salarians who had caught her after her capture. He needed to find a crack in her shell before he could hope to gain any answers.

A record of her presence on the Citadel caught his eye, as Redhax had also been present in that event. She had nearly been caught during a party hosted by Synthetic Insights and following that her presence had been linked to the foiling of a terrorist hijack of a starliner on the following day.

Pulling out all relevant data, he eyed through it all. Finally, as he watched the security vid of the starliner incident, he noticed something.

Drawing up the passenger list on the starliner and comparing it to census information, he nodded. The turian's eyes crinkled as he found his angle.

* * *

;

* * *

"I see. Good work," he said with a crinkle of a smile as he took one last drag of his cigarette.

The glowing embers reflected in his eyes as he savored the feel for a moment, before finally putting it out in the ashtray next to his chair.

"How long until you can begin production?"

" _Half a year, but two would be optimal for setting up a dedicated factory._ "

He shook his head, his eyes narrowing at that. "Not good enough. You have two weeks. Any more than that, and they will be of no more use."

" _That's insane, we can't—_ "

Ignoring the protests, he forwarded a package through the commline. "I've sent you the details three factories that you should be able to convert to fit your needs. Use the contact details if you need specialists or manpower, and the attached funds if it becomes necessary to lubricate the process."

" _I—but, I, what?_ "

"You have two weeks," he said and cut off the line.

Leaning back, he inhaled and took in the silent darkness for a minute as he pondered things to come. If all went well, his preparations would be enough to maintain their current course. Though at the same time, he could not help but feel that there was something more he could do. For holding the line, they had all they needed. But for being able to reach beyond, for fighting back...

"We still need EVE, huh..."

Exhaling slowly, he checked his most recent reports.

Parnitha had now been in a state of a nearly complete communications blackout for well over six hours. He had not expected being able to receive any updates from the away team, but not being able to receive any news at all from the system was something he hadn't expected. Still, it did him little good to worry about things he could not affect.

Humanity's economy is booming. The Alliance Navy is in peak condition and has plenty of blooded veterans to draw on, thanks to the Skyllian Verge campaigns. Popular opinion was firmly on their side on the numerous causes they had helped sprout, Terra Firm was gaining in popularity in the Systems Alliance parliament and the media operations were still running along smoothly. Humanity, now having gained a taste of what it could achieve on the galactic scene and properly prepared, would find itself much more firmly footed for what would be to come.

"I might as well enjoy these quiet moments while I still can."

Even so...

It was difficult to contain his anticipation, he realized as he noted he was tapping with his fingers again. So many losses, so many friends and comrades gone. Shaking his head, he rose up and moved out to go play another game of skyball.

...It would be soon.

* * *

;

* * *

Liara sighed, looking out the window.

"What is the matter, miss Liara? Should I call the nurse back, or—"

"N-no, it's nothing. You don't have to do that Shiawe," she immediately tried to dissuade the other asari in the room, raising her hands in a futile effort to keep the other from standing upright.

"Are you certain, miss? You were hurt quite badly, after all..." The commando looked away, as if too ashamed to directly look at her. She was still ashamed of having been bested by Tela Vasir and having failed Liara before, it seemed.

"I was merely thinking about how empty the room suddenly felt," Liara said.

"Empty?"

Shiawe blinked at the younger asari, not quite understanding.

"Nn, well you came after they had already left, so it is not unusual that you wouldn't have noticed," Liara said quietly.

Tyra had said her quiet goodbyes once Okama had deemed it time for them to leave. She said they would first head for Trelle, but after that Liara had no idea where her old roommate would be destined for. Tyra would be back, she was certain of it. But somehow it felt like she was losing the first friend she had finally managed to make. Years—decades even—they had been at odds, and for what? Somehow she couldn't even remember anymore. It all felt so distant now.

The commando blinked, before she seemed to realize what Liara had meant. "Ah, your friend and the Justicar you mean? Yes, I understand what you mean."

"You do?"

"Yeah. The Justicars have a certain air about them, don't they? Your mother can be quite intense, but the Justicars are something else, aren't they?" Shiawe said with a light laugh and Liara had to join in.

After a moment, she tilted her head at the other as the thought popped in her head. "So, is my mother working with a Justicar?"

"Oh, yes. Justicar Anatha. A real curmudgeon and tightass—Erm, I mean..." Shiawe covered her mouth, looking abashed as she realized just what she had said.

But Liara only laughed lightly, not minding the crude words. But after a few seconds the mirth faded, and she returned to looking out through the window. She could no longer see _it_ directly, but it was still visible as a glow in the horizon far beyond the edge of the Serrinan sea. That burning glow across the sky, that is.

_Was that his doing, too?_

"You can rest easy, young miss. I'm sure Matriarch Benezia will return as soon as she hears what has happened. She will sort everything out with the Justicars and the Spectres. You'll see."

Liara blinked turning her head to stare at Shiawe, nonplussed at her reassuring words. After a few seconds, she managed a wan smile.

"Perhaps."

It wasn't that she thought her mother heartless or cold, but she highly doubted that. Liara had long since expressed her wish to walk on her own path, without her mother's aid. Benezia had given her that knowing smile and agreed, never once expressing anything but support, even as Liara had regretted the words a second later.

She shook her head, clearing the decades old memories through force of will as she exhaled. She had other things to worry about right now.

"Shiawe, do you know when they will let me leave?"

"Oh, uh... I don't know. Do you want me to go and ask?" Shiawe asked.

"Please, if you wouldn't mind," Liara answered with a slight nod.

"Of course! I'll be right back!" Shiawe exclaimed and was out of the hospital room before Liara could even thank her.

Sighing and feeling some amusement at the other's behavior, she returned to looking out through the window.

Unexpectedly, she could hear the door behind her opening only a handful of seconds later. Turning around, she raised a quizzical brow at Shiawe. "What did they say...?"

Only to trail off at the vaguely unfamiliar asari who had entered the hospital room. It was not Shiawe nor was she wearing any kind of hospital garments, but Liara still felt she had seen the older asari somewhere before.

"Liara T'Soni?"

She blinked, nodding dumbly. The asari—a Matriarch Liara finally realized with some alarm—smiled and nodded in response.

"That is good. I have been looking for you. There are some things I would like to discuss with you, you see."

Liara nodded hesitantly again, finally realizing where she knew the other from. Just the same, the Matriarch also seemed to realize she had forgotten to introduce herself.

"Oh, where are my manners. I am Doctor Aurana T'Meles, of—"

"The University of Serrice's board of directors? This is, I am..." Liara moved to stand up from the bed, but the Matriarch gestured for her to remain as she was.

"Please, do not feel any need to stand on any ceremony on my part. Especially as you are a patient, it would be unbecoming of me strain you overmuch over nothing. I'm sure you understand," Aurana said and Liara nodded hesitantly, even if she really didn't. "I've merely come to ask some questions regarding some of the past days events. Only if you feel up to it, of course."

"That is," Liara hesitated. "I am not sure how much I am allowed to say. Wouldn't it perhaps be more prudent to ask the Justicars, or the Spectres...?"

Aurana smiled patiently in return, though for just a split-second Liara thought she saw a hint of aggrieved annoyance in those eyes.

"No, no. Nothing like that, I assure you. I am sure they would not even understand my questions. It deals with _our_ field of expertise, you see?" The Matriarch explained with a conspiratorial wink.

"O-oh," was all Liara could say as she nodded dumbly.

"Now, now. Don't look so taken aback, I have been following your progress the past decade with rapt interest, miss T'Soni." The Matriarch said as she finally seated herself beside Liara. "You've a very bright future ahead of you, one you will decide to dedicate yourself to in Serrice, I hope."

She couldn't say anything to that, merely flushing at the praise and lowering her face.

"Therefore I can't help but wonder at what you thought you were doing, playing along with that _Haphia's_ folly."

"Huh?" Liara blinked, looking up and almost reeling at the sudden whiplash in tone.

"If she promised you some position in the University of Serrice for playing along with her flight of fancy then I _assure you_ , she most certainly did not have the authority to do anything of that nature. All appointments are made strictly through the faculty of directions."

The Maiden licked her lips, too taken aback by the sheer vehemence in the Matriarch's words to voice a rebuttal.

"W-what?"

She shook her head, a mournful expression on her face.

"Forcefully taking over a laboratory—one that has been fully booked ahead for decades, especially—to run 'experiments' so, so _irreputable_ and _ill-conceived_. Especially when her own schedule ought to be dedicated solely to the findings of the Dretirop dig for years to come. There are procedures, protocols to follow! Requests to file and approve."

Liara blinked, licking her lips as she tried to understand the Matriarch's words.

"But—"

"And then we even received word from the Serrice Guard of her refusing to comply with their officers during a time of crisis! Does she not understand that our funding comes from the city of Serrice? Does she not understand how that comes off to the city council? _Goddess,_ the temerity of her! Does she think just because she is friends with Henell and Tevos that she can do as she pleases?!

"And worst yet, the damages to the exhibits at the museum! We haven't even been able to put a number on everything that has been ruined, much less the cultural loss of so many priceless pieces! She will be lucky to keep her head after this, much less her position!"

Liara said nothing as she could only listen, beginning to wonder what any of this had to do with her. Realizing that she had been shouting, Aurana collected herself, clearing her throat as she smiled at Liara as if abashed by her outburst.

Yet somehow, it all felt too controlled. Too rehearsed. Liara glanced at the door, wondering at the Matriarch's timing for the first time. She had been here for hours, yet only once she was all alone did Aurana decide to visit her?

Liara swallowed, trying to wet her suddenly all too dry throat. She had left with Professor Henell to Dretirop, hoping to gain some practical experience but also to avoid much of the politics that in her opinion plagued much of the Thessian Academia. There were thousands of specialists on the Protheans among the asari, yet the Dretirop expedition seemed to have managed to collect every one of the two and a half hundred asari among that number who had been on more than one dig in their entire life.

Certainly it was a requirement for all to have been on at least on expedition to receive their master's degree...

But overwhelmingly, the preference among asari experts on Protheans seemed to be for the theoretical side of matters. For discussion, forums and panels. For the cleaner side of the matter, they said. Leave the digging in the mud for the salarians who seemed to love it so much. Give the short-lived and eternity-driven salarians the fame they craved; as asari they had the luxury of a millennium to build their own legacies.

Or so the sentiment seemed to go.

"I _should_ apologize, that must have come off a little too harshly." Aurana's thunderous expression mellowed, and she smiled, almost apologetically. "But you must understand how such things come across."

"I... I am not sure I do," Liara hesitantly confessed.

She did realize a great deal had happened.

Immense and groundbreaking things, revelations that had shaken her to her core and dangers that had left her completely adrift and lost in a world the seemed entirely unalike all that she had been so familiar with her entire life. Too lost in absorbing everything that had happened just from her own perspective, she had not even considered how it would seem to the rest of the world.

Aurana reached out with one hand, placing it on Liara's own and giving her's a reassuring squeeze. "I apologize, you've been through so much, yet here I am laying these troublesome matters at your feet..."

"Ah, no... That's..."

"You have been through so much, miss T'Soni. I am sure you must be tired. Wouldn't it be best if you left the rest to everyone else? I am sure a month or two away from everything would do you good."

Liara hesitated. "No, but the Dretirop findings, and..."

Aurana squeezed again, smiling more widely.

"There is no need for worry, they will wait. In fact, until Nirida Henell returns, those matters cannot even be properly begun. Something like this cannot be handled without _someone_ to take charge, you understand."

"I am not sure I—"

"It is fine if you are confused, miss T'Soni. As long as you simply rest here for the time being, it will all sort itself out."

Liara blinked, slowly nodding. But then she shook her head; there was too much to do. There was the matter of Dretirop, but more importantly she hadn't forgotten about the Prothean gun. _He_ had said he had found it on Mars, beneath the already known ruins.

Baliya had not said anything, but Liara had seen it for herself.

The gun originated from Ilos and it was proof of the seventh age. Just as _he_ had suspected, much to her great consternation. She couldn't rest now; she needed to get right back to it as quickly as possible. It was as much annoyance as genuine interest on her part that was spurring her onwards now.

She looked up, meeting eyes with the Matriarch and she spoke calmly. "I am sorry, Doctor T'Meles, but I cannot do that."

The Matriarch continued smiling for several seconds in silence, though there were no hints of incomprehension in her eyes. Finally, she sighed. "So you will side with that Baliya Haphia after all. Even knowing that she will be losing her position—crashing and burning as a consequence of everything that has happened, so to speak—you will still side with her?"

Liara did not hesitate, nodding immediately. She was not entirely certain what Aurana's driving policy here was, but she knew it had little to do with what she wanted. No, rather with what she _needed_.

Let the Matriarchs butt heads, she would simply get on with the research.

The silence lingered for several seconds, until finally the Matriarch stood up and smiled, as if everything that had been said had merely been a dream and nothing more. "Your loyalty is admirable, but... No, it is nothing. Thank you for your time, miss T'Soni. It has been most enlightening _._ "

Liara didn't know what to say to that, only nodding as Aurana moved to leave the room.

Just then Shiawe returned however. Bursting into the room at such speed as to almost topple the Matriarch, she was panting and upon spotting the stranger in the room flared her biotics as if she was expecting a fight.

"Miss Liara! You're—you're alright!" She almost collapsed as she said that.

"Shiawe, what is the matter?" Liara asked, standing out of the bed before she had even realized it. There was something about the commando's bearing that unsettled her.

And the words that followed only proved her worst fears true.

"It's that professor you were with, Baliya! She's been found dead in her hospital room!"

* * *

;

* * *

Miranda felt tired.

Everything had been going so right, and then suddenly it had all fallen apart in an instant. One moment she was on top of the world; riding the greatest wave of her life and rushing forward toward successes she couldn't even have dreamed of.

And now here she was.

Captured and all alone, at the mercy of the salarians and the Spectres. Her bound hands chafed and her skin itched all over, the dried sweat and grime from her attempted escape sticking to her skin uncomfortably. She had tried to make things right again, had tried desperately to find Emiya, to escape the cruiser before it was too late. But it was useless. Her own hastily prepared trap had sprung just as she had intended it, only to find herself trapped and alone as he simply vanished as if it had all been a lie.

Left alone in a holding cell, she found her doubting her own memories and thoughts.

Had he really been there at all? She was certain that he had some kind of projection technology, something that allowed him to act from afar. But she was still certain that his actual body had been with her the whole time. It had to be. Why else would he have gone through all the trouble so far? Didn't he want to leave Thessia and Parnitha? Of that much she was certain. She had thought she could use that, to read moves ahead on the board and to make a grab for _everything_.

Why had she tried to trap him, anyhow? Maybe if she— _No, he was lying again. He was going to do the same damn thing he did last time. He had no intention of actually working with me once he got what he wanted!_

Miranda had to believe that. Otherwise...

She seethed, clenching her fist so hard her nails drew blood.

"Focus, _focus,_ " she told herself as she shook her head. "I need to think of something..."

She needed to escape.

There was no one coming for her, no one who had either the pull or the interest to free her. She was neither irreplaceable nor was she too dangerous to be lost. She knew better than anyone how quickly Cerberus would be able to account for anything she could possibly reveal to her interrogators, she had helped design and test many of the protocols herself after all.

Her hands were bound by a solid block of steel made with a material fabricator, and her omnitool, gun, hardsuit's helmet, kinetic barrier pack and biotic amp had all been confiscated by the salarians. If she had any of those items, then perhaps she could get the fabricated bindings off, but as it was she was helpless.

The best idea she could think of was to create a minimal biotic warp field without her amp, to erode the steel enough to be able to break it. But the rough calculations she did in her head on the field intensity told her that she would die of thirst before she could have any hope of breaking free.

_If they're keeping me incarcerated and isolated for a long time, maybe..._

But that would only be the first step. Carelessly revealing she could break free could be disastrous; she had to be patient. As long as she quietly observed and planned, eventually a chance would reveal itself.

She wasn't going to let it end here. There was no way in hell she would give up. Not until—

The door opened and she had to consciously relax as she worked to keep her breathing in order, making an effort to appear neither confrontational nor too submissive at the salarian who was staring down at her.

"Ge _t u_ p."

The thin, warbling voice sounded strange to her ear without an omnitool for translation, and it took her a second to realize he himself had spoken English.

She obeyed, standing up without hurrying or tarrying. The salarian motioned for her to get out, and then led her away down the hallway of the STG ship had been moved to earlier. Her eyes took in everything, poring over anything she thought could be useful. If they were just moving her to another facility or cell, then even just knowing the route could be important for when she finally made her escape. Anything and everything could prove vital, she wouldn't know until the moment of realization once she had a plan. It was important that she maintain her calm, regardless of what happened. As long as she kept a cool head and always kept thinking, she would be able to take everything in.

However, as she was guided into a meeting room, her mind went entirely blank for a second as her body stiffened in shock.

Standing there was a lone turian, facing half away from her and giving her a profile view. His skin was a light gray—an almost metallic silver even—with two long crests running at the sides of his head. His eyes moved to hers, and she felt a shiver run down her spine as she almost took a step back. But she controlled herself, maintaining a placid poker face as they stared at each other.

There was a second of tense silence, until Saren Arterius smiled with his mandibles flaring widely. " _Miranda Lawson_. This is certainly an interesting time, place and circumstance to be meeting, no?"

His flanging voice made his speech sound slightly off, but his pronunciation and articulation of the English language was good enough that it was perfectly understandable.

"Sit right over there," he said motioning with one hand at a chair on the opposite end of the table from himself.

She hesitated for a second, before stepping forward. Behind her the salarian stepped into the room and settled by the door, intent on standing watch.

But Saren had other ideas.

"Leave."

The salarian hesitated, glancing at Miranda for a second. But the turian didn't repeat himself, did not even bother looking at the salarian. Finally, almost sullenly, the salarian left and closed the door behind him.

"Hmm..." Saren nodded to himself, standing up to walk around the room.

Miranda eyed his talons, the clicking noise the armored tips making on contact with each other unnerving her. Physically humans and turians were nearly equal when it came to strength and speed, but when it came to fighting the turians held a distinct advantage with their sharp claws and teeth. He would be able to rip open her throat with a casual swipe of his talons.

She swallowed, wetting her dry mouth as Saren continued his slow circle around her, walking behind her back with deliberate slowness.

Finally, coming to a stop on the other side of the table, he hummed to himself as if he had been thinking about something. "Hmm, that's better. Now we are finally _alone._ "

She blinked. It didn't seem like he was referring to the salarian...?

Sitting down, he placed his hands on top of each other, almost as if he was miming human gestures just for her. Inhaling slowly, he almost seemed to be savoring the silence as his eyes bore into hers.

_What does he want? What does he know?_

As a Spectre he was free to do with her as he wished, a fact which left Miranda more than a little apprehensive. The turian's disregard for humanity was well known, but even among the turians Saren Arterius's vocal opposition to humanity could be heard above the din of the crowd.

Miranda swallowed, wetting her dry throat again.

"Are you thirsty? My mistake, I'll have them bring something for you to drink," Saren immediately said, causing her to blink. "Some ' _scotch_ ', perhaps? That was Harper's choice of beverage, last I checked. Does he still inhale those smoke sticks, as well?"

She froze entirely, taking a whole second to realize that now the turian was _grinning_ at her.

"Yes. Yes, of course I am aware that you were one of his. What is it that he's calling himself these days? The Illusive Man? Pah." He laughed, shaking his head as his mandibles quivered with amusement. "There is little illusive about that man, excepting his own beliefs regarding his and humanity's place in the galaxy. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to understand. Let's put that behind us, it is enough that we have established that I know exactly who you are, _Miranda Lawson._ "

She looked away, desperately keeping her face controlled and mouth closed as a thousand thoughts ran through her mind.

The turian Spectre did not seem to mind one bit, as he continued talking in the same relaxed tone of voice. "Now, what _does_ interest me is what you were doing here. Were you behind the incident with the orbital station KX-0331?"

Silence.

"How did you manage to get past the blockade onto Thessia? Did you have forewarning that this would happen?"

Maybe she could lie to him? As long as she kept her fiction straight, it might be convincing enough to pass. She had been taken alone, meaning that Kai Leng and Rasa were still probably free.

"What is your relationship with the individual who lived in Serrice under the name 'Fujimura Saiga'? Is he a member of your organization?"

As long as Matriarch Trellani did not attempt anything, she should have the certainty of being the only one who had been arrested. That meant she had control over the narrative. A tiny bit of it, anyhow.

"How did you come into contact with the asari captain of the cruiser?"

The question was, how much truth could she mix in? As it was, it was the truth that was far too strange to be believable. But a certain amount was necessary, to sell everything else she would want to say. What could she sacrifice to protect what had to be held secret?

Miranda licked her lips and opened her mouth.

"I came alone to Thessia—"

"You're lying," Saren interrupted her, almost gently.

She blinked. He wasn't guessing. He knew for a certainty that she was lying. How? Did they have someone else in custody already? But—

"The salarians took quite an interest in humanity after the event you were a part of on the Citadel happened, years back. Five years is a long time for them, and several of the brightest minds of the Special Tasks Group dedicated all their time to but one subject..." Saren said, clicking his talons on the table in a click-click-click rhythm. "Can you guess what had them so fascinated?"

She said nothing, not having heard anything about the STG having taken an interest in humans. But then pieces began to fall in place. Statistical anomalies, people turning missing, human psychologists' and neurosurgeons' homes and practices being raided by persons unknown...

If the salarians had been behind it, then—

"The human mind."

"Exactly," Saren crooned, making Miranda realize she had spoke out aloud.

With one decisive rap on the table with his middle talon, one of the walls of the room suddenly lit up. She flinched at the sudden change, realizing that what had seemed like a plain wall was actually a very large display. It was almost like one of those one-way mirrors that still remained in numerous ancient crime and cop vids from Earth's past, because she could see her own face in it.

She looked around the room, completely unable to find the cameras feeding the live footage into the display. There were numerous graphs, numbers, dials and rolling text on the sides, all indicating something that was being observed and analyzed about _her_. There were thousands—no, hundreds of thousands of data points being taken down about her every second. Every twitch of her eyes, every breath she took, every thought she had was being reflected in that 'mirror'.

"Now, they had been interested in the mind-body connection of humans, along with their brains more than anything. But this 'lie detector' was one of the more productive results of those efforts. They had hoped for something different, but I am more than satisfied with the results of their work. It does require the processing capability of an entire mainframe, so its uses are limited... But, that's hardly a problem for me," the turian explained as if he was boasting of his new skycar to a friend. Casual, friendly, as if expecting her to care about it with a polite interest rather than the full knowledge of her actual situation.

She swallowed, inhaling slowly.

This changed _everything_ , and _nothing_. If she couldn't feed him false information, then all she could do was keep her silence. If she said nothing, then it didn't matter what the device could read. It was not possible to read minds, not yet at least. Of that much she was certain.

"I see you arrived at the crux of the matter. Even if I can see through your lies, I cannot compel you to speak truth." The turian nodded sagely, running a lone talon across the table as if he was checking for dust. Drawing the limb to a halt, he looked up at her. "But well, I do believe you will tell me, Miranda Lawson _._ "

The talon rapped the table again, twice this time. Immediately the wall next to them lit up and displayed something. This time she did not flinch, instead only slowly turned to look at the display. Something in her gut was telling her that she should not watch, that she should not become aware of it.

But she couldn't look away.

It was the camera feed of a helmet camera, looking through a scoped rifle. Through the magnification, she could see the crosshairs following a diminutive target.

"Oriana..." She whispered.

"Well then... What shall it be, Miranda Lawson?" Saren asked with a pleased expression as he leaned back away from the table. "You two look very alike, don't you? Even I could see the resemblance right away."

" _You...!_ " Miranda grit her teeth, standing up violently as the blood rushed to her head.

She clenched her fists, all the apprehension over their physical differences long gone as she tried to piece together how she would kill this turian, who—

"And do mind that even with the FTL connection, we're still seeing minutes old footage. She is light-years away from us. Who knows, perhaps something might have already happened...?"

But his calm, almost slightly amused words poured down on her like a pail of ice-water. Her logical mind reeled at the mistake she had almost committed in her white-hot anger. Sitting down unprompted by her captor, she looked down at the table as she tried to calm down.

She had to be calm.

**_Calm_.**

****

There was no room for emotions or mistakes here.

She felt sick. She felt like she was swaying in her chair, even as her hands clenched the table so hard that her knuckles were white and the barely healed wounds from her nails opened up again.

_What does it matter? What does any of it matter?_

She inhaled slowly, feeling the sickness in her gut pulling back. Her eyes weren't wet, but they felt as if she had pulled her eyelids back and sandblasted her pupils.

The shaking in her limbs stopped as she inhaled slowly.

Miranda Lawson had already once betrayed all her friends and family to protect one thing. She had done it before; what did it matter if she did it again? She would tell the Spectre whatever he wanted to know, would do whatever he asked.

Looking up, letting the curtain of dark hair recede back to reveal her face, she met the turian's eyes. She was certain that she had regained her calm; that her face was a careful mask showing no emotions. She could even see numerous dials and readouts in the damned 'mirror' behind the turian's back flat-lining in response to how her mind seemed to be pulling back from her body.

But even so, as their eyes met she could see a spark of vicious glee in him. He knew he had won, and he reveled in her crushing defeat. At the ease and efficiency with which he had subjugated a willful human. However, even with all the pleasure he was obviously deriving from this, he was still a professional. And there was work to be done.

"Well then, let us try this again... Were you or your organization behind the incident with the orbital station KX-0331?"

"No," she answered promptly and clearly.

He did not look as much surprised as he did contemplative at that response. "How certain are you of that?"

Saren doubted her words. Not due to any possibility of her lying, but merely due to her being too low on the organization's totem pole to truly be in the know. That she had been kept in the dark, that she was simply too unimportant, uninformed and incompetent to have known about any such plans.

 _Does he have dossiers on Cerberus' officers?_ She shook her head, swallowing once as she glanced at the visual feed of the crosshairs targeting her sister. _How much can I explain to him? I need to make sure he understands, that he doesn't wonder._ _Oriana comes first, everything else I can..._

Yet, there was niggling sense of guilt. No, not guilt. She was far too removed from everyone in Cerberus to feel such an emotion.

Shame.

"Well?" The turian prompted and she looked up.

It couldn't have been them. It couldn't have been Cerberus—she wouldn't have stood for it. Supporting and aiding humanity in the shadows by combating the other races was one thing. But genocide on this scale?

No. She wouldn't have condoned it. The _majority_ of the people working for Cerberus wouldn't have condoned it. All for varying reasons and causes, but still. And most importantly the Illusive Man wouldn't have condoned it.

But Saren would not believe or care for such reasoning. She had to explain it in colder terms, in reasons why she herself would not have stood for such a plan.

"...No, that's impossible. We have too little to gain and too much to lose. The long-term consequences of this incident will only hurt humanity. We do not possess the presence required for something like this to have been made possible, either."

It made no sense. Cerberus was not behind whatever it was that had happened. But then, who was? It couldn't have been Emiya, of that she was certain. Was it the Shadow Broker, as he had suspected? _Something is off here._

"I see," Saren said with a nod. "A shame."

She blinked, a sense of calm dread washing over her for just an instant as her previous train of thought was lost. Something about his callous remark struck her. _Why would he wish for Cerberus to be behind the attack?_

"Then, how did you arrive on Thessia?" He asked.

Miranda hesitated. Why was he asking these questions. It ran counter to the agenda of the Citadel, didn't it? He should want to pursue the KX-0331 lead, shouldn't he? The room seemed to be closing in on her, as that nameless dread seemed to be returning in beat with her trembling heart.

"...We have a contact on Thessia who helped us. A Matriarch by the name of Trellani," she sacrificed something without hesitation, the poisoned truth spilling from her lips without any signs of subterfuge.

Even the 'lie detector' seemed to believe it. Though, could she trust that he was showing her the actual readouts? Did it even work? He had called her out on a single lie, but that was all. This could have been just an elaborate bluff.

 _It doesn't matter,_ she couldn't gamble with Oriana's life.

"That's not what I asked you, Miranda Lawson," Saren rebuked her. "How did you arrive on Thessia?"

"...There were stealth vessels that could get us past the embargo," she finally admitted. "I don't know the details of how they work."

She knew about eezo, but that much was still true. She couldn't have built something like the injectors, even if she had some of the exotic variant eezo.

"And where are these stealth vessels now?"

"We left them with Trellani."

He nodded, a thoughtful and satisfied gleam in his eyes. As if pieces were falling in place in some grand scheme he was concocting. And she was his accomplice, his tool in all of this. There was nothing she could do, as she had helped him achieve a checkmate in some grand shadow game she could not even imagine. She clenched her fists below the table, the monitors noting elevated responses on hundreds of dials.

And then he blinked, the air of absoluteness vanishing as if it had been a lie all along. Frowning and looking away, he opened his omnitool, fiddling with the haptic adaptive interface with a bewildered expression.

Something had just happened, but what— _Ah, of course._

Miranda couldn't help it; she guffawed. A solitary laugh, almost a cough. Yet the tension and restlessness in her vanished, just a smidgen.

The turian's sharp eyes instantly drew to her, and she could almost feel a tangible pressure against her throat. As if he was pondering whether to rend open her throat in that instant. But the expression of amusement did not disappear from her face, even if she had no winning moves left to play, that did not mean that Saren had won.

Not yet.

" _He_ did _something_ again, didn't he?" She shook her head and looked away. Not while that wildcard was still on the loose. And somehow, despite the entirety of the situation pressing down on her, she felt as if she had scored one point back against the turian Spectre. "You'll get used to it sooner or later."

For in that silence as he blinked at her words, she could sense a deep apprehension.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Olive Birdy for proofreading.
> 
> Sorry for the wait. A bit shorter than I've gotten into a habit of lately. But this is because I wanted no Emiya scenes in here, to act as a sort of tangible divide between the Thessia Arc's closing and the beginning of the coming arc. Also since I'm no longer getting paid and feel obligated to give sufficient bang for the buck I'm receiving, it feels like I'd be okay writing shorter chapters too.
> 
> Any thoughts on the matter?


	28. Toward Torfan

Emiya raised the ration pack above his head, sucking out the last dregs of the mushy blend before discarding it with one last swallow, heavy with resignation.

It was heavy with preservatives and made with little regard for taste or consistency, but it _was_ nutritious. Everything you needed to live for a day in one meal! At least for asari, the asterisk below the slogan disclaimed— _he_ would probably have to supplement it with something, if he continued on a diet of ration packs for a longer time.

For the most part, his headache had disappeared, and he was feeling a lot better already.

Though it had not been the most comfortable of places to crash down on, he had managed a fairly decent night's sleep. For the first time in years, even. Usually he always simply went about his business and hacked during the night hours on Thessia. He had leaned against a sword embedded in the ground and closed his eyes inside of his own world, dreaming the dreamless sleep of the dead. Somehow his internal world had felt nostalgic after all this time. It had been that realization, which had made him open his eyes once more.

It hadn't been more than a few hours since he had crashed, but waking up had been a strange thing. He hadn't 'woken up' where he had fallen asleep, rather he mentally woke up around the time his body had been looking for something to drink in a half-conscious state for well over a minute. Waking up to actual consciousness in a dark storage room, covered in ration packs had been rather perplexing.

Not entirely sure what else to do and still being quite famished and thirsty he had simply decided to eat and drink where he had been. It wasn't like there seemed to be any danger or immediate hurry. So he had continued to tear into ration packs in the dark of the storage room.

That was already half an hour ago. Since then, he had managed to at least get his bearings.

So here he was, sitting in the all too small cockpit again with a pile of rations at his side while he eyed the galaxy map. Fixing Miranda's sabotage was a quick job and he had been able to do it while eating with one hand. He could access everything remotely, but having the displays in front of him felt more natural.

Especially since he could no longer directly interface as he had with the Tristar. His cracked spiritual core was already being a bother.

Eyeing the numerous starships coming and going through the Mass Relay along with the dozens of warships all around him, he sighed.

"What to do... What to do..."

The moment he tried to gun the engines and take off, the other starships would surely shoot out his engines or do something similarly troublesome for him. Though as long as Tela Vasir's old corvette remained cold and running only on battery power, he had the advantage of a hiding place no one would think to check out. Well, until someone _finally_ decided to double-check everything when they realized he wasn't on the cruiser.

So he couldn't exactly just wait here either. Sooner or later, someone would come looking again. And he was in something of a hurry. But at the same time, _haste makes waste. I have time to think again, I should plan my next moves thoroughly while I can._

Because even if he managed to escape the immediate situation, that was just the start of his troubles. He couldn't simply fly to the nearest Mass Relay and attempt a jump.

With functional communications in the picture again, even with FTL-travel he would be arriving much too late to avoid his more numerous pursuers. Mass Relays were the focal points of space-travel; even if the galaxy was a ridiculously vast place, as long as you could control the Mass Relay, you could control the galaxy. There were a number of Mass Relays, creating a criss-crossing web of routes from one corner of the galaxy to the other. So while you could always go clockwise or counter-clockwise around the Milky Way, generally speaking for a galactic power it would quite easy to set up checks on choke-points.

Some places even had just the one, such as Parnitha, which made controlling the traffic to the system quite easy. Such was the nature of Primary Relays.

There were two kinds of Mass Relays; Primary Relays which functioned at ranges of thousands of light-years and Secondary Relays that only functioned for hundreds of light-years. The Secondary Relays could be paired with other Secondary Relays in range, creating a connected cluster of sorts where one could jump to any other point in the cluster from any relay. But the Primary Relays were different. They connected only to a single Relay, the other Primary Relay it was paired with.

It could be thought of like tangled city streets, connected by a long highway in between as the only pathways between the numerous cities.

Meaning that even if he had escaped Thessia, slipped through the Mass Relay, and bypassed the blockade behind it, sooner or later he would still have other obstacles to deal with. He would continue to have them unless he could circumvent the system entirely. As long as he stayed in Citadel space, every Mass Relay would be another hurdle. Another point of critical failure. Behind every Primary Relay there might be another fleet. Another host of warships waiting on him to pass through into their waiting arms. With FTL communication massively out-performing FTL-travel, he would never be able to outrun them all.

"What a mess..."

But right now the hourglass had been tipped over. The falling sands had paused and come to a rest, as time was thrown into limbo. He had time to breathe and figure out what to do for now.

So he should use it.

Eyeing the galaxy map, he exhaled and rubbed his brow. He felt _off his game_ , somehow. Something about how he had gotten up was bothering him. Like he had forgotten something, or as if something was amiss.

He blinked, straightening up. "I haven't brushed my teeth."

The realization made it click.

How was he expecting to perform up to his usual level, when he hadn't even done his routine? The previous day had been one stretched out conflict with no time for rest, and now if he tried to get right back into it he would still be stuck in the mindset he had been in at the end. That wasn't good; he needed fresh eyes and a new perspective. With a put upon sigh, he rose from the seat and cleaned up after himself.

Exercise wasn't worth it right now; he had just eaten and the exertion would only waste the nutrition in his stomach, and he was still sore from everything that had happened on Thessia. Getting up, he grumbled out aloud, "This thing better have a shower..."

Ten minutes later, as he dried himself off after stepping out of the shower, he realized something else. Staring at the projected toothbrush in his hand, he let out a disgusted sigh.

"There's no toothpaste..."

Shaking his head and sending droplets of water flying everywhere from his matted hair, he settled on having to brush without.

To think that five years ago he had struggled with getting back to a civilian life, and here he was now complaining about a lack of toothpaste. Looking at himself in the mirror, he wasn't even surprised to see the gray eyes staring back at him, set in the tanned skin and topped off by a head full of white hair. Having held back his magical energy and kept his abilities in check, the process through which the soul overwrote the body had been halted. For over five years he had woken up every morning to a face in the mirror that had seemed unfamiliar to him each morning. Yet now having returned to his _normal_ , he somehow felt as if it was a loss. He really was back to how he had been at the end of his life, now. Somehow, that seemed fitting given everything else that was going on in his life.

Scoffing as much as spitting out the water in his mouth, he dispelled the projected toothbrush once he was done.

At least getting the sweat and grime off of himself along with the cold water on his skin had helped him to clear his head. The problem was that the Mass Relays were a known quantity. The asari alone had been traveling through space for millennia; he could never hope to match them in astrogation and piloting. The Citadel's people would have countless charts, contingencies and plans for every route he could think to take.

Attempting to play on their terms would just end up with them slowly closing in and encircling him, until he was trapped again. It would be pointless.

It _was_ pointless, to play by their rules.

He had only managed everything he had until now, because he was playing by an entirely different set of rules. He knew and understood theirs, but they were grasping at straws when it came to him.

So he had to do something brazen again. Something so outlandish as to leave his pursuers completely aghast and at a loss for what to do. Had to do something no one had thought to prepare for. After all, he was just one man trying to outrun the largest unified force in the known galaxy. To match the efforts of a hundred thousand ordinary actions, he had to continue to do extraordinary things as long as he was all alone. Nothing less would do.

"First option..." He muttered as he sat down on the cold floor, crossing his legs as he settled down. "Fly to one of the nearest systems and activate a dormant Mass Relay."

In 2149, nearly three decades ago, humanity had discovered the dormant Charon Relay. Activating it had opened up the galactic highway to humanity, allowing them to spread rapidly beyond the bounds of just their own system. With that mindset, they had gone about activating any and all relays they could find, drunk on the new frontiers and corners to explore that each promised.

Until first contact with the turians, anyhow.

The Citadel races held another view on the matter of activating dormant relays. One born of a disastrous first contact with a hostile space-faring insectoid race. The Rachni Wars had occurred two thousand years ago, but the after-effects could still be felt in the galaxy of today. Opening dormant Primary Relays was forbidden by the Citadel. It had been that law the turians had been enforcing, when they had attacked humanity first and humanity's first contact war had erupted.

Meaning there were still dormant relays to be found here and there. If he flew for one of the star systems furthest from the Parnitha relay's pair, perhaps he could activate a dormant relay to open up a new pathway for himself? To go around the known routes?

He scoffed.

Or perhaps he would run headfirst into some new, as-of-yet-unknown horror and unleash it upon the galaxy. But more importantly, he would be straining the corvette's fuel tanks with such a long flight if he wanted to keep ahead of his pursuers. If he tried to skimp on fuel and acceleration, a nominally slower ship might well fly at full burn and arrive before him wherever he decided to head.

Moreover, once there, what then? Head to space unknown? Try his hand at exploration in a starship designed around speed and comfort, not long voyages or exploration? This thing couldn't even skim fuel by itself. Most likely he would run out of fuel or have the starship break down somewhere, leaving him to die in the cold of space or crashed down on some barren planet.

Though...

There was a certain pull he felt towards exploration, nonetheless. The great unknown. He hadn't been an adventurous type in his youth, but his long travels had made him grow keen on visiting new places, new cuisine to try out and new people to meet. Perhaps he might even run into other, previously completely unknown space-faring races?

Emiya shook his head.

Since it wasn't an effective option for his current situation, that made it a consideration for another time. He had decided to save Nirida Henell, therefore his flights of fancy could wait.

"I don't even have a change of clothes," he complained quietly, dismissing the thought of wearing the hardsuit again with annoyance.

He had _just_ gotten out of it.

With a shrug, he simply projected his usual black slacks and shirt without another thought to the matter. In this age they were rather anachronistic and would draw more than a few glances, but he still preferred them over the contemporary fashions. Normally he would seek to avoid sticking out any more than he already did, but he didn't care right now.

Sitting back down into the cockpit, he exhaled as he looked at the ceiling. "So that leaves trying to fiddle with the Mass Relays themselves, huh."

It was still cramped and uncomfortable. But now since he knew he would be flying this starship for a while and without the worry of Miranda staring over his shoulder, he might as well _adjust_ it.

"—Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

Stretching out the dimensions of the chair wasn't particularly hard, and the rest of the cockpit wasn't really challenging or complex either. But the cost was substantial. He could have projected three holy swords for that effort. But he had no interest in swords at the moment, only the comfort of the cockpit. Nodding at the more comfortable seat now, he exhaled as he settled in. _At least the spiritual core's damage doesn't seem to affect my ability inside the body._

Still, it was going to be a problem.

It wasn't something that would heal with just time and rest. Even the amount of magical energy he had wouldn't affect it much. It did not matter how much water you could pour into a bucket; the hole at the bottom would remain a hole in the bottom regardless of how much water it leaked. Strenuous effort outside his body would probably worsen it. It wouldn't affect his ability to act, only make him lose magical energy rapidly until at some point simply leaving this body would be an instantaneous death for him.

Well, fixing it was easy enough.

He just had to get back to the Moon Cell. _Probably_ , anyhow.

Of course given that he was the galaxy's most wanted man, that was easier said than done. Especially since carelessly running to the local cluster and disappearing on the Moon would make humanity look extremely suspicious.

Who knew how the Citadel would react if they realized where he had run off to.

Thinking back, he hadn't exactly made the most solid of backgrounds for himself when he had left for Thessia. They would inevitably be able to trace back his appearances all the way to Earth. And if he were to return there now, wouldn't it seem like he was reporting back? Given everything that had happened, he wasn't going to risk Earth. Not simply because he was inconvenienced. _Besides, my condition is stable as long as I remain in this body._

Exhaling, he reached down and pulled out the i'usushij that he had left behind when he had followed after Miranda and then got out of the cockpit. _It's not proper to keep a blade like this..._

Walking towards the cargo hold where he would have more space, he absentmindedly swung around the i'usushij in his hand. Without a magnetic field to feed off of, it was biotically completely inert. Which is why he had left it behind; it was probably entirely useless off of Thessia. There were some ideas he had regarding converting the circuitry into something more modern, but that could wait.

Projecting a simple sheath; hard leather molded to the contours of the blade, he dismissed that thought for now. He had more important things to worry about.

He had something of an idea, regarding the Mass Relays. It was a question that had popped up while he had been eyeing the galactic map, more than anything. Or more importantly, the listed distances between various systems with Mass Relays. Something about those distances had tickled his curiosity and had given him an _idea._

There wasn't much publicly available data on Mass Relays, not beyond their outer dimensions and general function anyhow. But he had his unique sense for the distortion they created in the fabric of reality. The alteration of mass in proportion to the ambient surroundings. And through his experiences so far, he had gotten a decent grasp on the 'depth' of such fields. It was part of what made him so leery of the Mass Relays; the energy required to affect reality enough to create such distortions was enormous.

 _Ridiculous_ , even.

Getting close to a Mass Relay for a jump was considered perfectly safe. Accidents were exceedingly rare and usually the fault of the pilot or pilots involved. He hadn't dug deeper, but he didn't have any cause to believe there was anyone trying to cover up accidents relating to them, either.

Mass Relays worked.

Even so, he felt anxious around them.

Because using a Mass Relay to jump from one system to another was like flying down on the surface of the sun to light a match. But that was to be expected, he supposed. It was possible to travel to other far off systems using modern FTL technology, even without Mass Relays. It would just take much, much longer to do so. So much longer, that it would be necessary to use cryogenics if an individual wished to see the destination alive. Or live for hundreds, even thousands of years.

To cross such a divide in seconds...

Of course an absolutely stupendous amount of energy was necessary. But he couldn't help but wonder what would happen if something went wrong. The Asari Matriarchs' caution regarding the Mass Relays made perfect sense when thought about in such a manner. And here he was, intent on trying to modify them for his own purposes. Maybe it would explode and turn the entire region into a new nebula?

Emiya shook his head, dismissing the morbid thought as he jumped down the steps into the cargo hold, through which he had first entered the corvette back with Miranda. Looking around, he nodded at the space available to him.

"This should work," he said as he put aside the now-sheathed i'usushij, his thoughts returning to the issue of Mass Relays.

As long as it could be done, he could work around any problems with safety. In the worst case scenario, he could find a dormant relay and use that one instead. If one of those broke or exploded, it should be fine. Probably.

The idea he had made sense, even as he tried to pick holes in it based on what little he knew about the relays.

After all, he had _sensed_ it for himself. The primary and secondary relays' 'depth' was exactly the same. Their function was the same. So as long as the hardware was similar enough, then he could probably assume the only difference between a Primary Relay and a Secondary Relay was on the _inside_.

Meaning that a secondary relay should be able to connect to another relay much further away than previously thought, akin to a primary relay, and a primary relay should be able to connect with another primary relay entirely much like secondary relays could.

"So the question is... Can I hack a relay?"

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard rose up as the Admiral entered the room.

The din of conversation died out slowly as the others moved to do the same. The meeting room was chock-full of uniformed soldiers. Men and women, captains and majors. The only Alliance personnel below the rank of Lieutenant Commander here were those like herself, fresh second-in-commands.

She had gotten more than one look, but she didn't mind it since she knew it had nothing to do with Elysium. She honestly preferred being back on the ship, over the public relations stuff they had hoisted off on her following that event.

It wasn't that she hated being in the lime-light, but rather that she wasn't allowed to do it as herself. She could get along with people just fine, but when she was propped up as the humanity's new hero in the wake of the Elysium attack, she had been expected to become something completely different. She was a soldier. Just one among many. Merely the one who had taken the reins and borne the burden as hundreds had died.

Yet the press and department of public relations wanted something entirely different, and the Navy had been more than happy to oblige in effectively creating an _idol_ for the masses. Well, if it had been just that then it would have been fine. But it had started getting in the way of her other assignments, meaning that the way her public image had crashed and burned was ultimately just fine with her.

"I assume everyone is present and ready," the aged admiral Steven Hackett said as he sat down.

There was a chorus of agreement as others followed suit. The man was something of a legend in the Navy. He had joined as an enlisted, served in the First Contact War and clawed his way back to the top. There was an air about him, a gravitas that made him stand out—that gravelly voice and serious, unshakable mien that had seen humanity through some of their hardest times in living memory.

It was a countenance every soldier in the Alliance knew they could count on.

Hackett nodded then looked over at the Major standing next to him, holding onto a tablet and almost buzzing with excitement. "Major Kyle, brief us on the operation then."

"Yes, sir!" He answered and raised his tablet, pressing it and causing a large display to activate. "With everyone present, Operation Fish Barrel may begin. As you are all aware, for years the System Alliance's expansion into the Skyllian Verge has been fraught with problems. Slaver and pirate attacks, trading sanctions, mining and gas skimming rights disputes and more. Until the Elysium attack, these were thought to be unrelated. But following the capture of Elanos Halliat..."

He nodded at her, and she acknowledged it quietly as one or two of the officers glanced at her. Most of the personnel present already knew all this.

"We have come to learn otherwise. Following his interrogation, we have found that there is reason to believe someone has been coordinating these attacks against humanity. Until now the operations Sparrow Hunt, Trout Trail and Beekeeper have been successful in following through on the leads we acquired from Halliat."

Shepard blinked. She had only known about the first of the three mentioned operations, having been a part of it. They had been raiding and intercepting various slaver groups along with sixteen other captains. If there were two other operations of similar magnitude that had been going on until now and they had led to the current operation, then that meant this was easily the biggest move the Alliance Navy had made since the First Contact War.

"Who comes up with these names?" Someone whispered, causing Shepard to glance over her shoulder.

"Someone in PR I bet," was the scoffed reply.

Shepard leaned back and met eyes with one of the two. They were both of higher rank, but her stare still managed to quieten them as they noticed her looking.

"...The turians got ruffled about the last joint exercise being called the 'turkey shoot', I heard."

There was a second of surprised silence and then the two snorted loudly. Major Kyle who had been showing the various areas the operations had taken place in on a galaxy map paused, frowning at the two who could barely hold down their guffaws.

"Is something the matter?" He asked, overlooking Shepard who had turned to look forward again, her face a placid mask of rapt attention.

"No, no. Just something in my nose," the first of the two behind her excused.

"...I see. Well then, let us continue..." Major Kyle said after a moment of consterned staring.

Beside her, Captain Anderson shot her a reproving stare. Even so, she could see the glint of amusement in his eyes.

The rest of the meeting went by without further issues and finally as they were dismissed, Shepard stood up and stretched. It had been a long hour, even if she had been paying attention.

"Shall we return to the ship, Captain?" She asked, turning to Anderson.

"You go on ahead. I still have some things to discuss with Admiral Hackett."

She blinked before nodding in understanding. "Alright. I should get a good night's rest in for tomorrow anyhow."

Turning around, she left the meeting room and headed for the shuttles. She had to get her gear off of the SSV Tokyo and onboard the other ship she had been assigned to for the duration of the operation. Captain Anderson would be taking his Cruiser and waiting for the signal to rally at the Mass Relay in the system to ensure no one could strike them in the back while Operation Fish Barrel was under way. With nominal airspace superiority and the batarians dug in so deep, there was little need for more ships near the moon than was strictly necessary for getting their feet on the ground.

The Torfan installation they would be hitting was the base for one of the largest slaver operations in the quadrant. And one that had likely been directly involved with the Elysium attack. But unlike the prefab bases and bio-domes she had fought in previously, the Torfan installation was buried deep into the ground.

Meaning she—along with the strike-teams aboard Tokyo that she had commanded during Operation Sparrow Hunt—would be going to Torfan instead. Given their experience with pirates and slavers, they were a valuable ground unit. They had the training, gear and experience. They would be working directly for Major Kyle, who would be the highest ranking officer with boots on the ground.

Waiting for a shuttle pilot to clear for take off, she scrolled through her personal emails on her omnitool. Finding nothing but ads and internal Navy newsletters, she closed the tab read through some news. Blinking at the blackout in Parnitha, she tried for a few minutes to find if there was anything more to the story on the net, but eventually gave up. The asari must have an information lockdown in place.

Well, she would hear the official version of the story sooner or later. Better to focus on her own operation instead.

Getting a shuttle ride to the SSV Tokyo, she stepped onboard and nodded at the saluting riflemen receiving her. At the same time, a synthetic voice spoke out through the comm-systems.

" _Logged: the Executive Officer is aboard. Engineer Adams stands relieved._ "

It wouldn't be for long; she would probably be handing over the reigns back to Adams. She had said she would need a good night's sleep, but with only four hours to go until she had to report oboard the main attack vessel, it didn't seem like she would have much time for rest. So, she needed to get her own gear along with everyone on the strike-teams all ready to go within half an hour. Maybe she could catch a power nap before her next briefing with Major Kyle. It would take them a few days to get to Torfan, but she wasn't going to have much time to kick back and take it easy.

And after that, once they were there?

Time to rock'n roll.

* * *

;

* * *

"Thirty seconds, huh."

That's how long Independent Action and his own focus could hold up before he started feeling something giving way. If it was just thirty seconds, there wouldn't be any problems or loss of magical energy. No, it was better to think he had twenty seconds, always keeping that last third in reserve in case of an emergency.

Still, it wasn't much. Would it be sufficient?

Returning to his own body, Emiya exhaled.

The last thirty minutes of experimenting to test his limits had led to that conclusion. It wasn't exceptional, but it was better than nothing. Whether it was enough for the Mass Relay remained to be seen, because all his attempts at remotely hacking the relay from the corvette so far had been complete failures.

The receiving system on the Mass Relays would usually only receive a short transmission containing the mass of the vessel approaching. This would act as the identification for the Mass Relay, which would allow the starship to safely close in on the approach corridor and be caught by the mass effect fields of the relay.

Thus, there was very little that could be done conventionally to hack the relays. Even with his advantages, there wasn't anything for him to do. It wasn't like a simple database, which when queried with a non-standard format might return anything that could be used to deduce or crack their systems on another attempt. The Mass Relays simply either ignored any non-standard messages or deciphered them in an unknown manner and then waited an unknown period of time until it rescinded the preparation, as far as he had been able to tell.

It was just too simple to be hacked by normal means.

Emiya was certain every space-faring race had experimented with their Mass Relays to some extent, when they had originally tried to figure out how one worked. But he had never heard of them working in an unexpected or dangerous manner, despite all of that. A foolproof system, made simple enough that they could be adopted almost universally by all space-faring races. It seemed odd when he thought about it; almost as if the Mass Relays were made so anyone could use them and not have to worry about it at all.

Supposedly they were also made of the same material as the Citadel's hull; a kind of unknown super-alloy that couldn't even be scratched enough to get samples from. Some drifting dormant relays had supposedly survived stars going supernova, even. He hadn't gotten close enough to try getting a closer look yet.

"Well, I guess I can look into that if I have enough time..."

Thus it wasn't as if someone could simply raise the hood and take a closer look at the inner workings. Not without being prepared to destroy the Mass Relay under investigation. _No wonder the asari refused to investigate the matter._

But there had to be something more. The Mass Relays were ridiculously complex machines. He couldn't imagine them functioning on just such a simple system, it would be like a nuclear reactor being adjusted by gauging the heat of the core by hand, or some such.

No, it was likely that it was merely an external module that handled the communications with starships. Like the mass spectrometer on Hosin's orbital station, or something. Which meant that he should be able to dive into the system in his astral form and work his way from there, just as he had with orbital station.

Which meant he had needed to test how much his spiritual core could handle.

"Twenty seconds..." He scoffed. "Should be plenty of time."

With an exertion of will, he dismissed the lock on the metal coffin his body had been lying in and sat up while opening the lid with one arm. The problem of the signal bouncing around still remained, meaning that even without his spiritual core issues it wasn't like he had the option of carelessly leaving his body behind. Setting up the conditions for using it safely, versus the amount of time he had available when he was done with everything was not at a ratio which really made using his spiritual body worth it.

Having to spend a minute to project and check that his body was safely ensconced in a coffin, just for thirty seconds of activity wasn't going to be possible in most situations. He would have to stop using his heroic spirit body until he could get his spiritual core fixed, then.

Or then he had to wear a Faraday cage all the time or something.

Emiya blinked, considering that thought for a second. _Hmm, maybe worth looking into._

"Something to consider another time," he muttered as he got up.

Closing his eyes, he patched through to the corvette's functions and passively listened in on the radio chatter to make sure nothing had happened while he had been off the comms. Just the usual chatter and movements, he noted while passively observing. After a minute he decided that no one had noticed anything and he was still safe.

So far he hadn't been noticed by the other starships but once he used the tightbeam to connect to the Mass Relay, it was possible someone would notice the spike in power consumption. And if he wasn't paying attention and hacked them in time to hide the leak, then the gig would be up. The tightbeam itself would be next to impossible to notice, not unless someone directly intercepted or blocked it, so that much was safe. But if someone began keeping an eye on the Janiri's Sickle it would be immediately obvious that someone was onboard from the rise in power consumption the moment he used the tightbeam.

So he would have to make it quick.

And to top it off, he had no idea how diving between two such wildly different computer systems would affect his spiritual core. It had been fine before on Thessia, back when he had gotten the corvette started the first time. But this time it was an entirely alien computer system he would be jumping into, so there were no guarantees of anything.

"It'll be fine," he reassured himself.

With that, he returned to the coffin and sat down.

Closing the lid, he re-projected the lock with a tense exhale to make sure it wouldn't open, even accidentally. He had no idea what to expect inside the Mass Relay, so he it was important to minimize what could go wrong outside of it.

That way he could focus without worries on just what was in front of it.

"Time to roll," he exhaled and stepped out of his body.

Twenty.

Sinking through the floor he dived right into the corvette's computer and initialized the tightbeam commline to the Parnitha Mass Relay. As the tightbeam connection was forged with the Mass Relay, he primed himself mentally and then jumped through before transmission from his ship ended. _Time to see if Liara was right after all; Prothean or not Prothean..._

Like jumping into a flowing river, he was pushed into the receiver.

Nineteen.

And he was _in_. And the inside of the Mass Relay was...

"Hmm..."

Rather simplistic. Bare and lacking in any noteworthy features, even when it came to the standards of virtual worlds. It wasn't even minimal, it was just _empty_. He had seen fridges more complicated than this. There was nothing really there, merely a simple array of communication transmitters and receivers of various kinds, along with— _Ah, it's transmitting everything forward somewhere else? Some sort of air gap between it and the main system, then._

The part of the Mass Relay he had entered through the tightbeam wasn't the part of the relay that handled the actual function of creating a mass effect field and transporting ships from one relay to another. Instead, there was something like a terminal through which everything that was transmitted would be displayed. _Seems like a meaninglessly complex system, given how easy it is to use Mass Relays. If security is such an issue, why are there no locks on normal travel?_

Eighteen.

 _It doesn't matter._ Shaking his head, he moved to the terminal and dove out back into the real world.

And promptly almost froze as he stumbled to not fall into the alien creature that was standing right in front of the terminal. He tottered around the thing, blinking as he gawked at its squat body and numerous thin limbs. Green, spider-like, wearing something like an orange vest or scarf, it was busily tapping away at the terminal set into the wall.

 _Isn't that a... Keeper?_ But weren't those only found on the Citadel? What was it doing here?

Emiya looked away from the Keeper, taking in his surroundings. Spotless white walls, the rounded square room-base for architecture along with the lifeless bright lighting... It even looked liked the Citadel on the inside.

He couldn't say about atmospheric pressure or composition in his current astralized state, but gravity felt normal. A bit light—Presidium 0.3 G standard-ish—and definitely due to a mass effect field, but nothing unusual otherwise.

But he could feel the massive mass effect field around him. It was like being in the eye of the storm; no winds touched him, but just a scant dozen meters away he could feel that endless _depth_ , beating like the heart of a great sleeping god. He was definitely inside the Mass Relay. Or a Mass Relay, anyhow.

He paused, inhaling slowly to calm himself.

Seventeen.

_Now what?_

Should he try to explore? Find out if there was anything else here or how the Keeper-creature was here? There weren't any doors or windows in the room that he could see; it was more like a cell than a room, in that sense.

Turning around, he glanced at the Keeper who hadn't noticed him at all. That was good. He wasn't sure why he thought that, but he had the premonition that he was very much not supposed to be here and that being discovered would not be good.

Should he try to figure out what it was doing? Figure out how the Mass Relay worked? That was why he was here in the first place, wasn't he? To hack the relay and to get free, right?

Sixteen.

Glancing at the Keeper and the terminals it was working on, he frowned. _There must be a dozen different systems there..._

Managing to possibly recognize a few, he peered over the short Keeper's body at the displays. One seemed like the controls to the Mass Relay, one the communication's module through which he had dived in and finally there seemed to be one display dedicated to a map of this quadrant of the Milky Way. All the Mass Relays he knew—and what seemed like several more which he had never heard about before, indicating possible dormant relays perhaps?—were highlighted as blinking dots there.

Fifteen.

Turning around, he looked at the room once more. _I'll take a look around first... See if there are more of these things around. Then I'll jump back to the corvette and reset. No point in hurrying._

Crouching down, he exhaled and leaped upwards through the ceiling. Only to hit his head against the material and fall down on his rear on the floor, blinking in confusion at the failed attempt.

Looking upwards, he frowned at the ceiling. _That's not supposed to happen..._

Spiritual bodies could pass through matter without any issues. The only exceptions were things with enough magical energy or conceptual weight as to be able to interact with a spirit. Things like bounded fields and conceptual weapons, or crystallized mysteries.

Looking down at the floor, he poked a finger at it. It was just as impervious as the ceiling was. _That's strange... I can't sense any magical energy either. What's going on?_

With a frown he closed his eyes and exhaled.

"Trace, _on"—begin synchronization,_

Fourteen.

Thirteen.

Twelve.

Eleven.

Ten.

Nine.

* * *

;

* * *

Minus seven.

Minus eight.

Emiya opened his eyes with a gasp, standing up and turning around with an arm outstretched to the terminal he had arrived through. "Trace, _on!"—begin insertion,_

Diving right back in, he was barely able to jump back into his body before he hit the time limit. Forgetting to dispel the projected lock on the lid, he hit his head against the coffin as he tried to sit up, panting and confused.

Rubbing his forehead and gritting his teeth, he dispelled the lock and opened the coffin. Somehow the corvette's cargo hold seemed familiar and comforting, making him exhale in relief as he stood up and sat down outside of the coffin.

Placing a hand against the floor, he closed his eyes and pushed out his magical energy to analyze the structure of the material. It worked just like normal, making him sigh in relief and fall back to lie on the floor. Staring at the ceiling, he drew one hand to rub his forehead.

"What exactly was that...?"

The floor seemed _normal_ enough, except that it had... He didn't even know how to describe it.

Additional dimensions? Or rather there was more of the floor in the same space as there was floor, except it wasn't the same floor while it was completely identical and the floor was self-referencing itself to maintain its physical state, which also made it something like an infinite loop that recursively began and ended in itself...?

Or no... That wasn't it at all, it was more like the floor wasn't there but was being mirrored from somewhere else, but at the same time was being mirrored into that place from there. Or somewhere else...?

"What the hell was that...?" Letting out a frustrated exhale, he shook his head and threw the issue to his mental pile of matters for another time. At this rate his hill of victory would be dwarfed by that pile; he really needed to catch a break. "It doesn't matter right now. I need to get the Mass Relay working. Focus."

Having used the tightbeam, the corvette's power expenditure would have spiked to any sensor that might have been looking his way. Someone would notice it sooner or later and then come knocking—the hourglass that had been turned on its side was raised again, and the sands had begun to shift anew.

The Mass Relay could wait; there were hundreds of them he could investigate at his leisure once he had time, they had been there for millions of years and weren't going anywhere. That said it was obviously something that pertained to the question of whether or not the Protheans had actually built the Mass Relays. He made a mental note to compile his findings once he did look into it, and to forward it to Liara.

She would probably find it as useful as she would find it infuriating. Just the thought made him crack a smirk, clearing his mind a little. Besides, thirty— _twenty_ seconds at a time just wasn't enough for a proper investigation, even if he could just come back to 'reset'.

Getting up, he checked that everything was still fine. No one had noticed anything for now, and his spiritual core hadn't been further damaged even with the scare he had experienced.

Diving back in and jumping out into that strange room once more, he pointedly ignored the terminal and the Keeper at work by it. Turning around, he looked at the other displays in front of the Keeper as he pondered which one to try.

Assuming the relays in this general area were all connected, he might just get flung into a completely different part of the galaxy by accident if he carelessly chose which system to dive into.

 _Eighteen_ —he reminded himself he wasn't here to gawk around. _That one._

Without hesitation, he dived right in.

Inhaling slowly as he looked around in the virtual space, he nodded to himself. This seemed more like it. Sensors for internal and external readings; continuous adjustments made to the mass and alignment of the relay's arms and the spinning central rings; radiation fluctuations and build up; a database listing the masses and destinations of numerous vessels wishing to use the Mass Relay, all with their unique mass acting as an identifier...

_Bingo._

As he had suspected, the connections of the Mass Relays—the distinction of Primary and Secondary Relays—was due to a programming lock. It wasn't entirely arbitrary however, he realized now. Just like with conventional mass effect FTL-travel, the object would accrue an immense static charge while in transit. For a starship to conventionally fly such a distance without stopping to discharge would be impossible as sooner or later the starship would break. Sooner, most likely given the immense distance involved.

Seventeen. _So jumping to other Mass Relays is possible, after all._

But it seemed that the Mass Relays used this static charge to continue functioning; taking that built up electrical energy and accumulating it to power its numerous functions. It wasn't as if the Mass Relays emptied the static banks of the starships passing through, but rather that ships simply did not collect any charge while using the relays because it was taken directly by the Mass Relay pair. He could see it in real time the Parnitha Mass Relays energy supplies dwindling and rising as another starship passed through, playing out a sine wave of expenditure and recharge.

So the reason the distinction existed, was due to the topology of space between the various relays. Because some routes would cause a net loss of energy for the relays.

Starships needed to discharge their static banks less frequently when flying through interstellar space than when inside star systems, as each star emitted solar wind which contributed to the triboelectric build up in traveling starships which thinned out the further one traveled from that star. So too in the almost-darkspace between the arms of the Milky Way there existed very little static charge for the Mass Relays to absorb. On the face of it, the system seemed to make sense but he was sure he was just touching the surface of everything.

The system was warning him right now that the jump he had chosen—from Athena Nebula to Eagle Nebula which lay in the Attican Traverse, outside of Council-controlled space—would deplete quite a bit of the Mass Relay's energy. So the long-range Alpha Relays were rarer, because they functioned at a net loss. Were their energy supplies supplemented by other relays, or were their locations specifically chosen to run over spots where the collected static charge would be at their highest?

Sixteen.

Well, it would be fine. As he forcefully put in the jump into the database along with the Janiri's Sickle's mass, he noted how the system contacted another system for an energy transfer to be made afterwards, ping spreading through the network of nearby relays. _So the various relays can top each other off, if need be._

It was as if the entire system was created to build a surplus of electric charge on a truly massive scale; there was plenty to be had. From the looks of it, limiting the possible jumps for the majority of people using the relays was only necessary to keep the networks consumption balanced with how much it could gain if you wanted a constant surplus. Assuming the whole network covered the entire galaxy, it should be able to handle hundreds of irregular jumps without any problems.

Fifteen.

Satisfied with his work, he returned to the real world and ignoring the Keeper jumped right back into the other terminal and promptly returned to the Janiri's Sickle and his body.

Dispelling the entire coffin and standing up, dusting his back as he did, Emiya huffed. _Twenty seconds isn't so bad when I can cross the entire galaxy in five, huh._

Shaking his head, he headed for the cockpit again as he mentally powered up the corvette and ran the start up diagnostics. Immediately two starships hailed him.

Getting them on a conference call, he cleared his throat and responded. "This is Special Tasks Group Operative Surden of team 41-B, I am taking Spectre Vasir's ship back to Thessia for diagnostics and investigation. I am cleared for transit."

Making sure to alter his voice to sound salarian as he spoke, he waited for their reply. He just needed to bullshit them for half a minute, really.

The engine started up and the eezo core came online. He didn't however turn on the kinetic barriers or arm the forward guns; he wanted to look like nothing strange was going on, after all.

" _What? But I didn't hear anything about this?_ "

" _Who did you say you were again?_ "

"Operative Surden, of the engineering and logistics division. I am under orders to have Spectre Vasir's ship flown to a base so that it can be taken apart and investigated properly. Thessia is the closest base; orders from up top."

" _That's... please hold and power down your engine while I consult with my superiors._ "

"Alright will do," he said.

Emiya had already corrected his course enough that he was going to pass the Mass Relay close enough to be recognized. Just twenty more seconds and he had to turn off all the mass effect fields for the relay to recognize him anyhow.

" _This is Spectre Siljia, who is this?_ "

"Please repeat, I am getting poor reception here," Emiya responded as he got to the cockpit and sat down.

Eight more seconds.

" _So that is where you were hiding, Redhax. Prepare to be boarded,_ " the salarian Spectre said with more than a hint of triumph in his voice.

"Ah, well it seems like we'll have to chat some other time," Emiya flippantly responded as the Mass Relay's rings began to spin faster.

Already he could feel its field reaching out and grabbing a hold of his ship. Unless they shot him down right now, he had already made a clean getaway.

" _You're running? That will not work. You may have escaped Parnitha once, but this time we are ready for you. The starships by the other relay have already been notified. There is nowhere to go; give up._ "

Turning on the terminals, he spoke out with his own voice for the first time. "Well in that case see you there, Siljia."

And then the Mass Relay slung him into FTL and the connection cut off. Three seconds later he arrived by the receiving Mass Relay and fell back into normal speeds. Checking the sensors and noting that no one was here, he chuckled.

"Guess that meeting will have to wait."

Even so, one question popped into his head by itself as he leaned back. Where was all that excess static charge going?

* * *

;

* * *

"So, as outlined; the use of smoke has proven quite effective against the targets we hit previously. As long as we bring sufficient supplies we can keep smoking them out and avoid a head-on fight."

"And how much smoke do we have?"

Shepard checked her omnitool. "About three hundred grenades. It proved quite effective due to the poor standard of their gear, so our stockpiles have been running low. It should be enough for the initial thrust, however."

The major nodded, considering her words. "I see, very good. This cannot turn into a 'siege', so continuous use of obscurants will not be acceptable. It is possible they will escape if we seek to merely wait them out. We will have to force our way in, if need be. Regardless of losses. You understand?"

Shepard blinked, inhaling slowly as she nodded. The only thing she wasn't sure about that proposition, was whether or not the major himself could stomach storming the Torfan installation.

But he was right; the moon was home to tens of thousands, a trading hub and meeting ground that had naturally formed as a result of the system's central position between numerous relays and trade routes. Mostly batarians, but some lystheni, turians and more adventurous humans also made their home there. If the batarians from this installation managed to escape and find refuge among the other groups or one of the nearby settlements, they could just start the operation all over again.

They had to be taken out here, preferably without too much destruction of evidence in the process.

The growling voice brought her back from her thoughts. "I asked whether you understood, _lieutenant_."

"Yes sir, of course. I was merely wondering whether direct force is the best option in that case. If we could take time and slow down this operation, perhaps we could find a weakness in—"

He said nothing, crossing his arms as he sneered at her. She smiled, shutting up then, Major Kyle was a brilliant young officer; a shooting star of this generation, she knew people thought as much. It wasn't wrong _per se_ , but he was a career hawk—a glory hound who knew that he could make it to general by the end of the next decade if he played his cards right.

So that's what he did; played his cards right.

A swift and climactic end to the Skyllian Verge campaign just in time for his updated resume to be placed on the desk of whoever would win the Arcturus parliamentary elections was just the kind of play that would shave years off of that goal.

It wasn't that he was incompetent, or that he would be a burden on the ground. He had rightly decided to stay on the ground and manage the strike teams through comms. His strategic acumen and insight was undeniable, but at the same time... She had the premonition that under enough pressure, he would _crack_.

So it'd be her job as his second-in-command here to make sure the pressure never got that high. "Sorry, I spoke out of line—the admiral already gave us the go-ahead, after all."

His expression mellowed, the distaste in his eyes vanishing as if it had never even been there to begin with. The major wasn't a man to get hung on such things.

"Then, regarding the perimeter around the four entrances, who do you recommend for _here?_ " He asked, pointing at a top-down map.

"There's not enough cover, and with the steep cliff-face and old mining ravines... Any fight will turn into one with three dimensions. It'd be a hard spot for anyone to hold position, unless we leave a portion of our portable kinetic barrier pickets there..." She opined.

The major shook his head, running a hand through his dark brown hair. "No, no. We need those for the push inside. The blueprints made it clear that without those portable kinetic barrier projectors it will be suicide to attempt a strong push through."

"Then—"

A chime on Kyle's omnitool interrupted her and he raised a hand to forestall her with a quiet 'please excuse me...' as he took the call. "Major Kyle... What? But... No, but I thought... Of course. Yes, I understand. Of course, sir."

Ending the call, he sighed and raised a hand to his short-cropped hair again.

"Sir?" Shepard queried.

He sighed again, rubbing his eyes for a few seconds as he collected his thoughts. It had been a long two days so far, full of planning and getting everything in order for the operation.

And it seemed like another bump in the road and shown up, based on the Major's expression.

"...An Asari Matriarch seems to have ferreted out the Alliance's plans, and demanded to be allowed to take part in this operation," Kyle explained curtly, before sighing as he shook his head. "It seems they've been observing Torfan for a few days and spotted our vanguard. How careless, what if they had been seen by the batarians..."

"What would the asari even want there?" Shepard blinked.

"Something about an asari VIP having been taken by the batarians. And, in the name of galactic solidarity against crimes against sapient life, the Alliance has agreed to let them join our efforts."

"That's..." Shepard didn't know what to say. These kinds of surprises were the stuff of nightmares for delicate operations.

"Luckily the plan hasn't changed, at least. They've managed to convince the Matriarch to stick behind, but I've been 'given' two squads of commandos to order now."

"Will this be a problem...?" She asked, having little experience with the other races of the galaxy.

Until now, she had only read some of the dossiers and seen some vids of the Council races. For the most part, her live interactions had been limited to batarians. Well, mostly shooting them. But only mostly.

"...Hmm..." He did not seem to have heard her, pointedly staring at the map. After ten seconds, he leaned back to cup his chin with one hand thoughtfully. "No, this is fine. The commandos will be well suited to handling that exit. The lack of cover won't even inconvenience them, which will free up more of the heavier infantry for the internal strike-teams. The only problem is... Well, maybe if I frame it right, I won't owe them too many favors..."

"Sir?" Shepard blinked.

He looked up at her. "You do not seem to have much experience with the asari, am I correct?"

She nodded.

"Well, keep your mouth shut and just observe. You'll learn a lot from my mistakes, I'm sure," he said with an amused chuff. "Just you wait, they approached the Alliance but I'm sure that by the end of this we'll all be owing them four favors and two dinner parties."

"They're that bad?" She blinked.

Shaking his head, he gave a light laugh. "No. But I'll be surprise if one of us isn't suddenly getting engaged to a four-hundred year old commando looking retire by the end of this."

Shepard had no idea what to say to that, and Kyle seemed to notice how awkward the mood had gotten. Clearing his throat, he pretended nothing had just happened. "But asari commandos, hmm, hmm. They should be fairly used to low-g combat with little cover. That's their specialty, isn't it? So, assuming we can get the asari to cover that exit, we will have more men to draw on for the push here, here and here..."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya yawned, checking the travel progress.

About forty-five minutes left until he arrived at the biggest settlement near the area the batarians had been operating around. He didn't think that he was going to find them there, but he hoped to at least pick up a new trail he could follow. Fuel, ammunition, food supplies and the like all had to be acquired somewhere and Torfan was the most active trading hub in the sector.

He whistled quietly, impressed despite himself at the speed with which he had traveled.

With his newfound freedom of jumping from nearly any Mass Relay to any other Mass Relay in range, he could cut down on travel time drastically. It was only on certain spots where the gap was too great that he had to travel the conventional way between relays; by actually flying in FTL himself to the nearest Mass Relay.

But given the Janiri's Sickle's specs, that was hardly an issue; he had flown across the galaxy in a matter of days. Or so the time-devices all insisted. There was no star to keep track of the days and nights. He had stayed awake for two days without even realizing it at first.

Fuel on the other hand _was_ going to be a problem.

Mainly because without the backing of the Citadel, having to pay to keep this thing in the air was going to be a severe drain in the long-term. He had probably burned through a few million credits already. Even so it wasn't money that was the problem, as much as _what_ this thing ran on.

The usual liquid oxygen-hydrogen thruster fuel was no problem and he had been able to fill the tank with that without issue. But those were for maneuvering, not long-distance travel. This was no economy ion engine that could chug on halfway across the galaxy on a half-tank, nor was it the usual commercial fusion torch as the Tristar had been.

This damn thing ran on a _fucking_ _matter-antimatter annihilation reaction_.

That is to say, there was a chamber full of matter—hydrogen, incidentally—into which then anti-protons would be injected. And as a result the chamber would reach temperatures in the excess of _millions of degrees._ He vaguely remembered hearing about antimatter back during his life. It was the kind of theoretical doomsday device everyone merely joked around about.

"' _Oh, a pinhead's worth of antimatter would produce such and such a ridiculous explosion.._.' It must have been Shinji who told me that, he would have loved that kind of trivia..."

And now he was riding a starship that intentionally blew up the stuff for propulsion. And he had already dented the ship's reserve with his few days worth of flight. He hadn't realized at all, until he had bothered to take a closer look at the repair logs and specifications for the engine to pass the time. The realization as to what exactly was going on under the hood when he accelerated was something of a shock.

After his initial awe over cold fusion had subsided, working on the fusion engines had turned out to be fairly easy. The Tristar for example had been easy enough to work with. He had even taken up a few courses on the stuff in Serrice, both on practical and theoretical side. Though the latter hadn't been anywhere near as easy as the former for him.

But antimatter?

Where the hell was he going to get more? This wasn't the kind of stuff that you could just _buy_. And how the hell was he going to figure out how to work with the stuff? It wasn't like he could simply fly in to the machinists and mechanics Tela Vasir had always used and hope for similar service, or like he could just download a user's manual off the extranet for maintenance. This stuff was as regulated as regulated could damn well get.

He had for a second entertained the thought of just trying to project some more 'fuel', but then he had come to his senses. Trying to project something that reacted violently with all matter seemed like an exercise in exceptional idiocy, even for him. Especially since he would have to _touch_ the stuff to analyze it first. A prospect he was all too willing to pass up on.

That, and while news hadn't spread quite yet regarding the fate of the corvette's original owner, he did pick up on chatter of pilots recognizing the starship on occasion when he had filled up his hydrogen and oxygen tanks at a fuel station. The local rumor mills had been churning at lift-off speeds, as everyone was wondering what a Council Spectre could possibly want there by the time he had left.

He had probably gotten some of the more paranoid locals jittery, even if he had left right away.

So practically speaking, keeping the ship was _completely_ _impossible_.

And yet he didn't want to just get rid of it. Somehow the challenge it presented was interesting; like a threshold telling him that it could not be done; an uncrossable divide; like a hurdle that could not be leaped over, yet taunting him to try nonetheless.

He wanted to keep this thing, damn it.

"Can I refit the exterior and change the engine... Or should I just sell this thing...?" He pondered, sitting cross-legged in the cockpit and bouncing his one leg in a steady rhythm.

 _Could_ he even sell it? It was the hottest damned ship in the galaxy.

This was the kind of game of hot potato that could lead to galactic wars if it landed in the wrong hands. Shaking his head, he sighed and uncrossed his legs. "Maybe I should just fly it into a star and be done with it..."

It wasn't like he could land this thing anywhere either since it was too big.

The moment he left it out of his sight and came back, he would have to perform a complete check to make sure nothing was done to it in his absence, since he couldn't trust anyone to watch over it. And unlike with a shuttle or the Tristar, he couldn't simply use Structural Analysis on the whole thing in one go to do it quickly. Perhaps he could leave it somewhere with surveillance and keep an eye on it constantly, but that would require his constant attention. Not just for the physical surveillance, but for ensuring no one else would use those same means to find the ship.

And still... And still he wanted to keep it.

Emiya let out a long, aggrieved sigh at his own stubbornness.

"I must be having a mid-life crisis, getting this hung up about a fast ride," he muttered. He pondered making a quip to himself about his hair turning white too, but shook his head feeling more than a little ridiculous. " _And,_ I'm going stir crazy."

The corvette may have been fast, but space-travel was still a massive bore.

There was only so many hours he could exercise or meditate before he had to quit. Without the ability to jump out of his body and occupy the ship, time seemed to pass by in a crawl. At first, he had to be sure he could tinker with the i'usushij and unravel its mysteries, but then he had realized that without a magnetic field for it to interact with he wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of half of its functions. So after spending five minutes memorizing its materials and physical make up, replicating it the harder way, he had nothing left to do with the damn thing.

After the second day of travel he had even thought about cannibalizing some of the systems of the corvette to make a suitable circuit to mimic Thessia's magnetosphere. But getting it adjusted and calibrated right for testing the i'usushij would have taken a week longer than the trip itself would last, along with leaving the starship a complete mess. So that was no good, leaving him to find something else to occupy himself with while the light-years raced by.

He couldn't even browse the extranet or do his usual hacking, since during FTL all connections were effectively cut off with the rest of the world.

And there wasn't even a damn _kitchen_ on this thing!

Maybe he really should fly the corvette into a sun. He only really liked the engine because it was a challenge, anyhow.

Emiya huffed, raising a hand to his forehead and running it through his hair as he dismissed his idle grumblings. He would think about it later; Torfan was practically within sight already. A dull gray orb, orbiting the second planet in the system. Completely unremarkable, except for being the least inhospitable celestial object within metaphorical spitting distance of the Mass Relays in the cluster.

As the sensors began to report a shift in gravity as he entered the gravity well, he mentally punched in the landing coordinates. Unlike the more civilized parts of the galaxy, there was no airspace control to contact here.

Mainly because none of the people who lived here would have stood for such overt surveillance. They all kept tabs on each other, but none among the numerous petty pirate-kings, slavers and smugglers would have stood for one of their own trying to lord over them like that. So instead, everything of value was simply under a constant kinetic barrier in case someone tried to ram a starship into their living room. Those too poor to have that, well they had to make do and hope they didn't live near anyone who made enemies like that. So, settlements were sparsely built and everyone on the moon had both a gun and a shuttle in case they needed to shoot someone and then make a run for it; a kind of mostly-lawless frontier.

Not that it was all anarchy; the central position also made it a trading hub, meaning several large corporations had their own branches here, complete with private security. Then there were also a few trading 'bazaars' of sorts, mostly protected by local gangs which meant they had their own laws and rules in place. Most of this he had been able to figure out by hacking into the satellite he had just flown past, owned by one of the corporations who had settled on the moon.

Eyeing through the advisory documents and security guidelines, he mused at everything he could find. Where to patronize safely, which vendors of various degrees of repute could be trusted for all manner of product and service, how to maintain personal anonymity and who to contact for aid in which situations. It was all there; lawyers, doctors, hitmen and personal security details could all be found on the corporation's contracts in the sector. That they also seemed to be engaging in the procuring and distribution of pleasure slaves from the batarians on occasion was of particular note. _They do business in the Citadel, too. I'll have to drop some hints to the STG when I'm done here._

But right now, he settled on the section marked as locations for corporate personnel to avoid at all costs. In other words, a list of places populated by the kind of slavers who would make a tidy profit out of kidnapping and ransoming a VIP. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

Getting out of the cockpit, he moved out to put on his new hardsuit.

He had taken the old one apart and made a new one with projection, taking the parts he couldn't easily replicate from the one he had worn on Thessia. It was a deep sea exploration suit, so it wasn't really suited for fighting. Even a weak pistol could cause serious damage to it.

Simply put he had just beefed up his usual gear and given it additional layers to function as air-sealing and environmental protection for the moon's surface. There wasn't an atmosphere on Torfan, so the cannibalized parts of the old suit were necessary in the new one. It would hold up even in a vacuum just fine; he had even taken it out for a few space walks to make sure.

Wearing his usual black with white highlights felt right, though it was the first time he would be wearing the sleek, featureless black helmet of his own making in public. Checking that everything fit right, he thought about calling forth the red shroud as well but then shook his head. The color would be too eye-catching. And lacking a functional kinetic barrier emitter, he would be better off wearing his diamene weave longcoat on top of the hardsuit instead.

By the time he had managed to get himself suited up, the corvette had landed, though he only knew because the altitude sensors chimed on landing as the inertial dampeners were good enough that even in a gravity well he barely felt a thing. Mentally closing the internal airlocks and giving the suit one last check, he emptied the cargo hold of oxygen and then opened up the external airlock. The ramp opened up and before him the surface of Torfan revealed itself.

"...Hmm..."

It was a dull, lifeless landscape that even managed to make his memories of Mars seem cheerful.

Shaking his head, he grabbed his supply bag and shouldered it. Containing mostly food and water, it was stuff he would hide somewhere in case the starship got taken out. Walking out and taking his first steps, he checked his suit one more time—keeping an eye on pressurization levels for any leaks and at the radiation levels in case he had forgotten or failed to replicate some part of a fully functional hardsuit—along with the pistol on his hip, hidden within the hem of his coat. He nodded to himself without any real satisfaction, having already checked and re-checked everything a dozen times previously, as he closed the hatch behind him at the same time as his feet hit the ground.

Behind him the corvette took to the air and began to fly off. Since he couldn't keep a watch over it, he had decided to have it flying in orbit where he could still ping it once he needed a ride, without having to worry about anyone curious getting too close to the ship. This way he figured he still had some measure of control over it, as long as he remained on the surface and it wasn't on the other side of the moon.

Testing his weight on the surface with a few uneasy steps, he began to move forward with slow, gliding leaps. To move forward more than up, it was important to keep the angle of the kick within strict limits. But the loose dust that made up the surface of the gray ball was not the most cooperative in that regard, offering poor traction.

It almost felt like walking on an ice rink covered in powdered snow.

Dismissing those thoughts, he began to make for the square block of buildings up ahead. It was one of the marked locations; something like a cross between a bar, a market place and a gambling den run by one of the local batarian gangs.

Entering through the first airlock, he looked up at the reinforced window through which a green-skinned batarian glared at him as the atmospheric compression got to work.

"Whaddaya want?" He asked with obvious curiosity, his deep and raspy voice a darker timbre beyond even the usual among batarians.

 _A heavy drinker, perhaps?_ He didn't know enough about batarian customs and habits to say for certain. "Looking for vendors."

The batarian's mood obviously soured at the sound of his voice, one which obviously did not belong to a batarian but a human being. Raising a hand, as if to slap him away through the glass, the doorman growled at him. "We don't got nothing here! Leave!"

Emiya frowned, pondering what to do at the same time as the batarian was fiddling with the controls to reverse the entry procedure. But the atmosphere had already been filled in and it was in the middle of blowing off all the dust from his person, meaning that it could not be so easily halted.

 _Should I hack the controls? His omnitool has an open port,_ he weighed mentally before shaking his head. Better not leave behind a bouncer who remembered him for hacking the door. The same went for trying to force his way in through other means.

And since the complex was vacuum sealed, sneaking in wasn't going to work either. _So, I need to placate him and keep a low profile._

Walking to the window, his hand went to his pocket and he pulled out a chit. Plastering it against the thick glass, he wired through some credits.

"50 credits if you let me in."

The batarian paused with his angry fiddling, having been scowling at his omnitool's refusal to stop what it had been doing immediately. He looked up and peered at Emiya, suspicion obvious. But with the sleek black surface of his helmet revealing nothing, the batarian finally had to just go with his gut feeling. Or rather, his greed.

"One hundred."

"Deal," Emiya immediately accepted and the batarian began to perform the deep, throaty laugh his kind were known for. A hundred credits poorer, he was given entry to the surface complex.

And not twenty seconds later, every vendor had been informed by the doorman that a stinking human had entered. Having been identified as an easy mark who would whale out credits at the first sign of trouble, it seemed like every batarian's eyes gleamed at the sight of his approach. _Talk about entering a lion's den..._

As he walked in, it felt like everyone turned to stare at him for several seconds. He could see other humans walking around, often in small groups or seated in corners. Already he was standing out while trying to reconnoiter. Learning how to fit in always took time, so it was usually best to start at low-priority locations where getting burned wouldn't be as big an issue.

The first thing he noted was the relative scarcity of information technology. It wasn't like the Citadel or Thessia, where everyone was constantly hooked up and online. Everyone had an omnitool, but it seemed like few people kept them on or connected.

Which meant he would have to do actual legwork again for the first time in... _Centuries, is it?_

Shaking his head, he ignored that thought as he began to walk. Looking around for twenty minutes, he finally settled on a place to try his luck out.

It looked a mix between a bar and a gun shop, with a counter behind which stood a lone batarian against a wall plastered with collapsed guns and rows of bottles. The moment he entered, three figures immediately checked him out though only one of them seemed armed—a turian without any face paint.

The establishment's bouncer, he guessed.

Sidling up to the counter, he eyed the selection of rifles and shotguns. Nothing too impressive, but he might be able to modify one into a sniper rifle. Tela Vasir had a personal armory on the ship, but it appeared she had had little liking for long arms like rifles. It wasn't like he absolutely needed a rifle, but guns were always good to have.

Even back in his original era, there had been a gravitas to a gun that even a sword could not quite match. Putting a credit chit on the table, he spoke.

"I need a rifle."

The batarian paused whatever he had been doing and looked up at him, obviously surprised.

He had warped his voice to sound like a batarians with his omnitool, even speaking in a Khar'shan dialect of batarian he had been able to find an audio-library to reference from. It should have been fine, but...

The four eyes stared at him for a few seconds and then reached for a gun below the counter, but Emiya's hand shot to his own pistol quickly enough that the batarian paused at the quickness of the motion. They stared at each other, though Emiya did not know which pair of eyes to look at between the two. The batarian had no such problems it seemed, staring him dead in the eyes despite the opaque helmet hiding his face. _Did the fact that I was hiding my face reveal me? There seems to be an emphasis on eye-contact for batarians._

"...What do you want, corpie?" The batarian ground out, glaring at him.

 _Should I leave? No, he'll find that unusual and he'll probably spread the word._ Emiya sighed quietly. He had hoped to first purchase something small, like a gun. That way when he started asking more pointed questions, like where he might be able to buy a slave, he might have a better shot at getting an answer.

He had no idea whether Nirida Henell was even on Torfan, or if she had been taken by an outfit that sold their 'stock' on the open market. But he figured it would be a start in the right direction at least.

He was about to speak, when the batarian's eyes twitched at something behind him.

Emiya frowned, realizing someone else was entering the 'bar'. Even without his hearing or the reflections off of the wall behind the batarian, Emiya could have still felt the floor _shaking_ with each step the approaching behemoth was making.

Taking a half-step to turn around so that he could still keep an eye on the batarian, he watched the approaching krogan. Over two meters tall, clad in a heavily scarred and often-repaired red armor and armed with more guns than Emiya had left behind on the corvette, the creature was definitely a sight to behold.

Completely ignoring Emiya and the hand he had on his pistol, the krogan settled his elbows on the counter, practically slamming down several hundred kilos with the casual gesture.

"Your biggest bottle of ryncol," it said as it threw a credit chit onto the counter.

Where turians had a flanging voice and batarians a dark timbre, the krogan's voice was simply _deep_. Like a jagged scar in a mountain, that mouth full of teeth seemed to be just as ancient. The thing was a head shorter than Heracles, but it must have been at least twice as heavy.

"What, never seen a krogan before? Take a good look while you can, _human_."

Emiya blinked and then sighed, realizing that the krogan must have smelled it. Turning off the voice modifier, he spoke with a chuckle.

"Can't say I have. Why don't I buy you that drink, eh?"

Tossing a credit chit in front of the quiet batarian while keeping his eyes on the krogan, he leaned one elbow against the counter to mimic its posture and body language.

It stared down at him with one eye, turning its face halfway towards him. With its eyes located on the sides of its head, it felt quite alien a thing to talk to.

All the while the batarian behind the counter stood absolutely still, almost coiled up to spring away at a moment's notice. Emiya was certain that this krogan was someone worth talking to, unlike the distrustful and obstinate batarians so far, he was certain to learn something if he could get on this alien's good side.

The silence stretched for another moment, until finally...

"Heh, why not. Drink a glass, _human_?" The thing revealed teeth at him in what must have been a smile.

Emiya shrugged, not objecting.

"Good, _good_. Pour him half a mug, no need to waste more of the good stuff," the krogan said with a dark laugh and obvious cheer while taking back his own credit chit off the counter.

The batarian blinked, before revealing a smile of his own as he hastened to obey while pocketing Emiya's proffered chit. A few seconds later a glass of green liquid was placed in front of him by the toothily grinning batarian, while the rest of the bottle was simply handed to the krogan.

Taking off his helmet and setting it aside, he grabbed the glass and faced the krogan. Its eyes were poring over his features and his white hair, but there was no glimmer of recognition. _Thank small mercies, at least._

"To good health," _—begin synchronization,_ he said as he raised the glass in a toast.

The krogan grinned, raising his own bottle in salute. It seemed the gesture was universal, Emiya realized a moment later.

As his magical energy touched the liquid and analyzed the glass, he mentally nodded. He had heard ryncol was hardy stuff, but this alcohol content, along with this acidity _and_ slight radioactivity? This thing would first knock him on his ass, leave him bedridden for a week and then give him _all_ the cancers a few years down the line.

No wonder the batarian-tender was in sudden good cheer.

 _Bottoms up_ , he told himself and drained the glass in one toss back. Setting the glass down onto the counter with a click, he exhaled and rode out the drink. It tasted like ground glass mixed with battery acid, made 190 proof and then drunk with a live current running through it. Even just the condensation of the stuff would be enough to get someone drunk, and despite the Reinforcement he had done on himself he was a hundred per cent certain that this stuff was not something he wanted to keep in him.

The krogan was grinning widely now, anticipation obvious in its great eyes as it took a swig of its own bottle with a chuckle.

Inhaling once, Emiya turned his head and then without moving so much as a muscle vomited at will to empty his stomach. Not a drop so much as touched him, as the green liquid mixed with some stomach acid arced over the counter onto the floor next to the batarian-tender.

The whole bar froze.

Clearing his throat, Emiya spat out the last taste in his mouth with clearly displeased expression. Looking up at the krogan he raised an eyebrow.

"It actually tested better on the way out."

The krogan blinked.

And then promptly threw back its head as peals of roaring laughter took over. A massive arm bashed against the counter while it stomped the ground, sending miniature quakes through the entire bar as all the bottles shook and clattered against each other.

It took the krogan a few minutes to get itself back under control, but finally it looked at the batarian and asked, "Are you going to clean that up, or are you going to stand there all day?"

The batarian seemed to flush, glaring daggers at Emiya before gritting his needle-like teeth and walking away to fetch something to clean the floor with.

"Never seen your kind do that before. I'll have to remember it, bad to waste ryncol if it won't knock whatever fool out," it opined with another round of more subdued laughter.

"No, I'm sure it'll work on most people," Emiya reassured him. "Anyone who's dumb enough to fall for it probably deserves it."

"Heheh, that's good to know. I thought you had the air of a stupid whelp about you, but on a closer look..." The krogan leaned closer, taking a slow whiff through its nostrils. Emiya pointedly did not lean away from the massive head, merely raising an eyebrow at the act. "Your crest has gone wholly white. Guess that makes you the rare old fool instead, heheh..."

Not sure what amused it so, Emiya merely nodded once.

He was trying to figure out how to approach this krogan, now that he had its ear. Should he ask about where he might find asari slaves for sale? Or perhaps who might have had an interest in kidnapping a Matriarch?

It was important that he asked the right question in the right way. If he blew this, he probably wouldn't get a chance at picking the brain of someone as high up any time soon.

"But your manner is rusty, as if you've never had to shake down a stupid little batarian," the krogan continued and took another deep swig from the ryncol bottle. "The key is to humiliate them when they get uppity. You should have retched all over him before, heheh..."

Emiya snorted.

That would have been a little too much for him—he had chosen to drink the ryncol, so really it should have been his job to clean up after himself. But well, things turned out the way they did.

"How old do your kind live, anyhow. About as long as the turians, I seem to remember... Guess it's not much after all."

"Hmm?" Emiya opined, raising an inquisitive eyebrow which the krogan seemed to understand easily enough.

With obvious good cheer, the hulking creature explained. "Stupid whelps can be found anywhere. For every litter, there's a dozen of them at the head. They're the ones who die first, and in droves they die..."

Turning around so that it was leaning its back against the counter, the krogan looked at the ceiling as if in deep thought.

"But sometimes you run into one that manages to survive. And those are the ones you should pay attention to. The longer they've survived, the worse they are... Heheheheh..."

Taking a deep swig and draining the last third of the bottle in one go, the krogan seemed to be laughing at something with those words.

 _Right, keep the conversation going,_ Emiya thought as the silence stretched.

"Wouldn't an old smart guy be much more dangerous? Why be peculiar about fools?"

"Hmm?" The krogan grunted, before his mood obviously turned sullen. "Nah, those're all cowards. Harmless as long as you offer them a leash and make yourself useful."

 _Damn, stepped on a mine,_ he scowled inwardly as he scrambled for something to say.

"Well, I'd wager you're right about stupid whelps. I definitely was—I definitely _am_ one," Emiya said, correcting himself.

He might be old if one counted his years of existence. But hadn't he died young? Died for reasons he still couldn't quite remember? Wearing a smile that still scraped at his memory? He might be old, but he was still definitely just a _stupid whelp_.

"Heh, nah. You're _old_. For your types anyhow," the krogan seemed to correct him, its breath smelling so strongly of ryncol that Emiya almost felt himself turning tipsy from the vapors. "Your question, spit it out. Haven't got all day."

"...Are there any local outfits with the ability to field a solo run to the Minos Wastelands, to a system beyond the nearest Mass Relay. One with the capabilities to continue observing at long range for a long time until finally attacking when an opening presents itself?"

The krogan paused, looking away and steadily avoiding looking at him.

_He knows something._

"Batarians, most likely. Uniform, high quality gear and strictly disciplined in the field, but likely very lax when off-duty. Free to torture and use their captives as they see fit," Emiya pushed further.

"...Tch, I knew that bastard was no good..." The krogan spoke under his breath, mumbling it so quietly Emiya barely caught it as the krogan turned to stare at him. "What's your interest?"

 _Okay, this could go either way._ What was the krogan's angle here? Depending on whether it was collaborating or hostile with those batarians, then a careless answer either way might end the discussion. _Give him something neutral and fish for more information._

"I'm looking for someone."

"Hmm..." The krogan grunted, eyeing its bottle speculatively. Emiya had bought him the one; should it buy another one to top off with? It seemed barely even tipsy despite downing the whole bottle already. "Keh, what does it matter to me. _You_ , another bottle of ryncol!"

The batarian-tender stood up from behind the counter, glaring at Emiya quickly as he went to fetch the krogan another bottle. Tossing a chit over, the krogan pushed off from the counter and rolled his neck before leaning closer to him. "Corporations aside, the only outfit with gear and hardware for something like that would be the Dusk Raptors."

Emiya nodded once, already looking up mentally the name and finding an extranet page with contact details. _I wonder, do they run the legitimate security as an alternate source of income, or just as a front and a means to recon targets..._

That said, the server was little more than a mail-client and appeared to be in orbit. Still, it appeared that their headquarters was located on Torfan, and that it was located some hundred kilometers away from his current location. A lead as good as any.

"But..."

The krogan paused, as if taking a moment to measure the taste of something in its mouth, weighing its words again. Shaking its massive head, it raised a hand to dismiss whatever it had meant to say.

"Forget it. No point in a fool telling another fool to act smart. Have _fun_ , heheheh..."

With that, the krogan turned and left without another word. Emiya eyed him, leaning back against the counter with his elbows propped back against the top surface.

And then he drew his gun, whirling around to place a bead square between all four eyes of the batarian-tender who was reaching for something below the counter. Grabbing his helmet and snapping it back on with his free hand, he backed away from the counter while keeping an eye on the armed doorman. The bare-faced turian had drawn a bead on him but wasn't pulling the trigger yet, instead motioning with one hand for Emiya to get the hell out while worriedly eyeing the outside to see if the krogan was coming back. _Seems like I'm no longer welcome._

Well that was fine, he had business elsewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to both PseudoSteak and Olive Birdy for proofreading; they're fantastic. 
> 
> Thanks to Fan of Fantasy and SentinelSlice for pointing out I forgot to mention Emiya's hair changed. 
> 
> Sorry it took a while. Had written 10k already before I went to the tournament for the weekend and then immediately got sick when I returned. Was literally too out of it to even write properly.


	29. Semi-canon omake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you're thinking, "FiendLurcher updated already?!" Well, I didn't, okay? This is a semi-canon omake that was just too good to ignore, written by daniel-gudman who I'm a huge fan of. So all thanks to him! More random omakes over on spacebattles, but I'll probably try to get them ported over here at some point too. Will have to ask permission from everyone etc. 
> 
> But just to repeat; This is a semi-canon omake by daniel-gudman, I didn't write it.

"You never call, you never write. I worry about you!"

Nihlus Kryik massaged his temples. "I'm sorry, mother, but my work is important."

"Your work? Some mid-level flunky, with a stalled career? You left the Hierarchy to serve the Council, and now look where you've ended up!" His mother said, scolding him through the vid-link. Reminding him why he hated calling home.

Nihlus was a Spectre. Not one that was active on the surface, but one that kept his true identity a secret, that maintained a cover as a harmless bureaucrat. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse. He could blow his cover to impress his mother, but it would only push back the nagging, not stop it. It made it worse, he decided.

"At least your brother left a child behind, to continue the family." His mother continued.

His much-older brother, that had been disowned for marrying out-species, an Asari. That was only a scandal for people as terribly conservative as his mother, a looming shadow that had been the impetus that had drawn Nihlus towards the Council in the first place, to understand the person who had been the hole in his life.

...A child?

"I'm an uncle?" He asked, testing the words. Trying out the thought for size.

"And not getting any younger, yourself!" His mother scolded.

Nihlus sighed, the extraordinary moment broken. Ruined.

"Family is important, you know." His mother added.

Nihlus could not hold his tongue any longer. "And that's why you disowned him, right?" He snapped.

No, it was a mistake.

"Well, I never-!" His mother began, and Nihlus sighed, cutting off the connection. He would catch hell for it, the next time they spoke, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

All these years, an accomplished Spectre. And somehow, standing up to his own mother was still so… hard.

Nihlus shook the thought of.

A niece. He'd done so many questionable things, compromised so much, to protect people, and to know that there was a person out there who embodied that….

He shook himself. There was no time for this. He had another meeting to get to, after all. Wallowing in his personal business would only hold him down.

* * *

;

* * *

"...Therefore, we can tentatively conclude that the Batarian crew had been… executed, by Redhax."

Nihlus massaged his brow. "Is… is that really the conclusion of the report?"

Jondum blinked slowly, one eye after the other, before jerking his jaw sideways once. In human body language, it would have been a massive, expressive shrug of his shoulders. "There's no direct evidence, but… parsimoniously. A Batarian vessel was found drifting in orbit around Dretirop. The crew had been systemically butchered with slicing weapons. The computers were totally wiped. Matriarch Benezia coincidentally encountered Fujimura Saiga AKA Emiya Shirou AKA Redhax in-system. There's…. no evidence, but it's the only reasonable conclusion."

"Right." Nihlus said.

The best conclusion was that a freewheeling extranet hacktivist had, single-handedly and methodically, killed off a literal ship-load of Batarian special forces commandos. With knives.

The hell of it, Nihlus decided, was that it really _was_ the most reasonable conclusion.

_Redhax._

* * *

;

* * *

"The difficulty with blaming it on an intercepted asteroid is, of course, the extremely rarefied corona, which is already being called the 'Thessian Rainbow' in the popular media." Recited the meeting-chair, summarizing the salient facts.

Nihlus settled in, glad that for once, he wasn't responsible for making any decisions, just that he had to keep on top of what the Matriach Council would decide on as the cover story, so he could coordinate his own ops.

"Have we determined if it presents a health hazard?" One Matriarch asked. Rather than an interruption, it was almost ritualistic, a call-and-response way of doing briefings that had to be learned over decades, that Nihlus still couldn't anticipate, even if he was experienced enough to see it for what it was.

"As far as we can tell, it does not." The chair responded. "Although it _appears_ to be an Eezo Aurora, it does not emit energy in the Ultraviolet and higher spectra. Although this is still only speculation, it seems – tentatively – better to consider it as a holovid special effect, rather than radioactive byproducts of some exotic weapon."

_Redhax_

"What about reports that pregnancies have increased in the areas under the Aurora?" Another Matriarch asked.

"That has not been statistically confirmed..." The chair began.

 _Redhax!_ , Nihlus swore again, more fervently this time. Maybe he should take a vacation from all this… this-ness.

* * *

;

* * *

"Incredible." Whispered the i'usushij expert, re-winding the footage again. The footage that had been extracted from the security cameras of Matriarch Trellani's compound.

"Yes?" Jondum asked, a coaxing tone in the Salarian's voice. Nihlus nodded approvingly. At least in all this, Jondum had been tested, and found to possess the many talents required to be a Spectre. Spirits knew Nihlus needed to find some good in this whole business.

"This is a perfectly executed ulaa-tuj, an enhanced Biotic Throw." She explained, jabbing her finger at the screen. "This technique was thought to be lost, and to see it again… and from a human, no less!" She leaned in, her gaze intense. "You have to tell me who this is."

"That's classified." Jondum replied.

"It doesn't matter." The expert said, flatly dismissing his concerns. "This is a once-in-a-generation talent. We _have_ to recruit him… so many techniques have been lost, that even one has been reconstructed is extraordinary." She turned back to the screen, jabbing her finger again. "Look! His body is tired, he's barely able to stand, when he picks up the Serri'usushij it's clearly his first time holding it as he tests the balance – even with all that, he's _still_ able to perform a perfect ulaa-tuj. I hadn't even known what that would have looked like, before, but the results are undeniable, and that beautiful dancing motion? A blade-maiden already, even so young into a human's lifetime? This is a _genius_ of the sword, the kind not seen in lost millenia."

Jondum swallowed, his eyes flicking back to catch Nihlus' gaze, to confirm that he was really hearing this.

Nihlus didn't want to believe it either.

"Has he had children, yet?" The expert asked, having missed the by-play as she restarted the video again. "I've been thinking of settling down, and there are plenty of others in the i'usushij community that would be happy to bring him into their families, as well."

_Redhax_

* * *

;

* * *

"Our working theory for why he was able to hack a Mass Relay of all things, is that he is some kind of Prothean AI weapon that hijacked and stole a black-ops Human: Cereberus cybernetic super-soldier. This is the best, or rather least absurd, conclusion, based on the following data-points..."

 _Redhax._ Nihlus quietly swore to himself, listening to the top-secret summary briefing, as he discreetly swallowed headache-medicating pills.

"I'm done." Nihlus decided, standing up.

"Sir?" Jondum asked, beside him.

"I haven't taken leave in over ten days." Nihlus replied. "I… I'm starting to burn out. I need to rest."

He couldn't handle any more of this… this-ness. He needed to remind himself of what he was doing this _for_ , why he put up with this... _nonsense._

He was an uncle. The thought still surprised him.

"I'm taking the day off." Nihlus said. "To visit family."

* * *

;

* * *

And his niece was on the Ardat-Yakshi spectrum. Being a Spectre, of course, he knew about such things, but it was an ugly surprise.

Institutionalized.

...For barely a week. She'd been outed in the same chaos that had claimed Tela Vasir's life. The irony was bleak.

_Redhax_

No, this, at least, wasn't that damned cypher's fault. This was just a quiet little domestic tragedy.

"Hey! … Uncle?" She started strong, and then lost confidence in the end.

"Indeed." He said, chuffing a laugh slightly. "Tyra T'sanis, although we're late to meet the first time… I'm your father's younger brother, Nihlus Kryik." His eyes crinkled in a smile. "It… is good, to meet you." That, at least, was certainly true.

"Ha!" She laughed, an open, honest sound. It was surprisingly good for Nihlus' own spirit to hear it. "I'm happy to meet you, too."

He clasped his hands behind his back, considering. "I understand you like Biotiball." He said, not wanting to let the conversation halt.

"Yeah." She said, with a hint of embarrassment. "There's… actually a league team organized out of the temple, so I'm looking forward to that." She frowned mighty. "But the reason I hadn't heard of them is because the team sucks, so we've got a ton of rebuilding to do before we can qualify for any tournaments."

Nihlus had been more entertained by how worked up otherwise detached Asari would get over biotiball, rather than interested in biotiball in-and-of-itself, but there was always room to cultivate new interests.

Somehow, he hadn't known her long, but the conservative and sombre robes of a temple acolyte didn't fit Tyra.

...Ah, and somehow without meaning to, he'd let the conversation lapse. He was surprisingly out of practice with civilian small-talk.

"...I'm really glad you came to visit." Tyra admitted. "It's better here than I thought, the sisters are all patient and kind, but… it was a huge disruption."

"I understand that it was traumatic." Nihlus said, with a calm tone. "Your first meld."

It was the same easy, coaxing tone that he'd taught Jondum, that had been used to wheedle information out of that swords expert. Even in this, relying on black ops skills….

"Huh?" Tyra said, blinking. "No?"

Nihlus controlled his surprise, blinking only. "But I heard… she had…" died, he didn't say, he left it implicit, deniable, falling back on the shadowy unsaid implication of Spectres out of instinct.

Tyra grimaced, looking aside. "Well, yeah, that was… hard. But, I mean," She flushed, glancing at his face, and then looking aside, "well, I didn't say because no one actually asked, but, uh, she, that is, _her_? That wasn't my first, you know, first-first meld."

"No?" Nihlus asked, a cold feeling settling into his stomach. If she had… if she was further along on the spectrum than they'd known, then for him, being a Spectre came first. The law above even his own fresh-found family.

"I mean, he didn't even… react, you know? I was surprised, afterward, because when I tried to meld with him, he just… he just pushed me aside, and then said goodbye. He didn't seem hurt at all." Tyra admitted, all in a rush.

Some instinct in Nihlus' gut whispered at him.

"In a way it was just… so incredible. He was so… _complete,_ you know?" She searched his face. The idea of melding as love that completed two people's spirits was a well-worn trope in Asari fiction.

"His soul was so… wide, and so bright. Even if it was so empty, it was the emptiness of a cloudless sky. Always moving forward. Carrying that with me, I think I'll be fine, even..." Tyra hesitated. "even like this."

No, Nihlus' instinct was whispering.

"His name." Nihlus asked, forcing the words out. "He..."

"Saiga?" Tyra asked. "Well, Shirou, really."

_Redhax_

"REEEEEEEEDHAAAAAAX!" Nihlus bellowed, falling to his knees, shaking his fists at the sky arced over him.


	30. Sword Eater

Approaching the peak of his leap, Emiya crossed his arms and peered down. Far below him the snaking rift twisted and turned through the dead landscape into the far horizon.

An ugly scar on the surface, the remains of a large-scale strip mining operation that had been abandoned some decades past. Dozens of kilometers long and two hundred meters deep at places, it seemed like a dark, toothed abyss waiting to devour whole anyone who thought to fall inside. And in this case, appearances most certainly were not deceiving. Those people at the bottom had no hope of climbing out, even with the low gravity and multitude of handholds and footholds to be had.

He counted fifteen automated turret nests and six anti-hovercraft guns along the length of the rift, overlooking the mining gear and workers.

 _Or rather, slaves_ , Emiya guessed.

The heavily armed and armored figures patrolling along the ridges and openings, overlooking the mining operation didn't seem like the type to ask questions before shooting either. Anyone trying to escape or approach the rift would be lucky to get as much as shout out before they were shot. Not that it would matter, given the lack of sufficient atmosphere to transfer sound.

Invisible and three hundred meters in the air, it was thus none of them could see him as he began to descend rapidly from where he had been looking them over. Given the lack of good vantage points, he had instead simply opted to jump straight up. Thankfully the lower gravity meant that the impact of landing was minimal, entrenching him only down to his calves in the loose top-soil of the dead moon. Getting himself loose, he rushed for the cover and concealment of an outcropping of rocks that must have been blown out of the rift at one point or another.

A few seconds later the invisibility cloak from the gear he had pilfered off of the salarian operator wore off. Even with all the stacked batteries he had put together, the cloak still only lasted a handful of minutes before it needed to recharge. But while it was active, it did offer him very good optical camouflage. One that had been good enough to fool even his hawk-like eyes in the dark, aboard the asari cruiser.

He hoped it would be enough to fool the four-eyed batarians as well.

Just then, he sneezed. The unexpected sensation left him off balance and confused, and before he realized it he had tried to rub his nose through his helmet. Blinking, he shook his head. _Someone must be talking about me..._

The Dusk Raptors' base hadn't been difficult to find once he had been pointed in the right direction.

They controlled a large section of Torfan, fenced off and away from most of the other groups. They had neither open markets nor publicly available services, like some of the other gangs had.

So he had had to sneak inside their territory and take a look for himself, since even the high-spec cameras of the Janiri's Sickle in orbit could only show so much. Most of the interesting things would be happening in-doors or hidden from such easy surveillance, he suspected.

Looking around, he found that they had two large separate hangar facilities with numerous starships of various sizes and designs docked, and what seemed like hundreds of batarians milling about armed to the teeth on patrol. And similarly to the frigate he had encountered on Dretirop, there seemed to be a rather strict enforcement of communications discipline. Short-range squad comms aside, he couldn't find a single point of entry for his cybernetics for the installations' systems by either hangar, meaning he had no idea what to expect on the inside.

Attempting to infiltrate either hadn't seemed particularly appealing as his first attempt, so he had continued looking around with the Janiri's Sickle.

Which had lead to this place; a small mining operation run by seemingly the same group of batarians, quite a ways off from any of the other facilities they had. They seemed to be extracting rare-earth minerals and metals; materials there was always a need for like lithium, platinum and copper.

Or so he guessed. It was difficult to tell from such a distance.

On a planetary scale, the output of such a mine would be insignificant. But for a group the size of the Dusk Raptors, there was no way they could move all of the raw material gained by slaves alone. They would need transportation, since even if they had the facilities for the further handling of those materials they would still need to transport it elsewhere for processing and use.

But there were no landing pads for hovercraft anywhere in sight.

Did that mean there was a hidden tunnel somewhere along the rift, leading to one of the two hangars? _But there must be at least a kilometer between the mines and the nearest hangar..._

Exhaling and noting that the cloak had gotten enough charge back to hide him for twenty seconds, Emiya shrugged and lay down. Cloaking, he astralized and jumped out of his invisible body. With two long leaps he had dropped down into the rift and among the ranks of the miners milling around at the bottom.

Closer up, he could distinguish between the hardsuited figures much more clearly even as he moved at a rush.

There were three types of people here; the armed guards keeping an eye on the workers below and the surface above; the workers carrying power-tools, walking with purposeful strides and doing the mining; and lastly the most numerous among them, the slaves whose job was to dig through the broken soil and rock for materials and carry it to hover-carts.

Batarian guards; batarian workers; turians, salarians—or possibly lystheni , he couldn't tell— asari, humans and a few batarians as slaves, he noted. It seemed like the batarian slavers did not discriminate based on race.

 _How admirable,_ he thought coolly.

Racing through the bottom of the valley, he scanned hundreds of meters before he finally found what looked like a tunnel leading in the general direction of the hangars. It had been bored through the soil at a depth of a hundred meters, wide enough for a pair of shuttles to fly through and fitted with a mag-rail for transportation. Having confirmed his suspicions, he turned on his heel and raced back to his body.

Inhaling as he opened his eyes, Emiya quietly waited five minutes to see if his out-of-body-experience had raised any alarms before attempting to move out. At the same time, he considered what he now knew. _Even if Henell isn't here, I'll have to do something about this. But given the scale, will I have to kill a few thousand batarians by myself...?_

He needed more information.

Which meant going inside, given the lack of any centralized and easily hackable computer.

And since his spiritual core was in the condition it was, that meant he had to physically penetrate one of the facilities. _Meaning one of the two hangars, or the rift... They all have their pros and cons, huh._

Usually one would perform long-distance reconnaissance at first. Observe the target sites, try to find a location where one can remain hidden and see everyone entering and leaving the area without having to move around too much. Write down the schedules of the guards, try to identify the shift rotations, their gear and methods, and even try to divine any individual patterns and habits of the guards.

But since there was an underground tunnel which lead who knew where and possibly even to one of the two hangars, that might not be possible. He wouldn't have any method of checking if guards were moving around, as long as he remained outside.

Slow observation was useful.

It allowed one to gather information without revealing much of themselves in the process. But it was still _relative._ He was one individual, looking at what was nominally an organization with hundreds, possibly thousands of members. It could take him weeks, if not months to find a weak-point to use, if he were to take it slowly. _And I do have a cloaking device, don't I...?_

The cloak was fully charged again, his little jaunt out of body not having drained it too much this time around.

"So, direct penetration it is."

And since the rift was the closest anyhow, he might as well start there.

Getting up and out of concealment, he engaged the invisibility once more and dashed forward along Torfan's surface. Three great leaps—each following step covering more than twice than the proceeding one—was enough for him to get enough speed. Landing for the fourth step, he sprung upwards again.

But rather than seek to gain enough altitude to just look down along the length of the rift, he instead arced himself such that he would be landing down inside the mining area. But not on the floor-bottom, among the workers and slaves, as his landing on would kick up dust and rocks; much too noticeable.

As he began to descend more quickly, he turned his body in the air by kicking outwards to give himself some spin. With the low-to-none density of atmosphere, he couldn't just angle himself against the air to control his landing.

This method of entry was necessary he judged, since he was fairly certain the surface near the edge of the rift had been mined and trip-wired with pressure sensors. Trying to walk closer while wasting time on finding a safe path wasn't an option, since his cloak would run out and he would just be spotted.

The wall of the rift approached at a sharp angle as he fell headfirst toward it. Extending his arms, he reached out and 'fell' against the wall almost as if he had jumped forward on the flat ground and rolled forward on his back. Getting his feet against the wall, he successfully dissipated the force of his 'landing' as he sprung again down to the wall on the opposite side of the rift. These kinds of maneuvers would have been too loud for a stealthy approach normally, but the lack of a sound-transmitting medium gave him quite a bit of wiggle-room.

 _Five seconds of cloak left,_ he reminded himself as he landed on all fours against the wall, and this time he let all the force be absorbed by his limbs. For a second, he simply lay against the wall as if he were Spider-Man before falling straight down along the wall, his hands and legs brushing at the sediment and rock zooming past him.

He landed down on the bottom of the rift behind a heap of rock and soil. Dashing for better concealment in a dark corner, he hid himself in a narrow crevice between two large and jagged boulders left behind by explosive mining.

The cloak disengaged and Emiya exhaled.

He didn't have a kinetic barrier on his suit, just the bare essentials for life support. But that would still be enough to reveal his position to the scanners in any of the hardsuits or the omnitools the guards had if he tried to walk out without the cloak engaged. But at the same time there was a two hundred meter gap still left to cover to the tunnel he had seen earlier, meaning he couldn't rely on just the invisibility cloak either.

Eyeing one of the slaves, Emiya focused.

"—Trace, _on"_ Taking in every detail, he exhaled and spoke the words under his breath. The longcoat disappeared, as another guise began to materialize in his mind's eye. _—begin projection,_

He didn't have to worry about all the functionality, just the appearance of one of the cheap environmental suits they wore, on top of his own hardsuit would be enough. Enough to pass by a casual glance at least, he hoped. It didn't seem like there was any great effort put into monitoring individuals, or having identification and surveillance over their number, meaning it should be easy enough to slip in and work among the crowd of slaves to slowly make his way towards the tunnel. A benefit of the natural formation, he supposed.

Of course, this would be relatively slow and tedious. But it was the best way he could think of, since the tunnel entrance was much more heavily guarded at all times.

Finding the right timing when no one was looking, Emiya slipped in among the myriad slaves working to carry away rubble and find pieces of metal in the soil that had been blasted or beaten loose. Since he was quite tall and wearing double-suits, he made extra effort to seem as beaten and pathetic in body language as possible.

But given that as long as he kept his eyes low and his arms filled no one so much as gave him a second glance, that seemed a needless consideration.

Fifteen minutes of back-and-forth walking and carrying while pretending to work later, he had managed to make his way to the hover-cart closest to the tunnel. But it was still forty meters from the tunnel entrance and there were dozens of guards lazing about, along with two cameras overlooking the best route he could see.

And by the entrance was a door, which may or may not be locked. He hadn't been able to check while running through in his astralized form.

 _Need to get rid of the camera first,_ he thought as he crouched down. Jumping out in his spiritual body wasn't an option; it would attract too much attention if his body fell down, or slumped over. And attention was the last thing he wanted right now.

Finding a suitable rock, he exhaled and pushed out his magical energy into the piece. The flat piece would have been excellent for skipping off of the surface of water, but right now it would have to do as a sharp projectile. Grinding down the edges until it was razor sharp all around, the flat piece of rock had essentially been turned into a small shuriken in his palm.

Continuing with blending in with the beaten and bereaved slaves, he waited for an opportunity another ten minutes until finally no one was looking and he was in a blind-spot for both of the cameras.

With a flick of his arm, starting from the hips and shoulders, rolling outwards through the elbow all the way to the tip of his hand, he launched the sharpened piece of rock at the exposed wire of one of the cameras.

Silently, without anyone except Emiya noticing, the camera unceremoniously lost power and died.

Satisfied with that, he turned around and started to walk towards a corner where no one could see him, in the blind-spot created by the now-dead camera. The moment he crossed out of anyone's line of sight, he dispelled the disguise and re-applied another a second later, this time a guise in the likeness of the hardsuits worn by the guards.

Since the guards had tinted but still transparent visors, he added the likeness of a batarian face on the inside. From a distance, it would probably be enough to fool them, but up close it would be immediately apparent it wasn't actually his face.

And finally to finish the disguise, he also projected a hollow rifle in likeness of what the guards carried.

That done, he turned a hundred-and-eighty degrees, marching back the way he had come only a second prior. Only this time, he walked with his back straight and projecting the same lazy cockiness the other patrolling guards all seemed to possess.

Instantly people saw him.

The crowd parted before him as everyone turned their gazes away from him the instant they noticed him. Fear and terror was so heavy in the air it was almost impossible to breathe without tasting it.

How had he missed it?

Of course, he hadn't. _Don't think about it_. _Just walk to the tunnel, past where they're loading up the mag-rail cart..._

A salarian stumbled in front of him and fell over, scattering rock and debris on the ground, with more than a fair few pieces hitting his armored legs and torso.

Immediately the tension in the air seemed to explode off the charts; space itself seemed to freeze as everyone paused to see what would happen. Fear and sympathy radiated from those around him, as they could already perceive the beating the salarian would be sure to receive in their own minds' eyes.

Emiya clicked his tongue in dismay, meaning to ignore the salarian and continue on his way.

That would have been fine, except now some of the guards were watching, seemingly excited to see where this would be going. He couldn't break character now; he knew— _ignored_ —how the guards treated the slave workers here, he had seen it for himself already. _Damn it_.

Exhaling and steeling his mind, he reared back a leg and lashed out with the tip of his boot. Catching the salarian by the shoulder, he sent the diminutive alien spinning through the airless space thanks to the mass difference between them. Or so it might seem; it was just a glancing hit, looking worse than it would actually feel since very little of the force would have been actually transmitted into the salarian's body. Most of it had simply gone into spinning the salarian.

That should have been enough, but he could sense that the guards were merely amused.

They hadn't been _sated_ yet.

Stalking over to the salarian, Emiya grabbed it _—him,_ he was forced to acknowledge _—_ by the neck and lifted him up so his legs were helplessly dangling without anything for purchase.

Pulling back his free hand, he let loose a mighty underhand blow to the salarian's mid-section that would have surely shattered ribs had he not pulled at the last instant. Using the hand around the neck, he threw back the salarian as if the blow had been so strong that his own grip failed him and sending the salarian back onto the ground.

Whether the salarian realized something was off or not, he curled up on the ground, covering his head and neck in expectation of further beatings. Emiya glanced around without turning his head, noting that that seemed to have been enough of a show for most of them.

Turning around, he continued his faux-patrol as if nothing had happened. Heading for the tunnel entrance, he noted that his disguise seemed to still hold, though the workers were giving him an even wider berth now. Walking past the tram the workers were loading up, he looked deeper into the tunnel. He'd be able to head deeper just past the loading area with his disguise.

But, there he noticed his next problem; there was still that locked door up ahead along with a sealed blast door over the mag-rail. Even continuing on foot, he would need to get past the door if he wanted to continue exploring the tunnel.

And he didn't even know what he needed to open it.

Things were so much simpler back when people used physical keys and locks. He didn't even need a lock-pick set back then; he just projected the key he needed in his pocket and that was that. There wasn't even anything for him to hack, either. _So it's like a key-card system, or something. But I didn't see anything like that on any of the guards, and I don't know what the system is based on either. It might even be something like a DNA sample, or a surgically implanted bio-chip..._

He noted that someone was staring at his back now; he needed this door open before someone realized he wasn't supposed to be here. Turning around to confirm who would only raise further suspicions.

Instead, he acted as if he knew exactly what he was doing as he walked to the door. Reaching out, he placed a hand against the smooth metal frame.

"—Trace _, on"—begin synchronization,_

His magical energy pushed outward and time slowed down as he washed away his extraneous senses. Focusing only on the schematic of the door before him, he analyzed the electrical wiring and automated systems until he found what he needed.

Usually regardless of how complex a system was, its function could be broken down to a simple switch. The one system which everything else built on top of; the one circuit which when powered would adjust the lock.

And having found that one circuit that governed the state of the door, only a single push of his magical energy was all that was necessary. Just like the first car he had ever hot-wired with his magecraft, the door before him activated. Emiya strode inside as if nothing unusual had happened, reaching out with his hand to reverse the exertion he had pushed on the door to make it close behind him.

As the gaze on his intent back was finally cut away followed by the door closing behind him, he let out a nervous breath he had been holding.

That could have turned into a complete bloodbath, if _anything_ had gone wrong. And with the guards so spread out, it was likely the captives and workers would have been caught in the crossfire. Maybe the slow method was used for a reason, after all?

Dismissing those thoughts, he started walking down the tunnel at a brisk pace. A minute later as there was no end in sight, he started working up his speed until finally he was running as fast as the tunnel and low gravity allowed. _If it leads all the way to one of the two hangar bases, then it should be a pretty long trek._

But he was proven unexpectedly wrong as after a bend in the tunnel he arrived at another blast door.

By his estimate, it couldn't have been more than half a kilometer from the entrance. There was another locked gate, only this one was manned by a bored batarian sitting above, behind a sheet of armored glass. Looking up, Emiya nodded at the batarian and hoped his projected fake-face would bear the scrutiny at this distance.

The guard peered at him, before finally nodding back and pressing a button, returning to whatever it was that he had been doing as the large blast door began to rise up and allow him entry into an airlock. The mag-rail tracks seemed to end there, but he didn't care about that.

Another three armed batarians were standing around, one of whom turned to look at Emiya with apparent interest.

"What is it?"

Swallowing down his apprehension and hoping the voice-modifier would work this time, Emiya spoke simply as he motioned toward the tunnel at his back.

"Camera outside got busted."

The batarian blinked, turning to look at his companions. It seemed there wasn't any protocol for such an event and that it wasn't a common occurrence either.

"Gonna get someone to fix it," Emiya continued and turned to walk towards the stairs at the other side of the airlock. By now the air pressure had been normalized and the door on the other side lit up green to reflect that. The batarian trio shrugged at that, seeing no reason to either intervene or assist him that task.

Leaving them behind, he didn't know what to expect.

More hallways certainly wasn't it.

Twenty minutes of aimless walking later, he gave up and admitted that he was very much lost. _This place is huge..._

Hallways, halls, mess halls, armories and workshops, sleeping pod rooms filled to the brim with pods... And there were batarians everywhere. This wasn't just some small-time gang, this was practically a small—and very well armed and run—army he was dealing with. At least no one gave him so much as a second look, even as he continued walking along and with his helmet still on indoors.

So he wandered around, trying to get his bearings and slowly expanding his mental map of the facility. It was like it had been built to be intentionally confusing, with multiple routes everywhere leading to plenty of moments of walking in circles on Emiya's part. But that gave him plenty of time to Structurally Analyze some of the walls and foundations, noting where the bundled up lines for power and fiber-optic communication ran. Though there weren't that many of the latter, a curious thing he thought. _How do they communicate from one side to the other? Wireless signals will deteriorate underground too much to work..._

And they would need communications.

Because it was starting to look like those two hangars weren't separate at all. Rather, it seemed like what could be seen on the surface of Torfan was only a fraction of the Dusk Raptors' true capacity. _Well, I guess this is one way to protect yourself from cosmic radiation. No need to invest in expensive screeners or expensive radiation-rated prefab walls when you can just dig deep instead._

He found some relatively large—and currently empty—holding cells, where he suspected the captives were usually held when not mining, and after some more walking around in the same general area he found another similar area filled with sleeping people. On closer inspection, he realized that this was the only actual slave pen and they were worked in two shifts. During the rest hours, the other half would remain here, while the others were suited up and herded outside into the rift.

_Is Henell here?_

Given that it was locked and there were armed guards on watch—mostly just watching something on their omnitools by the looks of it—he couldn't exactly just waltz in and start looking for Henell among the sleeping captives.

But on the other hand, the batarians on Dretirop must have sought out Henell and her team specifically. There must have been a reason for that. Thus they wouldn't throw them in with the other captives who were being used for cheap labor, right?

The blaring alarms broke him out of his thoughts just then.

"We're under attack! Man all stations!" One of the batarians guarding the slaves shouted, and suddenly everyone was up on their feet and running somewhere.

Emiya blinked as he stood in the eye of the storm while everyone around him seemed to know where they had to be, for a second not quite registering what he'd heard. Then he scowled, turning around as he continued walking. _Just what I needed..._

Or perhaps this was a chance.

With everyone focused on the outside, he would have an easier time penetrating deeper into this facility. He just needed to find a damn computer and he'd finally start getting some actual solid information on what was going on here.

And while he was at it... _—begin projection,_

Emiya checked that no one was looking as he projected a sword, and then rammed it hilt deep into the wall. Magical energy crackled as he charged the blade. It expanded and cracked with a hiss inside the wall, before he snapped off the hilt. The piece in his hand vanished, leaving only a small mark where the sword had been plunged into the wall.

"I might as well set up while no one is looking..."

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard frowned, pressing the comm-button as she spoke, "Hey, what's with the radar glitching?"

A second of silence, during which she continued to peer into the flat wasteland before her. Was there something there, or...?

" _Sorry ma'am, I've no idea. The forward team reports there's nothing there, though._ "

"Alright, keep me posted if you figure anything out," she cut off the comm with a frown. All this lying around was starting to wear on her.

Six hours of waiting and watching.

She leaned back down and put her eye to the scope of her sniper rifle, going over the section of the long, winding rift that she could see from her position. There were forty-one N7's here—her included—all of them being experts with the long-range precision rifle.

They knew what the job was—one shot, one kill; no misses allowed.

She wasn't feeling the jitters, as much as she felt the rising tension and was itching to get to it already. Resisting the urge to check her weapon _again_ , she continued observing the rift.

Same old, same old. Batarians being bastards as usual, their slaves working apathetically and no orders to move out anywhere to be had.

Shepard sighed and before she realized it, she was range-tuning her rifle again on a batarian guard.

The Avenger III wasn't a bad rifle by any means, but she wasn't a huge fan of the long cooldown. On paper it could fire 1.3 shots before overheating, but with the mods that had been brought down to 1.03 shots which would extend the cooldown cycle quite a bit. It was possible to take another shot immediately after the first of course, but that would overheat the rifle immediately and extend the cooldown cycle further. The glowing red-hot rails would also be warped, meaning that accuracy and power would suffer to the point of likely failure to acquire a kill if she kept doing it.

So that wasn't an option.

It was necessary to secure a kill with the single shot she would get. It was the same for all the other scattered N7's, located all around the edges of the rift.

Six hours of slowly crawling forward, disabling perimeter security and staying hidden as they observed the mining operation below. Six hours of simply watching as those four-eyed bastards beat down and harass their 'workers', of holding back while telling herself that it wouldn't be much longer.

_Soon._

Taking a slow deep inhale, her control reasserted itself and she continued looking through the scope at the bottom. Her crosshairs centered on a lone patrolling guard, who was lazily walking into view now. "Boogie walking up passage 4-C, preliminary id... Tango-31."

A few seconds passed, and there was a confirmation from another sniper, across from her on the other side of the rift.

" _Tango-31 confirmed, matches physical profile and previous patrol pattern,_ " the rear-support technical officer replied. All of them were doing the same, keeping a running tally of who, where and when, which was relayed to a map in the corner of her HUD.

It was all necessary.

If she tried to simply storm the rift head on, civilian casualties would be inevitable. The batarians would use them as shields and hostages for their own protection while gunning any in front of them down without hesitation.

And since the batarians had their slaves constantly working in two shifts, there wasn't any possibility of a night-raid to avoid civilian casualties either.

Six hours, four of which they had had adequate eyes on site to start collecting intel. They had counted the number of guards, identifying each and observing their patrol routes and patterns. That way once it was time to go, they could drop forty-one batarians in one moment. In one fell swoop, the force below would be crippled and lose over half of their fighting force. But in the confusion that followed, there would still be another thirty-two additional guards to take out, along with the other automated defenses. But they had Engineers for those.

Optimally in the three seconds that followed the first shots, it would all be over already.

And if that failed, the asari commandos were on stand-by to immediately rappel down and attack. This kind of low-g environment with very little cover was supposedly one of their preferred hunting grounds.

But like hell were they going to leave any for them; they were N7. The best of the best, and this was their operation. There wasn't going to be an armed batarian with a pulse in that rift by the time the asari moved out, if she had her way.

That was why she would have preferred a Volkov, Harpoon or even a Helix rifle, fitted with a much more aggressive cooldown cycle. Rifles like those could take two shots and ride out the overheating, easy. But she wasn't anywhere near the best sniper here, so she had to do with an Avenger. It was fine; as a commanding officer on site, her job wasn't to do the heavy lifting, but to function as over-watch and control.

That she was also functioning as a sniper while acting in that role was only further proof of the scale of this operation. There was no room for fat; everyone who could put boots on the ground was needed. Even having brought bear its full might here, the Alliance Navy was still getting stretched out.

Thus she had taken a forward position where she could eye the loading area just in front of the tunnel entrance, where the Avenger's much— _comparatively_ , of course—poorer accuracy at longer distances wouldn't matter. She would take her one shot and then focus on keeping an eye on everything, or move in to secure the site, either was fine. There were men here who had dedicated themselves with an almost religious zeal to the art of perfect, pin-point accuracy with their rifles.

She could trust them to handle the second shots.

Continuing to observe the faceless shambling crowd of slaves, she counted the number of guards and reported them to the rear-support who kept a running tally and simulation of the rift. In the corner of her helmet's HUD, she could see a small map with annotated dots moving around. They would change color, based on line-of-sight and whether there was a rifle aimed at them.

Six hours of waiting.

Because of a logistical error.

They had been ready to go two hours ago, but one of the other sites wasn't ready. Because of a mismanagement of crates, one of the portable kinetic barrier shipments was now on a warship on the other side of the system, guarding the Mass Relay.

It was a fucking mess, and every additional second they had to wait here only compounded that. _Hurry up and wait; you have to excel because others will always fuck up!_

She chuffed at that, before chiding herself and clearing her mind of extraneous thoughts.

Thus it was only because she wasn't focused on any one thing, that she managed to catch the tiny spark that flashed right at the edge of her scope. She frowned, raising the rifle to try and figure out what it was.

Pausing, she licked her lips at the sight.

"...Entrance camera 2 offline."

The reply came a few seconds late. " _Confirmed, entrance camera 2 offline._ "

The technical officer sounded just as perplexed as she was. How had that happened? No one had taken a shot, so what had disabled the camera?

A hunch.

She zoomed back out, taking in everything she could see and focusing on nothing. The whole crowd gathered in the rift, visible from her point of view came to sight. _Someone down below must have done it, but who? And why?_

A crowd of workers, dotted with a few lazing guards. Nothing out of the ordinary. She didn't even notice the lone hunched over slave walking over and away from the group, not until he suddenly changed color. Her scope didn't move, only her eyes registered the change as her pupils darted to the hidden corner.

Her breath halted as her mind froze, recognizing the figure.

A featureless black helmet, the form-fitting black hardsuit with white highlights—

"It's..."

— _That man! The man from Mars! The man from Ares Station!_

" _Please repeat?_ "

She didn't hear the request, her mind having been thrown into complete chaos as she almost jumped to her feet before realizing what a terrible idea that would have been. She licked her lips, trying to figure out what to say. Should she ask if anyone else had eyes on him? Why was he here? How was he here? When had he showed up? Had he been there the whole time?

And then his appearance changed again; the perfect likeness of a batarian guard taking his place, rifle and all.

Shepard watched on, almost as if she had been detached from her own body and could affect nothing beyond her eyes, as he turned around and walked back the way he had come. The complete change in body language, the beating he gave the salarian slave, it all washed over her numb mind.

It was only as he headed for the tunnel that she realized that she had blanked out.

Anger filled her, a bottomless well of hatred seeming to burst out from her chest as the singular thought came to her mind; the man from Mars might have been working for the batarians all along. Just like—

Her mind blanked out in anger for a second.

Even though she could hear the comm-chatter, of snipers trying to identify the new boogie, and the technical officer trying to figure out who the hell he was and where the hell he had come from, it all seemed to wash over her as just background noise for the sound of rushing water in her head. She drew a bead on the back of the mysterious man in black, halting her breath as her heart seemed to pound through her whole body. There was no finger on her trigger, as she simply burned in his likeness into her mind. _I've found you...!_

She almost pulled the trigger then, except...

The salarian who should have broken most of his bones by the look of the beating he had received, stood up in the corner of the scope.

Her finger paused, aching to pull the last millimeter.

Yet, something about the surprised demeanor of the salarian washed away her anger. _Calm down, something about all of this is wrong._

Finally, she spoke, with a calm cool edge to it that seemed to freeze the very blood in her veins as she exhaled. "New boogie, designation Tango-74. Check all tangos, running tally to confirm new boogie."

" _Roger, checking logs._ "

She distantly listened as all the batarian guards were counted, identified and placed to confirm that the new boogie was indeed someone that hadn't been there a minute prior.

She watched through her scope as he opened the door and entered the tunnel, reporting that he had left with an artificial detached cool brought about only by her rigorously controlled breathing.

" _Confirmed, Tango-74 has been added. Tango-74 has left operating theater._ "

After that, her pounding heart seemed to lose track of all passage of time.

She ran on auto-pilot as she listed out and updated patrolling guards, like a spring coiling further and further with every passing second. _Come on... Come on... He's getting away, how long can it take...?_

Suddenly those six hours seemed like nothing. And they were, in comparison.

Two years.

For _two years_ she had had access to the footage from Ares Station, footage which had flipped her world upside down. She thought she had gotten over what had happened a long time ago, but when she realized that someone related to _that_ incident was still alive, someone who might know what had happened in that house and was probably even the root cause behind her friend's death...

She needed to catch him. At all cost, even if— _Calm down. Focus on the mission._

Two years she had tried to find that man. All she had had was a few seconds of video footage of the man appearing in the security center of Ares Station, but that had been enough to propel her forward in a new direction. To make new contacts. To search new avenues of training.

The Citadel knew something, she knew as much. But they had been tight-lipped, even as they sent salarian ambassadors to endlessly prod and question the Alliance about the Mars incident.

But now she finally had a lead on that man, here! But that didn't mean she could cast aside everything else. She still had an important job to do; lives depended on her.

And then finally the signal from up top came. It was time to go. She inhaled once, speaking barely above a whisper.

"All call-signs, set. Repeat, all call-signs, set. Match 15 seconds and counting."

The HUD adopted a fifteen second timer in the upper corner, as everyone acquired a target. The mini-map in the corner of her eye flashing as numerous targets were lit up.

Five, four, three, two...

_One._

The rifle soundlessly roared in her hands in sync with every other rifle in position their sounds lost to the thin atmosphere, and in the same instant the batarian she had had under her crosshair keeled over with a gaping hole in his chest.

"Tango-56 down," she reported calmly.

" _Tango-56 down, confirmed._ "

But she wasn't listening anymore, collapsing the rifle as she was throwing it over her shoulder and drawing out the assault rifle in the same motion.

"All units, move out and engage at will."

She dashed forward, only half-listening to the incoming reports of the automated defenses being taken over by the Engineers. That was good, it meant she didn't have to worry about being turreted down, but she was already thinking about her own part.

Resisting the urge to jump into the rift—that would only slow her fall down to the bottom needlessly—she dropped down over the edge as she drew her shotgun from the small of her back. Raising both of her guns up into the air at an angle, she pulled both triggers to further accelerate her fall down.

The less time she hung in the air unable to move, the better chance she had at not being turned into Swiss cheese.

Bullets must have flown past her, as shattered pieces of stone and debris hit her back and head. Finding the source, she dropped the shotgun and grabbed the rifle in both hands. Her breath slowed as her heartbeat stilled for just an instant.

The assault rifle buzzed in her hand, spitting out a stream of hypersonic slugs that collapsed the batarian guard's kinetic barriers a second before it tore through his neck and chest in a spray of blood and bone. The recoil pushed her towards the wall and she could feel it grinding against her back now, but that was fine.

Her suit could take that much.

"Tango-15 down," she calmly reported, scanning the rift and her tactical mini-map. _He should have been a priority target. Were his kinetic barriers too tough, or did someone miss...?_

She dismissed those thoughts for now.

Her descent had slowed down due to shooting downwards which had negated some of her acceleration, leaving her as something of a sitting duck again. But at the same time she no longer dared to shoot upwards, in case someone was coming down. It couldn't be helped, she would simply have to trust her kinetic barrier. She sighted Tango-47 running down the length of the rift and she raised her rifle, but a fraction of a second later a sniper round took him down in one clean shot.

He had been one of the unlit targets who hadn't been aimed at in the opening salvo, having been judged a junior member of the guard and more likely to panic and run rather than stand and return fire.

They had obviously been right.

A blue blur passed her by.

Shepard blinked, distantly realizing that it was one of the asari commandos. They had jumped in after her, but had easily overtaken her on the way down somehow.

As they jumped from wall to wall, in perfect control over themselves, Shepard had to admit she was impressed. Two of them spotted another running batarian guard at the same time and in the space of half a second had used their biotics on him. The batarian was turned weightless and slammed into a wall with enough force to shatter his visor nearly instantly. _Biotics, huh._ _Now I see what Major Kyle meant. With their mobility, hitting them would be nearly impossible, and with their teamwork in biotics they can take out targets nearly instantly, even behind cover._

By the time her boots hit the ground, it was already all over.

" _All hostiles down._ "

"Secure the area. Set up a perimeter at the tunnel entrance immediately," she ordered, almost shouting due to the adrenaline running wild in her body.

Without any atmosphere it was impossible to talk normally, and since the captive workers' suits lacked radio sets, it might come down to body language and hand gestures to calm down the throng of panicking workers. In that regard, the presence of the asari commandos seemed to come in handy, as some of the asari slaves seemed to realize they were being saved.

Shepard grit her teeth, staring at the tunnel entrance for several long seconds, before she exhaled and turned to face the crowd. _First things first..._

Raising her omnitool she projected the holo-text onto the rift wall so everyone could see it. Written in fifteen languages, in large easily legible text, it should hopefully suffice in calming down them for now.

_But once I'm done here, just you wait for me, mystery man._

* * *

;

* * *

"What the hell kind of death trap is this place...?" Emiya muttered incredulously under his breath while walking.

The deeper he looked, the more this place left him confounded.

He had thought the additional routes were for flanking maneuvers, or perhaps to facilitate better airflow given the central life supports for each sector. And while that probably was partly the case, it turned out that half of them were built so shoddily that they might well collapse from their own weight any second now. He could probably reach out and tear out pieces of the walls. Hell, he could probably bust through one tunnel into another if he really tried.

This entire damn facility was one mad board of snakes and ladders set into a cave in danger of collapse.

Only a handful of tunnels seemed to actually be made with the proper supports a place like this needed, and the batarians seemed to be sticking to those as much as they could.

If that was all, then he wouldn't be so exasperated.

But then he found out that the slave pens had been rigged up to tanks of an airborne agitant of all things. He only heard about that from one of the batarians who had been laughing about the idea of siccing the slaves against whoever was attacking, if they ever got this far. Some sort of gas, that would throw all of the slaves into a maddened frenzy, so that the batarians could just open the doors and force anyone outside to deal with a literal wave of crazed people.

He still had no idea who the hell was invading, but there was no way in hell he was letting something like that happen.

So the first order of business had been finding those tanks and sabotaging the delivery systems. _Permanently_. Getting anything out of those tanks would require changing out every part of the delivery systems now. Because he was sure as hell not dealing with something like that right now, on top of everything else. There still was the issue of life support, which was centrally controlled and was shared for the slave pens and this general wing of the installation.

But as long as the batarians held this part of the whole facility, he doubted there was any danger of that being purposefully destroyed. The invaders would be wearing hardsuits, as would the defenders. The only ones inconvenienced by the destruction of those systems would be the slaves.

And the batarians had a vested interest in keeping them alive, namely one of finance. He didn't know the going rate for slaves, nor did he know how easily the batarians could 'top up' any losses to their mining work-force, but he hoped it was enough to keep them from doing anything stupid.

If something did go wrong and the life support systems went offline... Just thinking about it made him frown.

And since there were only enough environment suits for the slaves who were already outside, that meant that Emiya couldn't just leave the slaves alone either. But at the same time, he did want to continue further down in the installation, since he suspected Henell might be further down based on some of the talk he had heard.

Something about ancient black market artifacts being shipped in and ferried down to the lowest levels.

"Hey, you! Get back into position! I won't tell you another time. They're already right outside, they'll be coming in any minute!" A batarian without a helmet shouted at him.

But since everything had gone into lockdown, sneaking in wasn't going to be that easy anymore. There were checkpoints and barricades everywhere. Especially since everyone thought he was a soldier and kept ordering him to get back to his station. He had tried to get in deeper pretending to be on an urgent matter, but already at this first choke-point he was being told to turn around and go back.

"They're outside? Who?" He asked, surprised that the batarian seemed to be more aware of the general situation than he was. There hadn't been any announcements, nor did there seem to be any local comms. _Do they have some kind of comms, after all?_

"You bastard, are you questioning me? The mines have already been taken over! Get the hell into position, you sniveling low-brow before I cuff you!" The batarian shouted, stalking towards him with squared shoulders as it was obvious he had gone through the alien's patience.

Emiya blinked.

If the mines had been taken over, that meant that the fates of those slaves outside had already been decided.

If it were a rival faction, or perhaps a corporate clean-up operation, it was entirely possible all of the workers in that rift had already been killed. His fist clenched at that thought; that he had been so close and unawares of a possible tragedy, which he had accidentally and unwittingly allowed to happen. Though, on the off-chance that it was some less unscrupulous force attacking and the slaves had been liberated... It was the kind of vain hope he might have clung to at one time.

No longer did he hope; he merely planned. _It doesn't matter either way—it's already happened. If they're dead, I shouldn't waste their suffering, then._

Since someone was invading, and the Dusk Raptors thought it a credible threat, that meant that if he played his cards right and played off the two sides in this conflict and drew it out, he might be able to bleed both parties to death from the shadows. And once the dust settled, he could have the remaining slaves in the pens come out unharmed from it all. That way, he would save those still alive at least. Though, that meant he would have to start hollowing out the defenses before the invaders got here.

Which meant he would probably have to give up on looking for Henell.

 _To hell with it then,_ Emiya thought and dropped the rifle, surprising the batarian who paused three steps short of him. Raising his left hand until it was level with his shoulder, Emiya stared down the eight batarians in front of him.

"—Trace, _on_ "

They were suitably grouped up already, he noted. But first he had to take out the camera.

— _begin projection,_

The bare-faced batarian growled at him, stalking another step towards him.

"Pick up that rifle and get back to your position, before I beat you to death with it, you—" The arrow through his skull shut him up before he could finish that threat, the projectile flying with sufficient force that it flew straight through and embedded itself into the wall behind him, taking out the camera mounted there in the process.

The others had time to just realize what had happened, when Emiya had already loosed another four arrows in two double draws, leaving just two more hardsuited figures opposite him standing.

Eight eyes widened as two pairs of arms began to raise their rifles, but they were just too slow, as the bowstring sang twice more. The crackle of failing kinetic barrier mixed with the sound of shattered ceramic plate pieces hitting the floor, as Emiya exhaled and lowered the bow.

All the arrows had already dissipated before the last batarian hit the ground.

Since he could project nocked and ready-to-loose arrows just as fast as he could loose them, his rate of fire was considerable. While he couldn't match a machine gun in sheer volume this way, he could easily out-shoot a soldier taking individual aimed shots in both accuracy and rate of fire. And given that his arrows could knock men clean off their feet, he was practically firing an anti-materiel rifle.

Looking around, he confirmed that there were no more cameras around one more time, before getting on with it.

_There should be a security station nearby with this sector's cameras, since the wiring is too compartmentalized for one central command room. Just like the life support systems._

The plan must have been so that each sector could defend itself independently even if every other sector of the base was taken over. That meant someone would be coming to check out what had happened.

Crouching down, he searched the mouthy batarian's body and took his omnitool. It took some fiddling around with to get it to open up, but once he got a signal access to it he could finally hack it open and get past the password screen. Before he could start digging through it however, his ears picked up the sounds of approaching feet. _Four batarians, running, wearing hardsuits and rifles. That's faster than I expected. Did they realize that something happened here, or is it just personnel being sent to reinforce a position irrespective of my actions?_

Standing up, he pocketed the omnitool.

Raising the bow again he looked down the hallway where they were coming from. Four lighter arrows appeared on the bow, already nocked and ready. Drawing back the string slowly, he inhaled in parallel with the motion. The four came into view—or rather, the three as the fourth had lagged behind for whatever reason and was still out of view around the corner.

— _begin synchronization,_

Modifying the spine and weight of each arrow to customize their flight path, he minutely adjusted their nocking points on the string with his fingers while turning the bow slightly more horizontal to control the sideways spread.

They had just enough time to spot him as the string was released, sending the four arrows at supersonic speeds into the three batarians with enough force that two of them were nailed to the wall behind them, while the third was nailed into one of the two batarians. The fourth batarian's footsteps came to a halt, as he obviously hit the brakes and intended to turn around without coming into view after having just seen his entire squad getting killed.

That was fine.

Projecting another arrow, he modified it before he had it even nocked this time. _Thirty meters to a 83 degree turn to the left with a slight incline upwards, based on his footsteps he was probably around..._

Another arrow appeared on the bow, unusual in its construction in that its fletchings were in the middle of the arrow rather than at the end near the nock.

Drawing back the string and loosing the arrow in one motion, he exhaled and turned around. Half a second later, the sounds of the arrow piercing hardsuit, followed by the hardsuit hitting the floor was heard. He dismissed all the arrows a second later, but kept the bow in his left hand as he turned towards the route back towards the slave pen.

 _The new modified tips seem to work pretty well,_ he noted as he walked past three dead batarians, glancing at their cooling corpses with detached and analytical eyes. Back in his time, since armor was mostly limited to chest and head protection which he could aim around, generally he only had to worry about his arrows being efficient at killing. At the poundages and speeds he loosed his arrows, they would just punch straight through a body if he used any normal tip. Even large broadheads tended to pass through far too cleanly, performing with less than adequate lethality unless he hit just the right spot to bleed them out quickly.

When it came right down to it, arrows just weren't very lethal on impact.

So, he had taken cue from hollow-point bullets and designed arrowheads which shattered right after impact and expanded rapidly to create a greater wound channel, and to impart as much of the force as possible from the arrow into the target instead of flying clean through.

Since he never re-used his arrows and it made their deaths quicker, it seemed like a justifiable enough action. Of course, that had been brought up in his trial more than once as evidence of his malicious mutilation of enemy combatants. They never did figure out that he used arrows though, thinking all the way to the end that he had just been using some massive custom hollow-point bullets, even if they never managed to recover a single bullet.

But Dretirop had showed him the ineffectiveness of such arrowheads against the hard ceramic plates most hardsuits used, as only the ridiculous force of his bow and the weight of his arrows had been enough to punch through. Those hadn't been clean deaths, so now he had added a armor-piercing point that collapsed and expanded inside the body after penetrating twenty centimeters or so. Of course, for that kind of penetration he needed to push the FOC up another 10%, which meant the arrows would take a hit in long-range performance. Meaning getting a dozen arrows in the air and to hit at the same time, like he had on Dretirop would be a bit finicky.

But that was an acceptable enough trade-off for his basic arrows he supposed, especially since in-doors he would never be able to utilize his maximum range anyhow. He would have to re-design his arrowheads for long-range sniping sometime soon, probably.

Shaking his head, he pulled out the omnitool he had just put away and began fiddling with it again.

It took him about twenty seconds to find and download a map of the facility— _Yeah, this really is one huge maze, huh_ —and ten more to realize what was going on as he finally managed to figure out how the Dusk Raptors were communicating despite being underground.

They were using vibrations through the ground, since the thick walls and solid earth created insulation which no wireless signal could hope to pass through. The omnitools were hooked up to seismographic stations which received and sent minute tremors through the ground using a form of encryption that Emiya had never seen before. Possibly a batarian state funded code or something, since it seemed almost counter-intuitively different from anything the Citadel races used.

He scoffed, _almost like rabbits, thumping out warnings against the ground._

Which meant one couldn't simply snip a few wires to sabotage their communications then, as any one 'thumper' could talk to any other 'thumper' within range. That would make hamstringing the batarians' defense a bit finicky. But with his spiritual hacking, he could probably do something if he jumped directly in, like he had in Parnitha.

Though given the current circumstances and his own limitations, it seemed a little bit too risky to just try out. What if someone found his body and it was gone when he came back? Accepting that, he instead began reading through the logs of recent comm-traffic to figure out what was going on while moving on, leaving the dead behind where they lay.

Emiya had to blink, as he realized _who_ it was that was attacking. He would never have guessed; the very same Navy he had been a part of and deserted some half a decade ago.

 _...The Systems Alliance had to choose just now to attack? Are they after me?_ No, that made no sense. Even if they were after him, could they have chased him down that quickly? Or did they have a fleet presence in the system already? _No, no._

The numerical force necessary to invade this installation was too big; the Alliance simply didn't have the numbers for a whole fleet to just be lying around. This must have been planned weeks in advance.

So, it just came down to bad timing on his part. His luck had always been like this, getting him into the strangest of circumstances and most tangled of troubles.

But it did change his situation considerably.

While the Systems Alliance wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, in comparison to the slaving and raiding defenders they were practically squeaky clean. Which meant he should focus his attention on the Alliance achieving a decisive and easy victory. Hollowing out the batarians' defenses from the inside so that they could be easily and cleanly knocked down.

He huffed, turning around a corner and coming into view of the batarian barricade up ahead.

"Huh, who is that?" A batarian asked up ahead.

What pretty words he had used in his head to describe the situation—what he really meant, was that he should kill every batarian he ran into and destroy every security center he found to destroy the batarians' ability to coordinate a defense. _In for a penny, in for a pound..._

"Fine, guess that's how it'll be."

Emiya raised the bow and loosed six arrows, hitting six targets absentmindedly with unerring aim. _One more, behind cover._

"We're under attack! I repeat we're under attack in section—"

_At this distance, arrow drop won't matter—quadrupling weight and removing fletchings to minimize drag—drive weight towards tip to ensure maximum penetration, adjusting depth of expansion trigger by 600% to compensate for cover, Reinforcing bow by 15% to increase power..._

The bowstring sang once more, as the lance punched through the pillar as if it had been made merely out of loosely packed sand, its immense momentum unstoppable until the mid-section had expanded and tripled in size and bringing it to a complete halt. Cracks ran through the pillar from the internal stress, as the rear end of the arrow sticking out still vibrated in tune with the string of his bow, while the batarian on the other side let out one last bloody gurgle before he fell ever-silent.

Confirming that they were all dead, he reined back his thoughts onto the matter at hand and considered his tactical position while walking inside the security station.

There were screens showing the feed from various cameras in this sector, along with a large cylindrical machine in the corner of the room. He could sense minute and constant vibrations through the floor from it, while at the same time there was heavy comm-traffic coming in through fiber-optic wires.

 _So this is a thumper, huh,_ he observed coolly.

Connecting to it directly through the omnitool and going through the logs, he could get the gist of what was going on; the batarians were under attack from every direction, and all but one of the entrances had already been taken over by the Systems Alliance. And that one was currently being shelled from orbit; so it was more of a pooling pile of molten slag and rubble than anything else at the moment.

So he was trapped in here.

"Great," Emiya grumbled before glancing at the still-locked slave pens through one of the camera feeds.

He had intended on opening the pens to make sure everything was alright, but perhaps it would be better to leave them there for now? Especially since checking through the profiles he noted that there weren't any older asari among them. So keeping them safe and out of danger would be easier, if they all stayed in one place. And at the same time, if he made sure the Alliance couldn't get to them immediately, then he could slip in and try to escape the encirclement hidden among them? Project a wig to hide his hair and pretend to be a recently acquired slave?

_It could work. So, I need to keep the Alliance away from the slave pens, then..._

Well, that was easy enough. He had already set up the broken phantasms along the way in the fragile tunnels, hadn't he? The idea had been to collapse it during heavy fighting to take out both sides, but now he figured it was a better idea to keep the Alliance completely out of those routes for their own safety.

He already had two of the four routes to the slave pens charged, but another two still needed to be taken down before the Alliance managed to push that deep.

That way, it would take hours of labor to open up the path to the slaves for them, giving him plenty of time to do his work and then return to hide among them.

"Let's go with that, yeah."

Emiya closed his eyes and focused.

In his mind's eye he could see two swords balanced on their tips, barely remaining upright like spinning tops. Fragile and volatile, any sudden motion might well tip that sensitive balance and destroy them. He could feel a thin tether formed between him and those blades, and he took a hold of it with a mental effort.

One sharp tug and both fell over.

A second passed, nothing. Then a rumbling tremble ran through the walls and floor as the seismograph went haywire with all the 'noise' beside him. Another second later the shockwave through the air hit him as a strong gust of wind, and then encrypted comm messages from batarians began reporting that two tunnels had suddenly collapsed.

With a sniff he walked out of the security center, projecting another sword and slowly charging it up in his hand as he spun it around lazily. After ten seconds, he turned around at the doorway and lobbed the sword inside. It hit the floor tip first, sinking a few centimeters into the material.

Five seconds later as he walked away, the sword exploded and turned the room into a melting pile of slag and sparking broken circuitry, destroying the surveillance system and the thumper in one blazing fire.

 _Two down hallways, two to go_ , he thought with little cheer as he began running down the hallway towards the nearby mess halls. After all, his hands would be soaked through in blood at the end of this day.

* * *

;

* * *

"Advancing!"

"Covering!"

Shepard rushed forward, her assault rifle spewing ferrous hypersonic slugs at rates so fast that she could already feel how much lighter the gun had become after a mere hour of fighting. _What's taking rear support so long with those damn ammo blocks...? We'll run out at this rate._

Making it to cover just in time as the batarians ahead noticed her having gotten out of cover and being out in the open, she slid the last meters in down on the floor just as her rifle started to overheat. Dropping the rifle on the ground and leaving it to cool down on its own, she grabbed her shotgun and raised it over her shoulder and blindly let loose four shots from the Storm IV. Her hand ached from the recoil, and her head pounded from the sound.

But in these tight quarters it all came down to firepower; the number of shots thrown down-range at anything resembling relative accuracy.

That was the nature of warfare involving kinetic barriers.

With both sides practically having run out of grenades twenty minutes into fighting, it was all about keeping up a continuous stream of bullets. If a gun wasn't on cooldown, it was being wasted. Dropping the shotgun next to the cooling assault rifle, she took her pistol into her off-hand while grabbing the Avenger-sniper rifle in her right hand.

_Any second now..._

"Advancing!" Came the expected request behind her and she replied before the shout had even finished.

"Covering!"

She rolled half out of cover, hugging the ground as she extended the pistol and let loose four shots in the general direction where she last remembered seeing batarians. A head popped out, and her eye fell down to the scope of her rifle as she dropped the pistol and corrected the barrel for—

— ** _BOOM!_**

She winced at the roaring echo that reverberated through her whole body. In these tight quarters, she could practically _feel_ it in her every bone every time she pulled the trigger on the big rifle. But it was worth it, just to see the bastard's head splash all over the walls.

"Hell yeah!" She heard someone shouting behind her.

The batarians opposite them shouted at each other, telling someone to move into position to cover the opening the kill had created, but focused firepower by the Alliance soldiers kept them from getting their formation together. And five seconds later as her cooldown cycle was complete, she could only take potshots at the retreating batarians' backs with her rifle.

Another little victory, another little breather.

"Hold this position!" Shepard had to shout as some of the N7's with her almost started chasing after them, intent on repeating the cycle. "Fifteen minute break, freshest take point and hold watch. Others, drink and self-status check. I don't want anyone to drop on me or run out of ammo in the middle of a fight. Get the wounded back to the entrance, and bring back more ammunition blocks. I'm starting to run light here."

She took a swig of her water, feeling as if ice was being poured down her throat given how hot she was running. Cooling off a little, she considered the overall scheme of things. They were making progress and getting faster. It almost seemed like the resistance had been getting weaker for some reason, like there was a problem with their chain of command or something.

Still, it was little comfort given how intense the fighting had been.

 _Fourteen wounded and six dead_ , she thought to herself.

All for three hundred meters of drab hallway beyond the blast doors. At least they had managed to take twice that number down on the way, even if the bastards kept falling back and giving ground when their cover was too chewed up to protect them any more. And the resistance she was meeting here was apparently _light_ , compared to some of the other locations. The northern hangar was still being bombarded, since the kinetic barriers and turrets still hadn't been taken down.

Another tremor ran through the ground and she had to look up. Two seconds later the gust of air coming towards them from further within the depths of the installation kicked up dust with its passing. _Are they closing off tunnels to minimize fronts they have to fight on?_

But until now that had been to the batarians' advantage. With knowledge of the terrain and prepared defenses on their side, they could control the flow of fighting. In contrast by having numerous unknown routes all around them, she and the Alliance soldiers had to advance extremely cautiously. If they carelessly pushed forward without securing their rear, the batarians could flank and attack them from both the front and rear.

 _Are they sacrificing that tactical mobility for some long-term strategic advantage?_ By limiting the number of fronts the batarians had to defend, they would be able to fight much longer. With the right personnel rotation and enough supplies... If it came down to that, the fighting could easily go on for weeks or even months down in these hellish hallways.

Shepard glanced at the pillar she had taken cover behind at the end of the firefight.

The back of it jutted out at a right angle offering plenty of cover for a batarian, while the front was angled away. Which meant that when an Alliance soldier tried to use it against the batarians, it offered less than half the amount of protection it had afforded the defenders. And that was without consideration to how chewed up the cover would be by the time they got there.

Their own suppressing fire would destroy the very cover they would need against the batarian, mere meters later.

And the portable kinetic barrier fences were already starting to run low on power. She had ordered them to take the battery packs out of the fallen batarians' hardsuits and to use those, but it wasn't sustainable. And once they lost those, they would be wide open for a counter-offensive.

She let out a tired sigh, before emptying her flask.

"Hmm... Kinetic barriers, huh..."

Something about that thought was scraping at the edges of her mind. An idea of sorts, even. Hailing to the rear-support officer with her omnitool, she patiently waited for a signal to get through properly as it piggy-backed from one omnitool to another down the length of the tunnels.

" _Lieutenant Shepard, what can I do for you?_ "

"About those asari commandos, are they still there?"

" _Yes, ma'am. Seem antsy, too,_ " the 1st Lieutenant opined to her.

"Good. Tell them to report here, pronto. And regarding those mining charges they were using in the rift, they still there?" At the Lieutenant's confirmation, she grinned. "Even better. Tell the asari to bring it over while they're coming."

* * *

;

* * *

_Now_.

The moment no one was looking, another sword was projected and rammed into the wall. Sinking in like a hot knife into butter, the magical energy poured forth like a river of molten steel making the blade warp and expand as cracks ran through it.

_Careful, careful._

There was always a danger of the broken phantasm exploding in his face, when he did this. Broken phantasm. The concept of Reinforcement taken to its extreme to maximize what could be achieved, at the cost of the object itself. A transient refinement where a singular virtue could be demonstrated at its peak for a single moment.

That, or one turn things into bombs.

Which was how he generally tended to use it. Much easier to fail spectacularly if one did it on purpose, really.

He didn't have the know-how or resources to use gemcraft, but once he realized he could just use noble phantasms in a similar manner, suddenly a new world of tactics and techniques had opened up to him. It took him years to work his way up to actually turning noble phantasms into exploding arrows and fire them from his bow. What he had started out with were simple faux-grenades and mines such as these.

Snapping off the handle and leaving the blade embedded in the wall, Emiya kept moving through throng of batarians as if he hadn't just stopped to plant an explosive in the main support structure of the tunnel. A few of the more well-rested batarians around nodded at him, but most of them were too busy with setting up their defenses to care. The Systems Alliance was pushing forward quite aggressively, and since he had already demolished several of the tunnels, the batarians were grouping up for defending the remaining choke-points. _Seems like they don't suspect my infiltration and sabotage yet._

He froze in the middle of his step, his brows furrowing as he turned towards the tunnel leading towards the active battlefront against the Alliance forces.

_This build up...? Why would someone be playing biotiball here, or—_

His eyes shot wide open and he turned on his heel, dashing forward. Four batarians who had been engaging in a silent staring contest protested as he jostled them. Not caring that every quad of eyes was now solidly drawn to him, he rushed for one of the tunnels at a dead run, having crossed the entire open area in two seconds flat.

"—Trace, _on!"—begin synchronization,_

The only reason he could think of someone powering up such a ridiculous biotiball smash here, was to deliver a payload of some kind.

For that reason he forced magical energy into his projected external disguise-hardsuit, hardening it and sealing it completely so that not even a single crack or weak-point remained, as he threw himself down on the ground.

Dozens of curious quads of eyes turned to regard him for one second, and then the next second the space went white as an explosion went off, shaking the walls and floor even worse than when he had detonated his broken phantasms. He couldn't feel any of the heat or the pressure, but his body was picked up and blown away. He rolled on the ground while protecting his head and neck with his hands until he hit a wall.

Seconds passed, and it seemed to be over.

Opening his eyes and noting that he was still alive, Emiya exhaled as he reversed the hardening on the external suit. _It wasn't as bad as I expected. What the hell was that? Military-grade explosives would have had way more of an effect..._

Getting up on his feet, he looked around and noted the casualties.

Since everyone had been wearing hardsuits puncture wounds were nearly non-existent, even among those caught up literally in the center of the blast. But the pressure wave had not been nearly as kind; even the concrete walls were cracked and showing signs of collapse. Even as he noted that a large block fell loose from the ceiling and struck down a batarian who had just dazedly gotten back on his feet.

All around the floor lay more, bleeding from their eyes, ears and mouths. Those who had been foolish enough to take off their helmets or even just raise their visors had taken the full brunt of the over-pressure wave. Even with all the hallways branching away, this was still basically an enclosed space. Even 10 kilo-pascals of pressure could cause fatalities, and from the looks of the damage to the reinforced structure of the hallway this must have been closer to 60 or 70 kilo-pascals.

Anyone unprotected nearby would have certainly died.

Even a hardsuit couldn't protect you, if you didn't wear it when it mattered.

Walking forward and crouching down to examine a fragment of the bomb, he frowned as he recognized it. _The mining charges?_

He didn't have any more time to ponder the matter as he heard the sound of pounding feet, coming from the direction the bomb had just been thrown their way. "Tch, I really don't need to get caught up in the crossfire. Who the hell is their commander, pushing this aggressively?"

Those among the batarians who were still alive were finally getting up, but no one paid him any attention as he quietly moved to leave. Mentally tugging a string, another rumble went off as the broken phantasm he had planted exploded behind him to seal the way to the slave pens. A much more muted affair, the batarians seemed convinced it was an after-shock of the explosive that had just been thrown at them.

Which was more than fine.

The longer he remained unnoticed, the more he could control the batarians' efforts to effectively fight back.

Heading for the tunnel leading further into the installation, he paused for a moment to observe the Alliance force as they arrived and cleaned up the remaining batarians. He blinked as he realized that leading the charge were a trio of asari commandos, carrying large make-shift shields of some kind. _What the... Why are there asari here as well? And don't they usually avoid these kinds of slug-fests?_

In a prolonged firefight they wouldn't last; their biotics far too energy intensive to be of use in continued fighting, and usually their equipment was far too light and lacking to continue slugging it out after they'd exhausted themselves. Light hardsuits and pistols did not belong on the front-line.

It was when the three asari slammed down the shields and plopped stasis fields over them, he finally realized what was going on. _They've created a cover that won't break down, allowing the Alliance soldiers to advance under cover!_

No wonder they were moving faster than he had predicted. A method like that would allow them to overcome the defensive advantage the batarians had.

The Alliance commander wasn't too bad, it seemed.

_Enough, time to move._

Turning around, he retreated while ignoring the squawking batarians who thought he was a superior officer running away. The combined effect of the Alliance blitzkrieg and his perceived escape would do a number on the batarians' morale here.

With the routes to the slave pens blocked off, the Alliance would be herded more into the direction of the rest of the installation. That should keep the slaves safe and out of the fighting for the moment, keeping them focused on the two hangars instead.

But that wasn't where he wanted to go.

He wanted to go _down,_ deeper underground. But he hadn't even found any access points he could reach on the maps he had been able to get his hands on. There was just a single freight elevator near one of the hangars, but that had already been shelled and collapsed. And since some of the more recent thumper logs kept mentioning the lower levels, that must mean there were still ways of moving around there.

"Here?"

Crouching down, Emiya stared at the grill in front of the ventilation shaft. _No, this one goes up and to the left somewhere..._

Moving on, he checked another six shafts before he finally found one that seemed to be going down, even if was at an angle. Removing the grill, he stuck his head in and sighed as he noted that it was in fact going down.

"This is going to be a tight fit... Probably would be a good idea to check if it even goes anywhere first."

Checking left and right first to make sure he was alone he exhaled and closed his eyes while pushing outward with his magical energy. Structural Analysis wasn't really a spell suitable for long-range recon like this, but it was his most commonly used spell and his experience from using it every day made him quite adept at it even at something like this. Rather than trying to gain a broad spectrum understanding of the ventilation shaft or the wall and floor, he merely limited his pattern of understanding to seeking out where the material of the duct continued.

Slowly, in his mind's eye a snaking and twisting map formed.

Inhaling as he opened his eyes, Emiya grimaced. "Left, left, right, down-left, right, right and left, huh... This isn't going to be fun."

The shaft would get him down thirty meters into a much deeper part of the facility more easily than the conventional way past all the batarians, but it wasn't like it would be easy to go down it either. There were at least three dozen fans and reinforced grills inside the shaft to prevent just these kinds of intrusions. If he wasn't careful he might just get sucked into the air purifying machinery in the life support systems along the way, which would be more than just a little painful.

And that wasn't even considering the fact that he would barely even fit in the vent.

But he _would_ fit, if only barely.

With a sigh, he dispelled the disguise hardsuit and checked himself one more time to confirm that he really would fit, measuring his own circumference once more. His normal hardsuit, the diamene weave armor he would still keep on, as lacking any rigid parts and being as thin as it was it wouldn't get in the way even in a tight ventilation shaft. In fact given that the material had a lower friction coefficient than his skin, it might even help.

It would also keep him from getting scratched and keep him separated from the worst of the grime and dust in the vents, which was going to be a definite plus judging by what he had seen so far.

 _Don't they know that cleaning your ventilation system is imperative if you wish to maintain air quality?_ He groused to distract himself from what he was going to do.

Getting down on the ground he sighed as he glared at the vent one more time, before finally pushing himself in head first with his arms extended. Mentally turning on the flashlight he had installed on the helmet to give himself some more light, he grimaced at the dirty surface of the downward slope.

It took a bit of work to get himself actually inside the shaft, and even once he was in it wasn't like he could actually move further down or anything since his shoulders and hips were pressing against the shaft's sides. Or rather, he realized he was stuck at his hips. With a frown, he extended his magical energy with Structural Analysis until he noticed that it was the pistol at his hip that was getting caught. With an annoyed grunt the holster was dispelled, allowing him to move again and leaving behind the gun as he finally got completely inside the vent.

 _Things... were, so much... simpler when I could just astralize,_ he grumbled. This wasn't going to be pleasant, he was already getting slightly dizzy from breathing so shallowly as he slowly inched forward. _Just forty-five meters more of this to go._

* * *

;

* * *

"Site secured, ma'am."

Shepard nodded, looking around at the carnage left in her wake. Dozens lay dead, having bled out from every orifice due to the pressure of the blast. It had literally squeezed their internal organs into mush, causing eyes and ears to rupture in the process.

Contained explosions were nasty; she had learned to always keep her hardsuit on and properly sealed after having seen the results of that the first time.

"Good," she said after another moment. "How are your commandos?"

"They can still press on, if that is required of them."

Somehow, Shepard doubted this Anatha's word on the matter, given that most of her subordinates seemed ready to fall where they were and seemed to be staring at her back with wide, panic-filled eyes at those words. So, she merely nodded.

It had been a good idea to consult the asari, she noted. While the results were gruesome, it had been much quicker and more efficient than just trying to push forward had been. But it wasn't sustainable either.

Continuous use of biotics was simply too tiring, she realized now.

"No, they can rest for now. Having breached this far, going any further would be stretching us thin," Shepard shook her head.

In the plans Major Kyle had stressed the importance of sealing the exit route over actually pushing further in on this front. Mainly for the purpose of gaining a PR victory from freeing the slaves. The AIA had interviewed dozens of former slaves prior to the operation to gain a basic understanding of where the slaves were kept, as being able to announce that they had successfully freed them would make them look good regardless of anything else that happened here.

So in that regard what she had accomplished so far was fine.

She had even managed to capture some of the higher ranking batarians alive for questioning as the defenders' morale had long since hit rock-bottom, which was another definite plus. Glancing at the bound up and stripped down batarians being led away, she inhaled slowly.

Yet somehow it didn't feel like she had managed anything personally.

That man she had seen wasn't anywhere to be seen and the passage to the rest of the slaves had collapsed, meaning it would take hours still before they could actually get to the slave pens, though there were no indications that they were in any immediate danger. The situation was fine, yet somehow she felt she had been utterly played the whole time.

"Your attentions seem elsewhere, is all well? It is unbecoming of a warrior to be so absentminded on the field of battle."

Shepard blinked, turning to look at the asari commander who seemed to be chiding her.

"I... Was just expecting to find someone here."

"The slavers you captured seemed certain that the slaves were still in good health." The blue-skinned woman smiled maternally at her, somehow managing to be comforting without seeming to break her cold facade which still criticized her inattention to matters at hand.

Shepard had to smile. "Thanks for the pep talk, but it's not that."

The asari stared at her, as if her words had somehow been unexpected, so she continued in an effort to explain herself.

Or perhaps it was just to clear up her own thoughts on the matter. Who knew?

Anatha did not seem to object, at least.

"Five years ago a friend of mine died. Since then, I'd moved on until a job opportunity showed up. Which I took immediately, because it was something that seemed both challenging and worthwhile. Only thing was... I ended up finding out something unexpected about that friend's death and I realized that I might not have been as over it as I had thought, after all."

The asari frowned, inhaling slowly but saying nothing.

"So, there's someone here who probably knows something about that time. It's complicated, and I can't really explain it properly, but I..."

She what?

Why hadn't she reported what she had seen? While she was the highest-ranking officer on the site, that didn't mean she had complete autonomy either. Sooner or later he would probably show up, and then it would be only a matter of time until all the footage was reviewed and it became clear that she had seen him. It was surely caught on the cameras, so even if she did find the man, then what?

And she suspected there was something more going on, too.

It was that feeling of everything somehow working out a little too well, that bothered her.

The batarians had put up a hard front at first but had begun to crumble as the fighting went on, she had noted. And now some of the Alliance soldiers scouting around were reporting that they had found the burned out remnants of a command center, along with dozens of dead batarians in sections the Alliance hadn't even pushed for yet.

Someone was helping them on the inside here. _But could it really be that guy...?_ _But why?_

What was he even doing here?

"Your kind are so short-lived, it is difficult for me to fathom your grief. Yet I can tell that it is not that which troubles you, but some choice you are hesitating to make." Anatha said quietly, pausing for a moment as she looked around at all the human soldiers. "All I can say is that the things one tends to regret in their old age are the things one did _not_ do, rather than those one did."

"You might have a point there... I do feel like all my regrets are like that too." Shepard huffed, glancing at the asari commandos and then at the Alliance personnel bustling all around them. Maybe if she had done something different back then, things would have turned out differently?

It didn't matter, the past was long gone and would never come back. _I've done what I have to... So what's wrong with just trying to find him on my own now?_

It wasn't like she could properly coordinate with the other assaults this deep anyhow, so it should be fine. Her comrades were plenty capable of holding this position.

"How many of yours can still keep going?"

"They are all capable. I will personally attest to that," Anatha replied almost testily, as if their training and stamina had been questioned.

But Shepard grinned, seeing past the prickly exterior and recognizing the proud warrior's confidence within. Anatha was not angry with her, but rather bashful that her commandos appeared exhausted, more than anything. _She's not a bad sort, huh._

"Good. We're low on personnel, but some of the other hallways still need to be combed for stragglers. Grab your gear and follow me."

Leaving some last orders to the other N7's, she and six asari soon headed out into the empty corridors again.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya punched loose the grill and pushed out his hand, reaching all around for anything to get a grip on.

Grabbing a hold of the corner of the vent, he painstakingly slowly pulled himself out of the shaft and onto the floor, spreading the dust and grime all over the surface as he did. He rolled his shoulders, feeling out to see if anything had been dislocated or stretched too far during his crawl, while at the same time trying to get the worst of the dirt off of him.

Trying to wipe his mask's visor only made it grimier and spread the stuff around, making him feel like spitting dust out of his mouth even though he had been breathing from the hardsuit's capsules the whole time.

He was completely drenched in sweat from the exertion of crawling through the vents, taking deep breaths for the first time in half an hour with greedy gasps as he focused on recovering. His vision swam as leaned back against the wall to recover for a moment. There had been several moments when he had almost gotten completely stuck, or when he had had to remove fans while inside the shaft. And since there was no space to go around any of the stuff he had to remove, he had to push it all the way until the next fork in the ventilation shafts.

And that was just the fans meant to facilitate proper flow of air. The electrified tripwires and mines actually set up to be a hazard were another story entirely.

"Never again," he re-assured himself with a tired sigh, yet he knew he would probably be eating those words sooner or later.

One thing he had learned that even if it was dumb, he would keep doing it as long as it got him results.

Taking one last deep breath, he got his head back in the game. Looking around, he noted how much nicer the hallways looked down here. Compared to the utilitarian and bare surfaces above, the fine frescoes on the domed ceiling and the many-colored floor-tiling seemed much more ornate and pleasant to the eye.

He almost felt bad for getting it all so dirty.

"Must be the VIP part of the facility," he noted dryly while getting up on his feet again.

Dusting off the worst of the dirt on him, he started walking. This probably wasn't the deepest part of the facility given that it was connected through the ventilation shafts, but it would still probably allow him to go around some of the active combat blockade-fronts.

Probably.

The maps he had gotten didn't include this section of the underground installation. But he did know that there was another thumper nearby; he could feel the minute vibrations in the ground.

Of course, just following the vibrations without a map to consult wasn't exactly useful since...

"A dead end, huh."

He thought about trying to bust through the wall, but shook his head after a second. Who knew how many meters of rock and soil might still be in between him and the thumper.

Looking around he only found another suite and some storage rooms filled with boxes full of supplies around this end of the hallway. He opened two of the cardboard-like boxes made out of thin sheet metal, but upon finding that the contents were merely some kind of batarian processed food he had lost interest.

Poisoning supplies was a valid tactic in a siege such as this, but it became difficult to do on a large scale when every meal was individually packaged and already distributed.

Turning back around, he returned the way he had come, only to freeze after he came around the last corner to where he had begun exploring.

"I think I see light up ahead," a small voice echoed strangely ahead and Emiya froze.

 _What the...? That wasn't Batarian, who...?_ His eyes shot wide as he realized that it was coming from the ventilation shaft he had just come through earlier. Blinking twice, he realized it that if he could hear it, then whoever it was must have been pretty close.

His hand almost clenched around the pair of hilts in his mind's eye, before he exhaled and shook his head. _That was English... So it must be Alliance personnel? No reason to kill them, but I probably can't explain my presence here to them either. But, I can just... hide?_

Emiya looked around the hallway that stretched for twenty meters in either direction. It was honestly gorgeous, but at the same time it was rather sparsely decorated. No expensive Ming large vases, no potted plants, not even any IKEA end-tables or cupboards or large drapery to stand behind.

In other words, nowhere to hide.

 _Oh, right. Invisibility cloak,_ he chided himself after a moment of looking around. Except... _The grime is still on top of the cloak? Damn it, this won't work at all...!_

A gloved hand reached out of the vent, mirroring his own efforts from minutes prior to pull the person it was attached to out. Emiya let out an explosive sigh and kneeled on the floor, practically kowtowing as he turned off the cloak to save energy.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

A second later, a perfect replica of the sheet metal boxes he had seen was around him. It was dark inside, but he could still hear perfectly fine what was going on outside the box.

"Phew! Finally out. Whoa, what is this place...?" A somewhat familiar voice said with obvious cheer, as the sounds of someone in a hardsuit trying to get the worst of some grime and dust off of themselves, with little success. "You need a hand?"

_Yes, it worked!_

"Thanks," another strangely familiar voice replied, seemingly from the vent. "Ugh, so filthy..."

This time he recognized the hint of Serrice dialect immediately, realizing that it must be an asari. _What the hell...? They actually had biotiball players there...?!_

Emiya shook his head, trying to focus as he narrowed his brows while trying to listen.

"Is it secure? Of course it is secure, I cannot hear any guns or explosions..." A third voice, one with an Usaru accent spoke this time as the second person was finally pulled out of the vent. "Goddess, the things I do for the Matriarch."

"Aren't you glad you've got, what was it she said...? ' _Tiny tits and no ass_ ' like the good Lieutenant here? We fit right in Shiala, unlike everyone else." The second, Serrice-born asari quipped with obvious good humor.

"Tryna! If you cannot speak civilly, then do not speak at all," the Usaru-born asari harrumphed with obvious indignation, as the first who had spoken English merely sighed.

_...What the hell is this conversation? And... is someone sitting on the box?_

"I didn't mean to offend her, it just sort of came out that way. I mean, I kind of like her."

"Like her? _How?_ That old crone is a pain in everyone's ass, even if she is a bloody legend," the Serrice-born asari scoffed. "And even if she is—mad, that is—it was totally worth it just to see her face. In my two hundred years working with her, I've never seen her purple up like that! Never once! Hahahah, ' _if you can't even get your breasts in, how do you expect to get your butt then?_ ' Hahahah, what a legend!"

"...That's not exactly what I said..." The first complained as the the second laughed with obvious cheer. "And wait... 'two hundred years'? How... How old are you?"

"Huh? I'm five-hundred and thirty. Why?" The Serrice-born asked. "What's that look for? Anatha is like, nine-hundred and fifty already, so I'm practically a Maiden still!"

"...N-nine hundred?" The first stuttered with obvious perplexment.

Meanwhile, Emiya frowned. _How long are they going to just stand and talk there?_

"Let us cease the meaningless chatter here." The third sighed then, having obviously finally resigned herself to the fact that there would be no getting the grime and dust off of her hardsuit any time soon. "Do you truly believe your mark came this way?"

"Yeah," the first answered seriously, having recovered from her astonishment. "You said the gun was a rare Spectre-only line, right? Something like that wouldn't just show up out of nowhere in a place like this. Especially a place like this.

"And you saw the insides of that ventilation shaft. Someone must have disabled all those traps and ripped loose those fans to get here. Not just anyone could do something like that."

 _...Huh, they really are after me. That... was faster than I expected,_ Emiya thought sullenly. Was there nowhere in the galaxy he would be out of the Council's reach from now on?

"...Right you are. Very well, lead the way."

"You don't think the obvious dirty footsteps aren't suspicious? Like, what if he went the other way?" The Serrice-born suggested, finally at least half-serious.

"And how would he achieve that? You see how dirty we are, don't you? And he went first, taking most of it with him. There's no way he could have gotten clean already," Shiala calmly retorted.

"Well, I guess... But this looks like the personal quarters of the officers, doesn't it? All the batarian frescoes and stuff, right? He could be taking a shower right now."

The first among them spoke up, turning the mood serious finally. "Enough talk, let's go."

They got in a three-man formation as Emiya could hear the sounds of firearms being taken out and expanded, as they moved out and towards the dead end he had moved towards previously.

A couple of seconds later, he let out a deep sigh as he dispelled the box he had hidden in. Things never could just be simple, could they?

Well, no reason to stay and wait for them to come back.

Standing up, he moved out in the opposite direction with long loping steps that silently crossed the hallway in a handful of seconds. Ignoring the various rooms, suites and storage rooms, he found the end of the hallway and the only elevator on this floor.

Projecting Bakuya and forcing open the doors without calling down the elevator by cutting through the latch mechanism, he peered inside the darkness of the elevator shaft curiously. _No cables or emergency ladder. Cab must run with mass effect fields or magnetic rails. But plenty of space inside even if the elevator cab comes this way, no danger of getting pushed aside._

Nodding to himself, he slammed Bakuya inside into the side of the shaft and stepped on its protruding hilt into the darkness. Turning around while supporting himself against the wall with one hand, he closed shut the elevator doors behind him. Then he projected another mundane sword, this time inside the door mechanism to lock it properly, and finally even used his Reinforcement to weld the metal door shut just in case. _That should keep those three out of my hair. I mean, who the hell just jumps down an open ventilation shaft?_

With another aggrieved sigh, he shook his head before he looked up and then down the elevator shaft.

"Down it is," he said with a smirk and dispelled the sword he was standing on, free-falling down into the yawning abyss.

* * *

;

* * *

Codex:

**7\. [ Nameless Longbow ]**

Early on in his career, Emiya mainly used firearms and relied on conventional tactics, only using his Projection and Reinforcement magecraft to supplement those means when possible.

However as his confidence rose and his opponents began to grow tougher, his methodology had to change. While firearms are recognizable and carry great authority in many parts of the Earth of the 21st century, they also have numerous downsides. Ammunition and maintenance requires contact with proper industrial facilities, and in many parts of the world carrying firearms openly may be illegal or attract too much attention for dealings of the moonlit world. Or they might simply be too anemic to put down some of the threats that he had to face. Beings which shrugged off small arms fire as mere annoyances, while not all too common in the modern world were still a regular occurrence for him to meet.

To that effect Emiya sought to master the use of his bow in conjunction with his magecraft. Through liberal use of Reinforcement, it becomes possible to wield bows at a level where they are even able to out-perform most commonly available guns. Additionally, bows are extremely simple to make in comparison to firearms, be it by hand or through a mental image brought to the real world through magecraft.

But the fact remains that bows are highly inefficient weapons in comparison to firearms, even with the use of Reinforcement magecraft to enhance the power and Projection magecraft to alleviate logistical problems. After all, a bow is only as powerful as the man who can draw it. And it is a much simpler matter to Reinforce a bow than it is to Reinforce oneself. Thus, a limiting factor remains. What meaning is there in creating a bow ten times as strong as any normal bow, when it becomes impossible to wield?

The three pillars of good archery as he had learned in his youth still applied; the accuracy to hit, the endurance to keep loosing arrows and finally the piercing strength for one's arrows to be able to strike through. The first was merely a matter of focus and training.

But the second and third required diligent training of his body to enhance.

But Emiya struggled with this issue, seeking to master his own body to push that limit further, seeking to match the potential his bows could reach with his own body. Even at the height of his potential as a Servant in the Moon Cell, his physical might remained unremarkable. The limits he could reach as a bowman were set by the strength with which he could effectively pull a bow.

Unable to cross that threshold, he would never be able to match those heroes of the bow whose might transcended modern understanding. But he had that advantage of modern understanding; of human advancement on his side.

One such advantage was the understanding of force draw curves and how different bows worked both in practice and in theory.

Simply put, a bow is an apparatus for storing potential energy and transferring it to a projectile as efficiently as possible. To that effect, warriors wielding the bow have long sought to master bows of extreme poundages to ensure that their arrows be imparted as much power as possible. That is to say, the more difficult to draw a bow is the more powerful the arrow loosed can be.

But the major problem with this, is one that is not intuitive or easy to understand without the use of a force draw curve. A conventional bow is at its most powerful when at full draw, meaning that every centimeter leading up to that state requires more strength to pull.

To put it in another way, if a man can draw a certain maximum then anything below that maximum is a waste. A bow has only so much distance to impart an arrow energy within; the power stroke which defines the kinetic energy of the projectile. If the first half of the draw is trivially easy in comparison to the last half, then the arrow will likely have already departed the string before then in its acceleration. Meaning that all that energy put in during the first half of the whole draw is wholly wasted.

In the 1960s a man by the name of Holless Wilbur Allen sought to challenge this paradigm, creating what became known as the "compound bow" after the fact. Using a set of wheels, a longer string that looped around the wheels and created a set of pulleys, it became possible to utilize much more of the draw to impart even more energy into the arrow. This lead to a renaissance of archery, with hundreds of new designs and principles brought into the new compound bows, each more powerful and able to fire faster arrows than the last.

And it was in studying these contraptions that Emiya stumbled upon an idea that revolutionized his use of the bow as a weapon. The concept of "let off".

Simply put, since for a conventional bow the point of the full draw was where it was at its heaviest, it was also the most tiring position to keep the bow in. Thus, with the help of the shape of the cam wheels on compound bows, bowyers of the new world of archery reversed that principle. Unlike conventional bows, a compound became _easier_ to hold at full draw, to help the archer aim and hold the draw as long as possible. It was the idea that a bow did not have to perform in a specific way; it had stages of functionality, and if he knew what he was doing he could flip things around. It meant that a bow did not always have to release an arrow at the same draw weight as it had been drawn.

This concept of the "let off" could also be applied to his magecraft and he immediately sought to test out his idea when it came upon him.

The idea was simple; to draw a bow and hold it at full draw, and only then Reinforcing it. In effect, creating a bow which required only a normal human's strength to draw but upon release could show off the potential of a bow that had been drawn by someone ten times the archer's actual strength.

That first experiment almost killed and blinded him, as the compound bow literally exploded in his hands. The snapping cable nearly severed his arm and leg in lashing out, the bow's limbs exploding into shards and leaving him pelted in carbon splinters. After that incident, he took much more care to keep his distance from his experiments. A policy that proved itself very wise when he began to learn how to create broken phantasms.

After that, he sought to not only Reinforce the bow's output but its durability as well. It was a period of driven experimentation and thorough documentation. Finally, he had to accept that even when he created a bow that could handle the output and used arrows perfectly matched to the poundage of the bow, he could only show off a third of the maximum extent of what he could actually Reinforce the bow to. There were simply too many materials and too many moving parts; something would always give way. A small ball-bearing might be crushed, or the string rest could be shattered, or the limbs might tear themselves off the riser. Something would always fail; the weakest link in a long and complex chain, as the compound bow's marvelous design turned to become its greatest weakness.

Accepting the bitter compromise, he moved on while using a combination of conventional arms and his new mystic code. But even so, he never stopped experimenting and trying out new things.

After all, the compound bow was only the most recent of attempts by humanity in creating a more efficient bow. From east to west, every culture where archery saw wide-spread use, there were efforts in creating a better bow.

Notable bows which Emiya experimented with were the Japanese yumi, the Korean gakgung, the Chinese Manchu bow and finally the European longbow.

While they were made using many different ideologies and purposes in mind, out of a variety of materials and construction aims, they all bore similar ideas and designs in a variety of ways.

Generally, if one wanted to increase poundage it might become necessary to make a bigger bow to ensure the material could handle the strain. But in doing so, the weight of the limbs would increase and sap out energy from the draw, lowering overall efficiency. Thus, using means of reflex—a forward bend to the unstrung bow that placed a higher threshold for the draw weight before the bow was even drawn, leading to much higher poundage—might be better since it kept the weight of the limbs down, at the cost of putting an incredible strain on the bow. But to handle such drastic shapes, simple materials might not be able to handle the strain in any case, necessitating using a variety of laminated layers to keep the bow from shattering instantly.

But once one made a bow too reflexed, it would easily reach poundages that were impossible to draw at anywhere near the full draw. Thus non-functional recurved tips—sometimes made out of a different, lighter and harder material, commonly called siyahs—could be used to act as levers on the end of the bow's draw to ease the end to achieve a force draw curve similar to that of a compound bow. But such tips, as the name "non-functional" suggested, would also add dead weight to the bow, balancing out their function as a lever.

Some of the most powerful bows in the world were made like this, sometimes requiring exotic materials and construction methods to make function without breaking.

The yumi, depending on size, were large bows that used both reflex-preloading and composite materials. They were tools he was familiar with from a young age, having practiced kyudo during his school days. But such bows were too large at higher poundages, and he had long since moved away from method of loosing arrows from the thumb-side of the bow.

The gakgung on the other hand were small bows, heavily reflexed to the point where when unstrung the tips of the limbs would touch on the other side of the bow. But such bows tended to be very low in poundage, using very light arrows for firing at long-distances. Like the yumi, it was also a composite bow, made by laminating various materials together, and also loosed arrows from the thumb-side.

Using a similar design base as the gakgung, the Manchu bow was optimized for launching incredibly heavy arrows for short distances. More similar to the long yumi in size than the gakgung, it was an extra-large reflex bow made using laminated materials. But since it had a much higher natural draw weight, the non-functional tips had to be made much longer as well which add a considerable amount of dead weight to the limbs. For this reason, it was inefficient at firing lighter arrows and suffered somewhat at a distance, as its power could only be fully realized when using heavy and long arrows that would not fly long distances very well. And much like the yumi and gakgung bows, it also loosed arrows from the thumb-side.

Emiya tried all of these bows using his Reinforcement let off method, and while all of them showed incredible results, none of them were ultimately any better than the compound bow when he arrived at the balance-point of output and durability.

Additionally, there were other problems as well.

Having gotten used to the method of loosing arrows from the knuckle-side of the bow, he could not go back to firing on the thumb-side any more for a variety of reasons. Primarily, having the arrow near the eye allowed him to actually aim, which further enhanced his prodigious archery skills to wholly new levels of accuracy.

In urban combat, where the fields of battle are cramped and often filled with numerous obstacles, line of sight is exceedingly important. Sometimes all a rifle-using sniper needs is a small hole in the wall, to peek outside and take a shot. With firearms, the trajectory of the bullet often becomes parallel with the line of sight of the eye at short ranges. With a bow, using the thumb-side release this is not the case as the arrows is loosed at a slight angle from the body, correcting itself in flight to hit the target.

If one stood near a door and took aim at a target inside a room beyond the door, the performance difference was immense. A gun would always fire in a practical straight line. The arrow might well hit the door-frame and fail completely. With the compound bow, having grown used to firing by aiming using the tip of the arrow and a set drawn length, he had come to realize what a difference this little thing made. Minor issues such as the time it took to nock another arrow after loosing one were made irrelevant through the use of Projection magecraft. For him using a quiver was a hindrance, regardless of which side he loosed arrows from.

And the construction methods of those bows became a problem for him, just as it had been for compound bows. Be it the compression resistant belly, the flexible back, the recurved tips or even the glue holding all those parts together—something would always give way. Even at the performance level he had reached with the compound bows, de-lamination would begin to occur in the yumi, gakgun and Manchu bows.

And all had the issue of the bowstring slapping against the frame of the bow, which was both loud and incredibly painful as the shock of impact would go straight into his wrist. Unlike the compound bow with its parallel limbs, the composite bows at full power might very well shatter his entire hand if he shot them at their full potential.

A less than optimal condition for a weapon.

And this would only get worse if he tried to shoot lighter arrows than matched the poundage, since not enough energy from the bow would be dissipated into the arrow safely. So his variety for arrows took a sharp hit, as he had to match them all to the bow and the specific poundages he intended to Reinforce it to meet. He had had literal notebooks full of lists and calculations during those times to ensure he didn't kill himself by firing too light an arrow and blowing up the bow.

For each style of bow, he sought surviving museum pieces and old bowyers who still crafted such bows in the ancient methods, but he found few answers to his problems even after learning their methods and ideologies for weapon creation.

So he needed a bow that was both tough and powerful. What he arrived at was the European longbow.

Termed a self-bow, for it is made out a single material—excepting the string and possible hardened nocks to ensure the string did not shear through the bow itself when strung at high poundages—he had never found them of any particular interest. What point was there in a bow with straight limbs, when even a simple recurve bow was much more efficient, without even speaking of the numerous bows he had sought to make his own previously?

The one-wood longbows he knew of were only notable in their ease of construction, he had thought. That was until he had a chance to examine some of the bows found aboard the sunken warship Mary Rose.

And it was then that he realized the error of his ways. After all, most of those bows were actually reflexed, only becoming either straight of limb or acquiring a set and string-follow after heavy use. Many of those bows, when new had been much better than he had ever thought.

It was after that visit that he had finally had that thought.

"What if I made a bow with an absurd amount of reflex out of a single material that will not de-laminate or break apart?"

But such a bow couldn't possibly be made, could it? Even by blending a variety of materials with differing properties on the back and belly of the bow, there was only so much reflex a bow could handle, especially if it was made from only one material. Even the English longbows were made using the yew wood, with its dual-propertied heart- and sapwood.

Right?

It was only as he began to research materials for such a bow that he realized how much he had been influenced by the thoughts and beliefs of ancient bowyers and archers. Because as it turned out, the material the bow was made out of was only relevant in what it allowed the bow's shape to be and how much it weighed.

If a bow could be made to a specific shape and poundage, then the material difference seemed negligible. The virtue of composite bows lay not in their apparent power, but in their durability to operate at that level of flexion.

So much like the compound bow, that strength became a weakness when Reinforcement was introduced to the equation. With Reinforcement, it was simply that much easier to comprehend and enhance an item made out of single material. Even his first prototypes using steel or carbon proved much more successful than he had thought possible, but not at a level where it could replace the efficiency of a compound bow.

Many a half-successful prototype later, Emiya finally stumbled on something that changed everything.

Graphene.

It was light, insanely tough and strong, capable of both flexing and hardening in different configurations. It seemed like an obvious choice, and he didn't put much thought into his first try beyond the rote attempt at a new angle on a project that had been failing for years.

Only when he made his last prototype, a slim straight-limbed and only slightly reflexed in the middle longbow with a D-shape made completely out of graphene, did he realize the sheer potential of that material. In that first firing test, he thought he had stumbled into disaster when the arrow accidentally fell off the bow string and the bow dry-fired. A disaster for any powerful bow, as all the force that should go into the arrow would instead go straight into the limbs. Bows exploding into pieces were not uncommon occurrences when dry-firing. He had been sitting behind two feet of concrete wall and still he had felt his life shorten a little at that moment.

 _Except_.

The damn thing _held_.

He had been afraid to approach the thing for minutes, until he tried again. And again. And _again._ Until finally he had to try putting his absolute highest output Reinforcement on the longbow to see how it would behave.

Emiya still wasn't sure where that arrow from that time flew; he had blinked and it had vanished from his sight.

It was around that point he realized his new longbow design out-performed the compound with ease. Even if the compound bow was more efficient in the draw, it simply could not approach the sheer potential of the pure graphene self-bow. After that he made numerous design changes and tested out his new bow in a mad frenzy. He made the bow even larger and more robust all around, since graphene was so light that the increase in limb weight was minimal.

Normally a smaller bow was more efficient than a larger bow, since the amount of energy in a draw being lost to moving the limbs would be less. Meaning when excluding all other factors affecting efficiency, a longbow with an output of 10 power could lose to a smaller bow with only 9 power, as the difference in weight could result in a net loss of 3 and 1 power respectively. But with Reinforcement this problem would be thrown on its head completely, since even as the power increased the weight would remain the same. If suddenly both bows were made 10 times more powerful, the longbow which would have lost by 1 in power to the short bow previously could suddenly have an advantage of 8 in power as the loss from weight remained static.

Additionally, as the arrows began to reach supersonic velocities the considerations for limb movement grew as well. Simply put, for the arrow to reach a certain velocity the string must also reach that same velocity. For the string to reach a certain velocity, the tips of the limbs must first reach that velocity. A chain of dependencies, of one thing feeding into the next in the long chain all the way down to the arrowshaft. At regular velocities this would not be a concern, but as he approached the sound barrier it became imperative that the limbs be force to move as little as possible. Thus with the longer limbs, for the same draw length of arrow, the limbs had to move through less air thus resulting in a higher net output.

Thus for him, bigger was absolutely better, which lead to some interesting and colorful comments in the later years of his life when he pulled out his bow.

But, as having the entirety of the limb be graphene would make it too stiff for him to draw, even while using Reinforcement on himself. If he made simple flatbow limbs; thin and wide sheets that he had the physical strength to pull, then the bow would end up easily bending sideways after a few arrows. To stabilize the bow and ensure that the string remained in line with the bow itself, a thicker shape was necessary for the limbs. Finally, he found a solution to his liking, from modern bow risers, that often drilled holes of various shapes into the bow to minimize weight while retaining sufficient stiffness. Unbound by the limitations of contemporary technology with his Projection, he could hollow out the inside of the bow, while still keeping the external shape to his satisfaction. With this, he managed to sharply decrease limb weight even further—which allowed for greater top velocities for the limbs and thus subsequently any arrow loosed—while only lowering the stiffness to the point where he could actually draw it.

Emiya continued to experiment with external geometry and internal topology for years, changing the outer shape of the limbs to something that seemed closer to sword-blades than anything ever seen on bows before, further raising efficiency and minimizing vibration. He took inspiration from various blade profiles, using his almost intuitive understanding of blade tapering to create the optimal limb shape for him. This also had the unexpected side-effect of increasing Reinforcement potential, as his affinity for blades and blade-like objects gave him a slight edge. At the same time, more and more of the insides were continually hollowed out and replaced by an ever-increasingly complex latticework. As he could analyze the stress points on the bow in real-time and then modify and re-create his bows with the snap of a finger, optimizing the bow was hardly difficult. Just very time-consuming. Some days he went through hundreds of refinements, improving efficiency by only fractions of a percent at a time.

But it all added up, as he trained his body to match the bows' draw weights.

Having finally settled on the shape and internal make-up for the bow, he then began to _reflex_ the bow to further improve its efficiency, until it was finally a perfect circle shape with the limbs curving in on themselves and meeting back at the middle when unstrung to maximize the draw weight. Completely foregoing any recurve, he simply went for the highest poundage he could handle, to maximize the benefits of Reinforcement. As an additional benefit, lacking the recurved tips the string never came into contact with the bow when released from a full draw, keeping it nearly soundless when matching poundage and arrows suitably.

With nearly all whole of the length being functional it is practically a full compass bow, but the bridged riser dramatically increases stiffness in the handle and minimizes vibration and shock to the bow hand, further increasing accuracy and lowering loudness. Lacking an arrow-rest, it is capable of loosing arrows from both sides. While he ultimately came to prefer the western method of loosing arrows for the gains in accuracy and line of sight, there were still times he had use for the thumb-side draw. Particularly if he wanted to accentuate the archer's paradox and make arrows curve to the left for a specific shot.

Of course, all that power did not come without its own share of problems, among them the foremost one known simply as Newton's third law. Basically, every time one loosed an arrow a force is exerted in two ways; one which sends the arrow flying forward and another which pushed back the hand holding the bow. This is an inescapable law and one which governs all motion, even for a magus who bends the laws of the material world to his advantage. Normally when wielding a bow this is never a problem, as the weight of the arrow and the speed with which it is loosed are minimal compared to the weight of the archer shooting it. To give a simple example of this principle, every time a gun is fired the gunman will experience the equivalent of a single punch's worth of force pushing him backward in the opposite direction of where he fired the gun. The gun is only lethal because the bullet's force is distributed over such a small area, meaning that the force could just as easily be just as lethal if applied with a knife with a similarly sized impact area.

But as the power of the bow increases exponentially and as the weight of the arrows increases—especially as Emiya began to fire modified swords from his bow, creating arrows that could easily weigh fifty times as much as any modern ordinary arrow did—this would become a massive problem. Simply put, firing a sword that could easily weigh well over a kilogram out of his bow at velocities exceeding the speed of sound was going to create an absolutely immense amount of kinetic energy. More than enough to bowl him over and make him lose his balance.

While at times this could be useful, for example when jumping and shooting at an angle downwards it became possible to "jump again" in the air by firing a heavy arrow, most often it would merely inconvenience and unbalance him. At the very least it would throw off his aim if he did not account for it, at worst it could leave his limbs and upper body aching for days afterward if he did not carefully Reinforce his own body to handle that power, limiting the potential of his wondrous bow yet again.

So he found a solution yet again in modern human methods, by copying firearms technology. He created his own custom "muzzle brake" into the bow's riser. While it appeared to be a strange shield that would scrape the arrows and only exacerbate the archer's paradox to even most trained eyes, it is in fact a vent which absorbs a part of the force applied to the arrow. By taking in the airflow from the arrow, turning it around and pushing it back out through two exit vents in the top and bottom of the little shield, it would function as a stabilizer. In effect, a fraction of the arrow's power would be lost and turned into a stream of air which pushes the bow forward in the hand when an arrow is loosed, fighting back against the push of the massive arrow being slung forward at ludicrous speeds proportionally to the arrow's own force. Though only a fraction of the efficiency of a muzzle brake in a gun due to the open nature of its construction and relying on the airflow of the fletchings, it did improve handling and accuracy immensely noticeably.

Of course, if Emiya wished to use the full recoil of the bow then through Reinforcement it is possible to close these vents to disable that function. For example, when firing down at the ground from a position in the air or when firing upwards with a solid surface to brace down against on one knee, unleashing the full power of the bow is no problem. Of course, as this function is dependent on air to function, it requires an atmosphere of a certain thickness to function, a problem Emiya had never had to consider while _alive_.

But when it came to super-long range sniping, it still wasn't enough. To loose an arrow at sufficient speeds over distances exceeding several kilometers, the full potential of the bow was necessary. A problem he solved finally after months of experimenting with different options, making use of the hollowed internals.

By projection, it is possible to fill the empty insides of the bow with an extremely dense metal called Osmium at the last second just before the arrow is loosed from the string, making it possible to "negate" most of the recoil. Much like how a heavier gun will feel more pleasant to shoot than a lighter one, the suddenly massively heavier bow will not kick back with nearly as much speed due to its suddenly increased mass. Then once the recoil is spent, the Osmium can be dispelled to restore the bow to its lighter configuration. In practice, this projection and dispelling of the Osmium core is performed in a space of time that less than half a second. Combined with the open vent in the center, this allows the bow to be used at full power with relatively manageable recoil, though it requires immense concentration and makes it difficult to switch to close combat quickly, necessitating thoroughly securing the final firing position when sniping at such ranges.

Thus it is a bow made to fit every situation, being highly adjustable when it comes to brace height and poundage, allowing it to launch a wide variety of arrows without issue.

As n aside, during this time he also created several social media accounts to reach out and discuss possible ideas with other amateur bowyers on the internet. His most active account was on a popular video hosting website, but due to the usually low production values and esoteric ideas regarding bows he never reached more than a few hundred watchers. After his trial and execution, it was quietly removed from the site.

Regardless, the end result was Emiya Shirou's one and only true mystic code; a massive black longbow of such ridiculous potency it could launch arrows at supersonic velocities even without the use of Reinforcement. If his compound bow had been equivalent to an anti-materiel rifle, then his longbow was to the main gun of a tank.

And with Reinforcement he practically removed the concept of the arc from "archery" with the kinetic energy available to him. Having gotten down to his final build on the longbow, he decided to perform a distance test using everything he could think of. An arrow as light as possible that started out as a Sears-Haack body lacking fletchings for the initial hypersonic launch that would then turn lighter by dispelling its outer shell and reveal a superbly light flight arrow, with a 0% FOC and optimized fletchings for long-distance flight once it would slow down below supersonic velocities. He had equipped the thing with a GPS tracker and shot it at a 45 degree angle, hoping to get at least a thousand kilometers out of the thing. As it turned out, the GPS satellites lost track of it within half a minute and it hadn't even started to arc yet, meaning it was lost somewhere in space completely beyond his sight.

He never did find that damn arrow.


	31. Reckless Reunions & Painful Partings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two minor retcons as of last chapter. 
> 
> First, Shiawe mentions that Shiala is in Serrice in chapter 24 but she also appeared on Torfan in chapter 30, which should be impossible given travel time and that Thessia is still kind of under lockdown. This happened because I literally forgot I sent her there to back up Shiawe, as per Benezia's orders, which is why she never shows up outside of that one mention. 
> 
> So retcon goes as follows: Benezia didn't sent Shiala, but the back up she mentioned was just a message to someone who would inform Aethyta in case something went wrong. A minor one, given that Shiala never actually appeared on Thessia and also explains away why she wasn't with Shiawe later on. Chapters have been edited to match this. Done to keep amount of random no-name commandos down and keep half-recognizable characters on the scene. 
> 
> Second retcon: Emiya never shot the sun or the moon as joked at in the end of the last codex. Simply put, He _could_ do it if he set his mind to it and planned it all out... But on accident it's just flat out impossible. Got some justified flak for it, did some calculations of my own and finally just decided that it should go. 
> 
> Apologies for any confusion or annoyance caused by the above-mentioned issues and thank you for you patience.
> 
> On with the show!

"Damn it! He was right _there_!"

Shepard kicked the elevator one more time, seething as she tried to stare a hole into the thick metal doors.

"The whole _time_! How the _hell_ did we miss him!"

"Lieutenant, calm down. I'm sure we can still catch up to him," Shiala said, trying to calm her down.

"Like hell! These are _blast doors!_ We would need three times the amount of explosive we had from the mines just to get a hole through here! And how the hell did he even _seal_ them?! I can _hear_ the elevator we called down on the other side! How are the doors not opening!?"

She punched the doors one more time, letting out a slow exhale as she rested her helmet and forehead against the smooth surface.

"...Are you sure he was in that box? I mean, those things are vacuum-sealed sheet metal. How would he have even gotten inside it?" Tryna asked, her previous cheerfulness considerably dampened as she realized just how badly they had been duped. "I mean, did he walk away _in the box,_ too?"

"You saw the tracks leading back and away. And once we got back, the box was gone, with the only exit out of this floor sealed. So yes, I am pretty sure I _literally_ sat on top of him." She grit her teeth, clenching her fist to strike the elevator doors one more time. "He must have realized we were after him, listening in on our talking..."

Neither of the two commandos had anything to say to that, only sharing a chagrined stare with one another. They all took it poorly when they realized just what had happened, but the two warriors were much older and more experienced than she was. Things like this simply did not happen to them. Until now.

"Fine."

"Hmm, what is?" Shiala asked.

"I said 'fine'. It's done. Let's figure out what to do and how to get it done instead."

The two asari blinked before nodding, seemingly getting whiplash from her rapid changes of mood. There was no point in moping around and every second she wasted was one which got that bastard further away from her.

"The elevator is the only way off this floor that we found. The vents will be difficult to scale back the way we came and they don't seem to go any deeper either..." She considered their options.

"Right. These are probably the suites for the VIPs and the officers. They must have all run out when the attack started," Tryna said as she nodded.

"Okay, then..."

She let the word hang in the air.

_Then what?_

Shepard grit her teeth, before finally exhaling. "Let's go take a look around one more time."

The two asari nodded, falling two steps behind her as she began walking back to where they had come. Checking the vent one more time, she confirmed that getting back up would be incredibly difficult because of the angle. Checking both ends of the hallway and finding no other elevators confirmed that they were really stuck. Checking the various rooms they made sure that there weren't any emergency stairs or ladders, either.

Finally, they ended up where the grimy footprints of that man had originally ended and turned around, at a dead-end in the hallway. She sighed, feeling the last bits of her energy drain away. _Why did he even come this way? Did he just get lost?_

That _couldn't_ be it. She turned around.

You could see the dead-end from all the way back at the corner. There would have been no need for him to walk all the way here. He should have seen the dead-end easily enough from all the way over there. But for some reason he had felt it necessary to walk all the way up to the wall.

Within touching distance.

Reaching out, she placed her armored gauntlet's palm flat against the fresco-covered surface. She pushed lightly, half-expecting a secret door to open up.

Nothing.

She sighed, not knowing what she had been seriously expecting. _What did I think would happen? Was coming here a mistake...? I've pretty much disappeared from my post. If something goes wrong, then..._

There was no way she would get away lightly from something like that. Not on a mission of this scale. And more importantly, what if her decision caused something to go wrong? What if soldiers died because she ran off to jump in the first open vent she could see, hoping to find some mystery man from five years ago?

"Damn it..."

Sighing once more she leaned forward against the wall, resting her forehead and helmet against the wall.

And immediately blinked, pulling away from the rattling sound against her visor. It ended immediately.

"What the...?"

"What is it?" Tryna asked, the two asari behind her having said nothing while she had been quietly frustrated.

But she didn't answer, instead putting her hand against the wall again, her brows furrowed as she felt nothing. The gauntlet was getting in the way and was too thick to feel anything through. Slowly, she leaned forward and gently pressed the helmet's visor against the wall.

Again the wall seemed to be rattling—no, rather, _vibrating_ against her helmet. Shepard pulled back and stood up, blinking once more before a huge grin settled on her face. _So that's what it was._

Turning around, she threw a thumb over her shoulder to gesture at the wall. "Something's behind here... I think there's a generator or engine of some kind there and its rattling against the wall."

"Huh?"

"Rattling against the wall...?" Shiala repeated, perplexed as she stepped a forward to try for herself. "Goddess, you're right."

"Great, let's Warp Detonate the thing and get out of here!" Tryna said with a wicked grin.

"What, you can break the wall?" Shepard blinked, her own ad hoc train of thought for breaking through being cut off.

"Of course!"

"Of all the hasty, reckless things! We do not even know what is on the other side!" Shiala immediately protested. "I say we return to the ventilation shaft and seek to climb back that way. Returning to Justicar Anatha is the wisest course of action here."

"I'm not going back up that hole, you can go on your own if you really want to. I can detonate this sucker by myself. Ready, Shepard?"

She inhaled, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the wall while ignoring the asari still protesting and advising them to return the way they had come. Finally after another handful of seconds, she nodded. Her mind was made up. _He must have been interested in something there... Meaning I can't turn around here_.

"Yeah. Let's do this. You in or out, Shiala?"

The taciturn asari seemed obviously agitated by their refusal to back down, but finally deflated with a sigh as she drew her sub-machine gun. "Very well. It would weigh on my conscience if you two fools died without me."

Shepard and Tryna both grinned, drawing weapons.

"But this will still take a moment. Who knows how thick the wall is; we will have to slowly erode it with continuous Warp fields until it is damaged enough to be broken through."

Nodding, Shepard asked, "And how long will that take."

"Depends on how thick the wall is. Maybe five minutes with the two of us?" Shiala replied, glancing at Tryna.

"Alright, get to it."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya frowned, walking through the dark tunnels.

Cramped and much less uniform in size and shape than any of the hallways above had been, even merely getting a solid footing was tough at times. Yet he could see the signs of a well-traveled path as he continued walking down the lowest level the elevator shaft had ended in.

 _There's probably nothing down here,_ he thought. Nothing in the way of a batarian command center or a prisoner holding area, anyhow. But something had still caught his interest in this place. Arriving at an open space where he could stand straight and look around properly, he nodded. _Figured as much._

There were signs of careful excavation and the remains of imprinted objects in the walls and ground. "This was a dig site."

But by the looks of things it had been cleared out not too long ago. Where desks and piles of boxes had been previously, spots free of dust and debris remained on the ground. Days at most. Mere minutes even, perhaps. _No time to waste here, then._

He thought about turning around and returning the way he had come, but something kept him from doing so. Something kept drawing him further in; that strange sensation of something foul in the air. The most illusive of hints, tickling at his nostrils. There was something here.

_Just a little bit more._

Heading further in, he picked up his pace until he arrived the end.

Another open space, though much less crudely dimensioned, forming a complex yet regular shape characteristic of uniform polyhedrons. Squares and triangles, smoothly and perfectly cut into the raw rock.

A marvel of stonework.

Yet something was missing.

Something had been here before, but now had been removed. That made sense; the batarians must have brought Henell and her team her for a reason. This place must have tied into that, even if it was obvious that this place was not of Prothean make.

Emiya frowned—wondering why he had concluded that so easily for a moment, before shaking his head as he turned around. No point in wasting any more time here, now that his curiosity had been sated.

Oily _ṣ͍̰̮ḥa̬͚̬̼͎_ d͇͔o̜͇̣̰̤̝̲ _w̝̫͙͎͝s_ lurked in the corner of his eye, jumping at him with lighting-fast movements.

"—Trace, _on!"—begin projection,_

Kanshou and Bakuya roared into existence in his hands as he lashed out, the twin blades slashing sparks through the tunnel wall. His head swiveled left and right as his heart pounded in his chest.

_What the hell was that...?_

He panted, his breathing loud in the containment of his helmet as he sought out for any presences around him. Yet, there was nothing. The air was so stiflingly thick with directionless malice that even inside his hardsuit he could feel cold sweat forming on the back of his neck.

Furrowing his brows, he lowered the blades from his wary guard and took another step back and turning around in a half-circle. Seeing nothing, he turned around completely and hastened to make it back to the elevator shaft.

It wasn't anything real. Just echoes and shadows on the walls. Nothing more. He told himself he was only hurrying because he was saving time, yet somehow he felt he was running away from the oppressive darkness behind him.

_There's light up ahead?_

Emiya slowed down and turned off his headlight, coming to a crouch around the bend as he scanned the path up ahead. Three batarians had stepped out of the elevator car and were scanning their surroundings with their rifle-mounted torches.

"There's nothing here, let's just go back... Come on..." One of the batarians seemed to be whining, standing back by the elevator.

The batarian standing furthest out from the elevator's light snapped back at him. "Shut up. We were told to check all the floors, so we're gonna check all the floors, _brushless_."

"But if they sealed the doors, why would they call for an elevator? And why would they come down here..." The batarian kept whining. "Come on, let's go back. This place is _bad_ , you know it is."

As a reply, the batarian turned around and mimed a backhand slap at the one still in the elevator, as if telling him to quietly shut up already. Having done that, he turned to the third and last of their group. "Well?"

The last batarian had had nothing to say, yet obviously hesitating at advancing further at the reminder.

"...Come on boss, let's just report back. Maybe we can get some charges from the armory and blow open the doors, or something?" The last member of the three finally spoke, opining for the better part of valor as well.

"...Fine," the third spoke, his voice half resignation and half relief of his own.

 _Too bad,_ Emiya thought as he was already moving forward with blades poised as he engaged the STG cloak.

Just a minute earlier and perhaps they could have completely missed him. Hidden in the shadow cast by the nearest batarian, he dashed forward and then leaped at the last moment as the batarian wheeled around at the sound.

"Who's there!?"

"Wha-what is it?"

The middle-batarian must have seen something, as he had leveled his shotgun and overheated it withing seconds with his wild shooting.

But Emiya was no longer there, having jumped on top of the elevator car. The white blade held in a reverse grip sank into the power box there like a hot knife into butter, shorting out the entire elevator and plunging them all back into darkness again. Kicking off, he continued upwards by jumping from shaft-side to shaft-side, as he could still hear the panicked shouts from the batarians below.

 _No reason to kill them._ The Alliance would pick them up sooner or later, no point in worrying about them.

Slamming in the black blade into the wall, Emiya paused as he gained a foothold some thirty meters above the bottom of the shaft as he found the next floor. Getting open the doors was a bit of a pain with just brute strength, but once he managed to get a finger in between the doors it was a piece of cake to pry open.

A mere ten seconds after he had managed to get himself inside and on the floor, he could hear the sound of pounding feet headed his way.

 _That was fast_ , he noted as he glanced over his shoulder down the elevator shaft. The three below must have noticed the light shining down from where he had opened the door, or one of the cameras must have picked it up despite his partial-invisibility. _No matter._

Kanshou returned to his hand with a pull from Bakuya and he tossed both husband and wife blade into the air. They arced and slammed right into the lights, plunging the hallway into darkness where the stains marking his invisibility could not be seen.

Flashlights and running feet rushed to the hallway, as two dozen batarians arrived in staggered columns.

Emiya walked right past the strike-team as it arrived and took positions around the open elevator doors. Dodging and weaving through the throng, he looked up and noted the positions of the cameras in the hallway as he mentally counted down the invisibility cloak's timer.

In a position out of view, he re-appeared again and continued walking calmly. Depending on whether they had automated systems in the camera room or just someone watching the feeds, they might notice the dark figure walking through the hallway. Or they might not, Emiya concluded with a shrug as fifty meters later no one seemed to be coming for him.

As he entered lit sections of this floor again, he projected another hardsuit to function as a new disguise.

Wandering around while avoiding patrolling batarians, he slowly made his way towards the nearest thumper again. Since the bottom floor hadn't panned out, it was back to his previous sabotage efforts then.

At the doorway the armed batarians seemed wary, yet no one stopped him as he walked right in.

Unlike the security checkpoints and camera rooms he had taken out until now, this place wasn't just a small and discretely marked area. Rather, there were dozens of batarians sitting around desks and haptic adaptive terminals, all speaking and handling hundreds of matters all at once. This was probably the central command of the entire facility's defense, then. _It's like an office, really..._

Most of them weren't even wearing hardsuits.

All he needed to do was cut a few connections and lock the doors, and this entire facility would become headless. The Alliance would have a much easier time mopping up the stragglers once all communication and real-time logistics broke down. _Alright, now to find Henell and then get on with it._

Things seemed to be working out, for once.

And just as he thought that, he felt something. Furrowing his brows and raising his head to look at the corner of the ceiling, he frowned. _Isn't that—_

Another undulating pattern; like a battering ram against a massive drum skin as the fabric of space thrummed. A Biotic Warp, in other words. Continuous and shifting mass effect fields which tore at the material as it was repeatedly made more and less massive. Much like a metal could be made fragile by heating it up and cooling it down, so too could a Warp break down even the hardest of walls into little more than packed sand, given enough time.

— _Where I left those three behind?_

Somehow he felt like had been through this already once before as he jumped for cover, half expecting another bomb to be lobbed at him. And just then, he sensed the Throw that was slammed into Biotic Warp, Detonating it violently in a shower of debris and dust. The handful of heads that had turned his way were spared much pain as the wall exploded into the eyes of many sitting nearby.

Emiya sighed as he settled to lean his back against a desk, sitting on the ground and resting his forehead against the palm of his hand. "Not again..."

"We're under atta—" The batarian cry was silenced by the burst-fire report of an assault rifle from above, and a second later the entire command center fell into chaos as the batarians were being gunned down. Seconds later they began to return fire, a full-blown firefight bloomed into being all around Emiya.

He continued ignoring it all, merely accessing one of the terminals and opened up a port for his cybernetics, so that he could more directly access the systems all around him. Seeing as how none of the batarians had time to coordinate and order around the defense, he took the liberty of sending a few groups above into pointless positions, shuffling around the defenders to create fracture points for the Alliance to push through.

At the same time as batarians were being biotically lifted and thrown up all around him, he also began to dig around for any information regarding Henell and what exactly had been going on here. By the second—as he found and downloaded a complete map of the facility and the recent event logs—batarian personnel dropped around him as the three attackers systematically and calmly took apart their feeble attempts at defense.

A mere thirty seconds into the offensive, most of the surviving batarians were already running for the exit rather than standing their ground.

_Hoh, the mainframe is where they store everything. But—Damn it, it got cut off manually. Someone must have run off to go and wipe the thing once they realized the command center had become compromised._

That wasn't good, there were still answers he needed on that mainframe. Which meant there was no more time for him to dally around here.

Emiya engaged the cloak and dispelled the disguise on top of it, vanishing in place. Getting up and completely ignoring the last pockets of resistance, he danced through the lines of fire and made his way for the doorway he had just come in through a mere minute earlier.

Reminding himself one more time he thought, _the servers and mainframe are down the hall and twice to the left._

Behind him there was a thump of boots hitting the floor, as the last batarians still remaining squawked about how the attackers were jumping down now. Having wiped out resistance, it made sense to continue advancing even if it meant leaving behind a superior position, in terms of conventional tactics.

But that was a mistake.

After all in these forty seconds of combat, the strike-team that had deployed at the elevator due to him wouldn't have had enough time to return. Meaning that coming down would leave them trapped now that the batarians were finally catching on and heading here.

Walking through the doorway, he could see armed and armored batarians rushing this way now.

Turning around and glancing over his shoulder he noted that all three had come down and were securing the command center. The desks and architecture would be to their advantage, since the batarians probably meant for this to be a last pocket of resistance to be able to hold back against an attack from the hallway.

But the number difference should be too great, at most they would be able to merely hold position since they could concentrate all their firepower at the doorway. But even if they fired their guns while managing heat optimally and always hit true, as long as the batarians managed their collective kinetic barriers, then the batarians would always have a fresh kinetic barrier to take point before anyone actually got injured.

That was just the way the numbers stacked in modern combat with kinetic barriers.

Still, they should be able hold the command center for a few minutes and keep the batarians distracted at least. Best to leave them deadlocked while he sneaked around the back. Those two asari should be able to handle that much, at least. Without the command center and with his last set of orders he had sent out, the defenders would probably crack and crumble under the Alliance offensive's weight within the hour.

"Incoming!" A distinctly Serrice-accented asari voice shouted behind him as he moved on.

"Alright, bring it on!" Was the spirited reply in English.

Emiya halted, frowning as he stood in place.

Something about that voice seemed familiar. He knew it was the Alliance soldier who had sat on him earlier, that much he was certain. But something was scraping at his mind just then about that voice.

He shook his head, chiding himself that he was wasting time. With that he ignored the shouting voices and sounds of the renewed gunfight behind him, disengaging the cloak once he was around the corner again.

Down the hallway and twice to the left.

Except, the door was locked.

Clicking his tongue with annoyance, he looked left and right to make sure no one was around. Placing a hand against the surface, he extended his magical energy. _There._ A small latch snapped inside the door, causing the locking mechanism to become useless.

Emiya opened his eyes and inhaled, opening the door with the same hand he still had against the frame.

"Who—?"

Someone inside immediately noticed, turning around with a gun in their hand. A batarian techie by the looks of it. One of the ones who had run out of the command center first.

"How did you...?" Four eyes shot wide open. And then the batarian seemed to realize what was going on, almost as if he had been physically snapped back into reality.

He jumped for cover, pulling the trigger three times and missing with every shot. "You're too late, _human_! I've already wiped the hard-drives! You'll find nothing here!"

Emiya frowned, stepping forward and taking concealment behind a rack of servers between shots as the batarian only seemed to be taking potshots while shouting obscenities at him. _Alright, enough of this._

"You will never—urk!" An arrow through his eye silenced the batarian, and Emiya stepped back into view as he lowered the bow with a sigh.

Walking up to the terminal the batarian had been hunched over until he had showed up, Emiya frowned at the haptic adaptive interface. There was no graphical user interface, just a line prompt which according to his translators were stating that 'all records had been wiped', with large blocky letters.

With a frown, he reached for the chair and settled to sit down by the terminal, setting his longbow to lean against the wall absentmindedly. If that really was the case, then even with his abilities there wasn't much he would be able to do. Deleted was _deleted._

Gone.

No longer in this world.

And things which were forever lost could not be brought back. He had tried several times during his time as 'Redhax' to do just that, and already knew it wasn't possible. Often there were times when a single piece of evidence from a wiped omnitool could have made his job much, much simpler in the last five years.

But even he couldn't break that immutable law of reality.

Still, better to make sure that really was the case. Raising a hand, he closed his eyes and intoned quietly to himself. "—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

But after only four seconds he opened his eyes again and exhaled. The computer was still running, but there was nothing there. No way to access the hard drives or find anything. The lights were still on, but no one was home. Should he leave? Maybe try to find Henell on foot? But he was certain that there would be records of her here.

Outside he could still hear the gunfight rage on, and with nod to himself he decided to try a little while longer. This was still his best bet. But outside of the dive, he had no idea what he was dealing with. Which meant he needed a cheat-sheet. After a moment of looking around, he found a five-ring binder that seemed to be a manual for maintaining and using the servers.

_Bingo._

Leafing through the manual, he sighed. Even with everything he could do, it wasn't as if he was very good with computers. On top of that, this seemed like a operating system completely different from what he was used to. Something the batarians had probably developed from the ground up themselves.

_How long was he here, though..._

It couldn't have been here for more than half a minute.

Emiya turned around and stared at the rows and rows of servers skeptically. Given how much data could be stored on an omnitool or datapad, the amount of data that could be stored on _this_ much hardware would be staggering. With a thoughtful frown he turned back to stare at the line prompt, looking at the last commands the batarian had written in. Had the entire mainframe really been wiped that quickly?

Computers were _fast_ , but fundamentally the speed of processing data was inversely related to the size of the storage unit. Since primary concerns for storage memory was that it was reliable and cheap per byte, speed was usually the least of the priorities.

_He couldn't have deleted everything, right?_

Staring at the line prompt, he honed in on one specific line that was repeated multiple times. It took him a while to decipher the arcane batarian symbols that taunted him.

' rm -rf * '

The binder helpfully explained that this was a command that would forcefully and recursively delete absolutely _everything_. So that should have been what the batarian had done.

Except...

_It's been repeated three times...? And he still continued writing in other commands afterward._

So, it must have failed. Right?

Glancing at the batarian, Emiya checked his clothing and appearance. He didn't seem to be wearing anything signifying status or rank. Did he not have the administrative password for the mainframe, then?

_So what did he delete then?_

Cracking open the binder again he began to look for that word in the final line. He needed to figure out what a 'record' was, to get to the bottom of this. Two minutes later even as the sounds of the firefight seemed to calm down a little, he still had gotten no further.

With a frustrated sigh he tossed aside the binder.

 _Records, records, records... What a weird word,_ he mused as he tasted the batarian syllables silently, resting his chin against the knuckles of his hand with the elbow propped on top of the table. It didn't seem very common to him.

At least, he hadn't heard it a single time in his life before now.

Tapping his helmet's cheek with the backs of his fingers, he frowned and brought out the omnitool's translator program manually this time. And then he sat up straight, blinking at what he read as one of the alternative meanings.

' _less common; technical language; computer terminology for Registry_ '

"Huh."

If just the registry was deleted but the shell was still running... wouldn't it be possible to ghost it back?

The lack of a graphical user interface and the fact that the mainframe was cut off from other machines should mean that the processes for the most recent programs might still well be running, with all that data still in the random access memory or cache equivalent in the system.

It wouldn't be possible to bring it all back...

But some of the most recent files? That definitely should be doable.

"Neat," Emiya grinned as he extended his hand again to the mainframe and dived right back in.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard spat blood, more on a hacking cough-like instinct than anything else, realizing belatedly that her neck was aching.

It must have been the fall. Her head had hit the desk on the way down after her kinetic barrier failed. She also distantly realized her gut was in pure flaming agony. A shotgun round to the gut would do that to anyone.

Her memory was a little foggy. How did she get shot again? _So hard to remember._

Must have been the pain.

That was fine, the medigel and combat cocktails were kicking in already. Didn't do much for the pain _now_ though. That was what adrenaline was for, anyhow.

She pushed off the ground, her rifle still in her hand as she spotted the son of a bitch who had gotten three shots in on her after her barrier had collapsed. He had turned away, certain that the bloody mess on the floor meant she was dead. The folly of those who had never fought in battles involving medigel.

Wonderful stuff, she didn't even get out of bed in the morning without making sure she had some in her pockets.

Raising her rifle she acquired a sight picture and then pulled the trigger. Her mid-section exploded in agony from the recoil, but the vicious thrill of seeing the batarian only have just enough time to turn around before his head and neck were perforated a dozen times over was a sweet enough prize that she didn't care.

"—epard!"

Someone was shouting.

She didn't have the presence of mind to care right then and there. Her stumble had created an opening and it would only last for another handful of seconds. She needed cover. Where was she even going in the first place? No other reason she could think of for her to be in the open like she had been.

Her rifle roared an unbroken line of slugs as she hobbled for cover, every step pure agony. Another round bounced off her side as the kinetic barrier failed, but the unbroken ceramic plates handled it. Still painful as all hell.

Collapsing as much as she meant to get to cover, she grit her teeth as she leaned against the wall.

"Cover me!" She shouted absentmindedly, opening her omnitool.

She wasn't even sure if she had allies, but given that she wasn't dead yet that was probably the case. Irrelevant anyhow until she could get herself back in shape. Waiting for the analytics to finish, she picked up her assault rifle and blind-fired in the general direction of the batarians.

Red blinking light meant... Blood loss? Made sense. Her head felt pretty woozy. And she was thirsty. Plasma conversion 78% done, which meant it would get better soon. The automated protocols were on it. It was just a gut shot; she would live to get back to one of the docs just fine.

No, she had to focus on her hardsuit. The kinetic barrier was starting to seem unreliable—one or more of the projectors must have been hit—which meant she was practically down to her armor. The armor, which was cracked and broken. _Alright, no problem. Done this a thousand times before, this shit is what we drill for..._

Unbidden the memory of the time she and her friends from the Villa had gotten absolutely wasted and timed their hardsuit fix-times, back right before she had gotten her N7 designation.

"Heheh, and they told me it was a bullshit excuse. Well look at me now..."

The main reason heavy hardsuits with solid armor plates weren't in more common use was because once it was broken, it was a pain the ass to fix. It wasn't like light or medium gear made out of just some tough fabrics, which bent any which way you wanted and over which you could just slap a patch of the same stuff to plug any holes.

No, you had to actually analyze and fix the plates yourself with an omnitool's fabricator.

So if you wanted to run around in heavy hardsuits, you had to be your own damn armorer in the field. Which was the main reason why she preferred metal instead of ceramics. Ceramics were lighter, sure... But with metal you could usually just beat that stuff back into shape and weld it together.

Just as she was doing now.

_There's a piece or two in my gut, though. The docs will shout at me again..._

That made her laugh for a moment, which made her mid-section burn some more. But her head was clearing up finally, and she was just about done with getting her armor plates back in place and in one piece. Mostly anyhow. That was good enough.

 _Now why the hell did I get shot? Seems like a dumb mistake for me to make..._ Shepard looked up and over the cover she had found, blinking as she took in the firefight.

Some kind of office or command room. Lots of busted computers. Dead batarians by the shuttle-load. That was good. Even more batarians shooting at her and a pair of strangers. That was less good. _Guess I'm working with those two. Oh, right. Torfan. Asari._

Finally starting to remember what was going on and why, she took in the positions of every combatant still in the fight and grinned.

_Ah, so that's why._

There was a pile of dead batarians next to her. Well, four of them, anyhow. The doormen. They'd been killed earlier, leaving behind their guns. Rifles, shotguns and pistols. Weapons, which she could switch to when her own overheated, inflating the theoretical numbers on her side of the equation considerably.

 _Math, is all about how many hypervelocity slugs you can throw down range,_ she opined sagely as her omnitool connected to the rifles and began to forcefully rewrite their firmware. _Aaaand done, gotta love electronic warfare superiority. Your guns are now_ my _guns._

From here she could also practically fire down into the hallway, removing any and all cover the batarians might have there. Combined with the asari on the other side of the room, they now had control of nearly the full 180 degrees behind the doorway. Well worth the risk, she must have thought before she got shot. A bit of a dick move, _really._

But she could appreciate the guts it must have taken to try.

Literally. She was sure bits of her kidney and spleen were covering the floor somewhere over there.

Shepard psyched herself back up, bringing the Avenger to bear as she rolled out from cover and took a shot at the first batarians she saw. From here, she could almost see out into the open hallway and deny them half of the cover they had.

It was a blurry couple of minutes afterwards, but soon enough she and the two asari were finally pushing forward and out into the hallway.

Another key to their success was the two biotics. Before she had been able to balance out the difference in firepower, the two had been dead weight. Needing constant cover and able to put down very little in turn, they weren't able to show off their full potential. But once she had all the guns she could want, those two had gotten the breathing space necessary to use their biotics. The batarians could hide behind the doorway, but once those two caught sight of one, they would with flawless teamwork make that individual weightless and pull him right inside the room.

Right in the middle of the killzone where Shepard could gun them down mercilessly.

Another pile was coming along there, nicely.

The batarians grew increasingly desperate as the minutes ran by and they were being pushed back, but even as her own assault rifle ran out of ammunition and its twin-rails were horribly warped from the constant heat and strain, she still managed to repel them by throwing it at them.

Had they known it would explode, she was sure they wouldn't have been laughing. She thanked Franco quietly under her breath for teaching her that trick, as she looted another weapon from a fallen batarian to replace her own. _Nice! It's an Armax Crossfire alright, thought I saw one. Good, this thing runs on Citadel-standard firmware. No problem linking it up to my suit. Better format and restore factory settings first, though._

Batarians had funny ideas about c2c-ratios, after all.

Still she had to wonder what such a gun was doing out here, this far away from Citadel space. Armax was a notoriously picky and pig-headed supplier, only regularly making their weapons available to the most elite turian units in the Hierarchy.

Well, just one really good gun was a peculiarity but nothing to get worked up about. It was just one gun, after all.

On wobbly feet, she stood up and holstered her new weapon on her back as she noted that the last batarians were running away now. Noticing the approaching pair of asari, she nodded at them. "Well. That was fun."

"Shepard, are you alright?" Shiala asked, running up to her. "When you fell, I was certain that you were done for."

"I'm fine. Nothing the docs can't fix once we're done here," Shepard reassured the asari with a thumbs up, which only seemed to confuse the asari for a moment.

Their eyes lingered on her stomach for an awkward moment, so she cleared her throat pointedly.

Shaking her head, she looked out into the hallway. "Let's keep moving."

"Well... If you are certain."

"Yeah, come on. Let's go."

Stepping outside without even bothering to slice the pie, Shepard looked left and right with a frown. Most of the batarians had fled down to the left, but...

"Huh, why are we going to the right? The elevator would be to the left, wouldn't it? It was that way on the floor above."

Shepard nodded, not stopping as she scanned the hallways while advancing. " _He_ had checked out the spot we broke down through, right? That means he was thinking about going that way until he realized he wouldn't be able to. He turned around to use the elevator, but he must have wanted something on _this_ floor. Right?"

"...You think he's still here?" Tryna asked.

She merely nodded in reply.

Running through the hallways, they scanned through the various rooms and entrances quickly as they advanced. With that firefight behind them, stealth was no longer really an option.

Of course, if they ran into an ambush, that would be it. But conversely if they moved too slowly the batarians might have time to organize against them.

"There's an open door up ahead," Shiala noted quietly.

Shepard nodded, raising a hand to give a few quiet commands to the two asari as they moved to the door. Motioning for the two to stay back, she slowly started slicing the pie, keeping her shotgun at the ready and shouldered as she grade by grade explored the room. It was dark, but there were terminals at the far end of the room that lit up the insides just enough that she could see the outlines of thing inside.

Rows of shelves. Chairs. And someone was inside, she realized with a startle. No, there was a second body on the floor too. Neither of them was moving. And her HUD's short-range radar reported nothing, even though the sitting figure clearly had a hardsuit.

Meaning he had no kinetic barrier? Or did he have some kind of dampening gear?

She signaled to the two asari what she saw, not breaking her eyes away from the room. Slowly, she started starting inching forward, rolling on her feet with deliberate and quiet steps. Suddenly the man in the chair's head jolted up, as if he had just woken from a dream.

Her breathing halted as she realized from the shape of the helmet that it was That Man from Ares Station. Previously his hunched over figure had been too hidden from view for to see it.

Shepard barely dared to swallow, her dry throat itching and demanding she cough or swallow. But she dared not, some primeval instinct demanding that she remain absolutely quiet.

"Hmm, fifteen percent can be restored. Eight so far done, but it's been nothing interesting... Alright, one more time," a voice spoke in English and she realized with a startle that it was the man before her who had spoken. Somehow she hadn't expected it; his voice was...

And then his head slumped forward again, as if he had fallen asleep.

She wet her mouth, clearing her throat as she took a step forward. "Put your hands on your head!"

A second passed.

Nothing.

Had she spoken too quietly? She was sure she hadn't mumbled or stuttered. He had spoken English to himself too, hadn't he?

Was he just ignoring her?

Something hot rose in her chest and she grit her teeth as she took two steps forward.

"I said put your hands on your head, where I can see them! Do it now!"

But again, nothing.

"...Did he fall asleep?" Tryna asked, flanking Shepard and eyeing the seated man's back.

Shiala scoffed at that. "Don't be ridiculous. Anyhow, this batarian is dead. But the wound looks unusual. Almost like a stab wound. Except... Hmm."

"He doesn't look armed, though. Weird. How did he even get here?" Tryna was moving to stand on the other side of the room, eyeing the slumped over man as she did. "Try poking him, see if that wakes him."

Shepard had to break her eyes away from the man's back, giving the asari a hard stare until she grimaced and shrugged. But just as she returned her gaze to the man, he twitched and stood up.

"Heh, so that's where—" He turned around and whatever he had been about to say died in his throat, as he came face to face with Shepard, the two within an arm's reach of one another.

His helmet almost hit against the extended muzzle of her shotgun, to the point where it would have been squarely between his eyes were it any closer. Somehow he had closed the distance in that one step, leaving them at such an awkward distance.

There was a tense moment of silence as everyone in the room was lost for words, reeling with the sudden change.

And then he _sighed_.

It was the deepest, most expressive and aggrieved sound she had ever heard, containing the most exasperated frustration she had ever heard anyone manage with so little.

Shepard cleared her throat and spoke, finally certain she had his attention. "Put your hands in the air. Now."

"Three times. _Three_ times," he muttered under his breath so quietly that even Shepard could barely hear him. And then his eyes bored into her. Even with the opaque, featureless visor covering his face, she could feel the sharp intent there. " _Fine,_ " he growled out.

"I said, put your hands u—" She repeated louder, intent on hitting his helmet with the muzzle for emphasis. _I need to get back—_

Only, the next second she realized her shotgun was pointing at the ceiling. She instinctively pulled the trigger, but the iron grip the man had on the shotgun and her hand kept it securely in place above her head even as the thing roared upward. She had barely time to realize what had happened, before the instep low kick broke her knee with a crack and shriek of breaking metal.

"Shep—" Tryna began to shout, but the man turned on his hip and _pulled_ on the shotgun hand.

Shepard felt her legs come off the ground even through the blazing pain as she distantly realized he was _tossing_ her right into the asari, as if she weighed nothing at all.

"Ugh!"

The air came rushing out of the Matron's lungs as she was bowled over by the flying Shepard, sending both right into the tall server rack behind them, nearly knocking it over with the force of the impact. She hit the ground in a tangle of wheezing gasps and agonized limbs, unable to tell which were her own and which were Tryna's for a moment.

She barely had time to get herself back on all fours and look up, when she could hear Shiala getting tossed into another server rack with a pained wince.

"—guess I'll just have to break your legs then," he finished to himself, and there was a distinct sound of a relieved exhalation there.

As if he had been allowed to vent for a moment.

Somehow, that only made her _angrier_.

Raising her shotgun with one hand and taking aim, she almost pulled the trigger. But he had vanished behind another rack of servers, out of sight before she had a sight picture.

"You know... These are the central servers of this facility. There's a lot of valuable data here. Stuff the batarians would _hate_ for the Alliance to get their hands on. Stuff they would love to delete and make disappear. If I were you..." He trailed off and suddenly she realized he had somehow already made it to the doorway. Her shotgun snapped in that direction, but he was already outside. "I would stay here and make sure it remains safe."

And then he was gone.

Shepard grit her teeth, anger boiling over inside of her. White noise, like a rushing river in her head, her blood pressure roiling with every beat of her heart. Intellectually she understood that she had been handled with kiddie gloves—that she had essentially been spared because despite his methods the man had borne her practically no ill will.

She had had a gun to his face, caught him completely unawares. And _he_ had been surprised. Annoyed. _Exasperated_.

What did that say about him?

But it was like Anderson said, she was a damn hothead. Someone who wore their heart on their sleeve and never took an insult to her or hers lying down. A soldier with a hundred times more bluster than good sense even on the best of days.

So, like _hell_ would she take _this_ lying down.

Her omnitool flared to life as she tossed the shotgun to the groggy asari next to her. "Stay here, I'm going after him."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled, stopping as he tilted his head slightly to the left.

That Alliance soldier was still trying to pick a fight with him? He could hear her lop-sided steps behind him, slowly catching up and he had to wonder at what exactly they fed the Alliance soldiers.

She was practically running on a shattered knee.

Turning around to face her in the hallway, he felt like sighing again at the sight. In the brighter light of the hallway, she looked awful. Hardsuit was in tatters, covered in blood and grime, obviously exhausted and in pain. Yet unbowed and uncowed. _So she used an omnitool to fuse the hard plates on her leg together to create a splint..._

He couldn't see her face, beyond the narrow slit at the eyes covered by a tinted visor. But in the brightness of the hallway, out of the darkness of the server room it was enough for him to see the sheer raw determination burning in those eyes.

"Put your hands up."

She certainly was stubborn, he wouldn't deny that.

But he didn't have time for this.

He could just keep walking, he told himself. Hell, head for the elevator shaft and jump along the walls as he had before. There was no way she could follow him like that. Or use the invisibility cloak and ignore her altogether.

Yet somehow that felt like he would just be running away. _Focus. Henell might be out of the system by the time you get to the surface if you waste time._

"I said—"

"Look," he interrupted her and vanished out of sight, reappearing right next to her with one hand on her rifle to keep it pointed away as he leaned in to finish what he was saying. "I really don't have time for playing around."

She flinched, jumping back on one leg and leaving the assault rifle in his hand. She would be reaching for her pistol, knowing that if he had a grip on the rifle then she wouldn't be getting it back. Which meant he should—

But instead she fell backwards, raising both of her hands to cover her face as if to ward off a blow. It was that discrepancy in action, that moment of confusion that kept him from realizing what she had done.

— _peep-pip_

Until he heard the rifle make the sound signifying a firmware update had been completed, anyhow. His eyes widened as the mass effect field containing the heavy, solid block of ammunition suddenly inverted and then turned around in on itself inside the rifle.

_Oh, shi—I am the bone of my sword!_

Emiya had time to barely toss aside the rifle before it exploded with the force of five conventional grenades. His back slammed into the wall as he was knocked off his feet, the shrapnel and ammunition block shattering in all directions under the stresses of the mass effect fields going haywire.

The breath was knocked out of his lungs and his head swam from the impact, but he had managed to keep his chin tucked to his chest and absorb the impact against the wall with the muscles of his back. The front of his chest and forearms were bleeding with numerous gashes where the sharp metal shavings had pierced through, but the blades beneath his skin were already knitting up his flesh and halting any bleeding, having stopped any of the shards from puncturing any deeper than merely skin.

He hated relying on that, but in a fight he rarely had the option of refusing to use it if he get really injured. Even if the long-term costs would destroy his body. But for superficial scrapes such as these it was nothing.

"Hah, that's what you get for underestimating me, you son of a bitch," the Alliance soldier was gloating now, trying to get up on her feet. The jump back and their relative positions had spared her from the worst of the blast.

He really had been out-played.

But that's what he got for not taking this seriously. The worst part was that this was exactly the kind of trick he had used before in his life, only with broken phantasms. The old _hot potato-_ bomb.

Groaning, he pulled his feet under him and moved to sit up.

Next to him the smug woman froze up at seeing the movement, realizing that he wasn't down for the count after all, as he spoke up. "You know, you're absolutely right. Which is why you won't mind that I'll break both of your arms this time, _right?_ "

She had been reaching for her pistol, but had frozen in mid-motion. Staring at him with wide-eyes, he could see her brows rising up beyond the visor.

"Emiya...?"

He blinked, freezing in his crouched position at that sound. It was almost alien to his ears; a name he hadn't heard in... years? At least, that's somehow what it felt like. But that voice. Who...?

Raising a hand up, he realized that his face was bleeding. Because right side of his helmet had been cracked and fallen to the floor, revealing half of his face.

But even more importantly, something about that voice... _No, it couldn't—_

"...Shepard?" He couldn't help the name that tumbled out of his mouth, almost by itself.

She reacted as if she had been struck, almost jolting in place at the confirmation. They both blinked, staring at each other for a long moment. Neither denied it, but nor was either willing to confirm out loud what they both already know to be true.

Both were confused.

Should they continue fighting, or...?

The silence was stifling, yet nothing would come out of his mouth. A dozen thoughts criss-crossed in his mind, becoming all too tumbled for anything resembling coherence. Why was she here? _Right, Alliance operation. N7._

He felt like an idiot. Both for not noticing earlier and for getting so worked up and falling into her flow. He could have just walked away and she wouldn't have been able to catch up. He could have—

She kicked him.

"You broke my leg!"

Something snapped in him. "You threw a bomb at me! _Twice_!"

"Twice...?" She blinked, obviously having no idea what he meant. But then, "You were there with the batarians...?!"

"Ah _ha!_ I knew it! That _was_ you!"

"Forget that! What was that box?! You were in it the whole time, weren't you!? I sat on you and you said nothing!"

"Yes, you _sat_ on me," he seethed at her. "Not to mention that you must have followed me into that ventilation shaft _,_ huh? What kind of idiot would do that?"

"Oh wow, _you're_ saying that? How the hell did you even fit in there? Did you bring a barrel of gun oil to lube yourself up with?"

He blinked at that mental image, snorting despite himself. That only made Shepard blink, seeing as how he hadn't denied it outright.

Somehow the flow had been broken, even as the previous words exchanged had come tumbling out by themselves. They stared at each other, everything else completely forgotten for a moment.

Finally, she broke the silence. "What the hell are you even doing here, Emiya?"

"Well, what are _you_ doing here?" He rolled his eyes, motioning with his hand vaguely upwards to refer to the Alliance presence in general.

She somehow understood what he meant, blinking twice and looking down thoughtfully.

"You're... You're here to fight the batarians? Or, save the captives? That was you! You collapsed the tunnels to keep them out of the fighting! To minimize the number of fronts we had to fight on!"

It was his turn to blink again, surprise from having been seen through so easily leaving his face a blank slate for a second.

"And, and you were looking for that place around the corner the whole time! You've been sabotaging them from the inside the since the start!"

He looked away, somehow not sure what he was feeling at that moment. Clearing his throat he got up. His head had cooled a little now, allowing him to think more clearly again.

Still, he didn't deny her words.

"Shepard."

"Hmm? What?" She looked up at him from the floor where she had been lost in her revelations.

Reaching down, he offered her a hand. "What's your rank right now? I need a favor."

"Huh? Oh, uh, I'm a Staff Lieutenant... Why? What is it?" She asked, reaching up to remove her own helmet with one hand at the same time as she accepted his hand with the other.

Standing up, she shook her head and rolled her neck while holding the helmet with one hand by her side. Somehow as her matted and sweaty hair came into view, along with that usual crease between her eyebrows more easily visible between those burning eyes, he had to wonder how he hadn't been able to recognize her instantly.

"Emiya?"

"Huh? Oh, right. I came here looking for a group of kidnapped asari. So—"

She blinked. "You too?"

"...' _Too_ '?" He repeated with a twitch. "Don't tell me, those commandos with you... Are they working for a Matriarch called Benezia?"

"Uh... Not sure. Their boss is someone called Anatha, so I guess not...?"

_The Justicar with Benezia..._

He sighed, palming what remained of his helmet. " _Wonderful..._ "

Shepard had to chuckle at that. "So what about the missing asari?"

"Well, anyhow. I know where she is, but we need to hurry. I had planned to break out and chase after them myself, but with your authority it should be much simpler to just inform the Alliance fleet and let them handle it," he explained. "The asari had been kidnapped to do some research here, but they were slated to be transported to another facility a few hours ago. With any luck, the starship is still in the system."

"Really? Okay! Get me to the Alliance lines and I should be able to make the call!" She grinned, raising her hands to show that he would have to carry her. At his momentary hesitation, she raised an eyebrow, making it clear that _he had done this to her_.

He cleared his throat at that, offering a shoulder for her to lean on as they started moving.

"We can just go back to the command center and use the intercoms. With your name and authority, should be easy to get the message across."

"Wait, that was the command center? But that would mean..."

"Yeah, you pretty much cut off the head for this place. Good job, I guess."

She grinned, only to wince as her broken leg brushed up and jostled against his.

"...Sorry about the leg," he sheepishly muttered. Perhaps he had been a little excessive? No, he had been too soft. She had nearly taken him out, hadn't she?

His head hurt, and not just because of the rifle-bomb anymore.

"...Sorry about the bomb. The first one, I mean. You earned that second one."

He snorted.

"You know, I only need you to be able to talk. I could still break your arms. Just to be sure you don't try a third time, I mean."

She grinned as he kicked up a chair and set her down on it, letting out a sigh of relief at getting off her foot. Though her gut was still pretty much one solid mass of _hurt_ , it was better than standing up.

"Let me get a terminal working and hook you up to the intercoms. I should be able to get some of them working..." He said, already taping away at one of the terminals in deep focus.

"Huh, so you're some kind of hacker now. Well, you were the type, I guess. Always fiddling with everything."

Emiya paused at that comment, eyeing her queerly for a moment before sighing. "Yeah, I something like that. Anyhow, the starship I mentioned, it's the ' _Traskrash_ '. A Volus freighter."

She didn't know about Redhax? _Huh_. _Well, this reunion probably won't last for long then. Maybe that's for the best._

It didn't take long for him to have everything up and ready, so he glanced at Shepard. Receiving a thumbs up, he raised three fingers and counted her down as she leaned to the presented microphone.

"Attention all personnel. This is Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, service number 5923-AC-2826." She paused for effect, inhaling slowly and then continued in the same clearly and precisely articulated manner. "I have successfully taken over—and am currently speaking from—the Dusk Raptor's underground installation's command center. I repeat, I have occupied the underground installation's command center. To all Dusk Raptor combatants; cease resistance and surrender to the nearest Alliance patrol. Prisoner of war rights as afforded by the Citadel conventions are guaranteed to all who lay down their arms and surrender."

Emiya blinked, but didn't stop her as she spoke off-script. Well, this was fine too since it might mean fewer casualties.

"Additionally, all Alliance personnel be advised and advise your nearest officer; Priority 8-Delta target, Volus freighter ' _Traskrash_ '. I repeat, Priority 8-Delta target, Volus Freighter ' _Traskrash_ '."

Having said that, she exhaled and gave him a thumbs up. With a nod and a hand-sign showing that he was doing so, he cut off the broadcast.

"Alright, put that on repeat and it should be good, right?"

"Yeah, that should about do it," he said with a nod.

Tapping away for a few seconds for effect even though he could have simply done it with his cybernetics, he did just that. Then her stood up and turned around to look at Shepard.

She was looking at him too.

And then the mood turned awkward once more.

Neither said anything for a good ten seconds.

"Right, I should leave. You can probably handle it from here," he finally said.

"Leave...? No, you. Oh, I mean—No, just hold it right there!" Shepard protested, immediately getting back to her feet. And to make obvious that she wasn't just puffing hot air, she had her hand on her pistol again, making it clear that she wasn't anything resembling done just yet. "I've got a bunch of questions for you, Emiya. You're not going anywhere until I'm satisfied. Like, I should be arresting you for that stunt you pulled on Mars!"

He blinked, not quite certain what she was referring to.

A _lot_ had happened on Mars, and it had been more than a few years ago. And a lot had happened since.

"Mars?" He prompted.

"Yeah! You go AWOL from Ares Station and then just vanish! I thought you were dead, but as it turns out you're _just_ a _deserter_! I should be putting you under arrest right now!"

"Oh, _that_." Emiya nodded. That did clarify it quite a bit.

What should he tell her?

"Well...?" She glared at him.

 _I guess the truth will do,_ he thought.

"Well, the truth is I went to bed and then I wake up bound to a chair and completely drugged. That guy we saw in Brazil, Burns-something-or-other? He was working for a secret organization called Cerberus all along. So more of a case of kidnapping than AWOL, I guess."

Her mouth made a perfect o-shape as she blinked.

He could see the pieces falling in place in her head as he'd said that. _Good, that was outrageous enough that it should keep her distracted._

"Wait, so then he took you to his house in Armstrong City? How did you—who rescued you? Who burned down the house?"

"That was pretty much all me," he shrugged.

"You broke free and burned the whole house down on your own? After you had already been kidnapped?"

He nodded. _Good, she's already—_

"No, wait. I saw the tapes from Ares Station. You were _there_ , in the security room with the monitors, _after_ the break in. Why— _how_ would you have gotten free and then come back to the Station afterwards?"

"Err...?" He intelligently tried to buy some time as he tried to figure out what she was talking about.

"You're even wearing that same hardsuit, it's the only way I recognized you!" She accused.

"Oh, _that_... Right, I..."

Had he done that? He didn't honestly even remember anymore. It was honestly such an insignificant event during that whole fiasco, that it hadn't left much of an impression on him.

"If you managed to get free, why didn't you just come clean? You hadn't done anything wrong, right?" Her eyes bore right into him as she pressed him on. "There was no reason for you to just disappear..."

 _Damn, can I change the story still? Maybe say Miranda took me down and flew me to the Citadel afterwards...? No, that still wouldn't explain how I was back on Ares Station to be on camera like she says._ Emiya sighed, rubbing the back of his head. _Uh, more truth?_

"It just couldn't be helped."

"' _It just couldn't be helped_ '," she repeated his words, with an obvious look of skepticism.

"Right, because of the... brain problem I had...?" He realized then, that he really had no idea how to explain his condition from then. Brain cancer?

"...' _Brain problem_ '."

Her skepticism and air quotes were turning slightly painful now, making him clear his throat and break eye-contact. "Khrm, anyhow to make a long story short, I had to get a cybernetic operation with the STG or I would have died within days after I left Mars."

She blinked, licking her lips as she digested his words. Somehow it seemed that she was actually believing it, even.

" _Ok_ , so... You're working for the Citadel? Are—are you a _Spectre?_ "

"Erm, no." He felt sheepish, having to deny that idea. At her confused expression, he further clarified. "I sort of... ran away from them too?"

She looked like she wanted to retort with a straight, but a second later she turned thoughtful. "So that's why the salarians always kept coming back and asking the same questions about Mars...? No wonder they didn't tell us a thing."

That did sound like something the salarians would do. It just wasn't like them to actually share what had happened with the Alliance. Though the question was, how did Shepard know about that? Would a mere Staff Lieutenant have access to that kind of information?

"You're a real piece of work, Emiya." She glared at him now. "So who are you working for now? The Shadow Broker? No, wait you knew the asari... Are you working for them? They would have the pull to protect you from the salarians. Probably."

"That's..." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm mostly just working for myself, I suppose. Freelance work, you know."

Her stare was turning slightly painful again, forcing him to cough and look away once more. He didn't remember her being like this five years ago. And she didn't seem to miss a thing.

Finally, she sighed and looked away, rubbing her temples with one hand.

Emiya perked, turning his head towards the doorway. With a frown, he spoke. "There are people coming here. Maybe a dozen of them, all wearing hardsuits."

They were still at least thirty meters away, meaning he had time to decide still. If it was the Alliance, he should make his exit without revealing his presence to them. As long as Shepard wasn't implicated and kept her quiet, his passing wouldn't produce too many ripples. But on the other hand if it was the batarians coming to take back the command center...

Shepard seemed to understand his thoughts, as she drew her pistol. "Let's put aside this conversation for later. I'm still not satisfied with everything you told me... Like, why didn't you send me a message, huh?"

He blinked, realizing that she might still be more than a little angry with him, now that she realized he hadn't actually died on Mars. "Right, uh... _Later_."

_Hopefully never._

"You gonna make another disguise? If you copy mine, maybe you can pass off as an N7 Infiltrator or something."

Emiya froze, turning to look at her with narrowed eyes. _When did she..._

"I saw you outside, in the rift," she answered with a grin. Obviously enjoying his reaction, she even chuckled at him. "Can you do that with any hardsuit, or do you need like a blueprint for your omnitool's fabricator? Where did you even get it? I've never seen anything like it before."

"Err... It's custom work."

He blinked again, before shaking his head as he muttered his aria beneath his breath. _Don't look a gift horse in the mouth—begin projection,_

The Onyx hardsuit he had worn in basic appeared on his body, only this time it was adorned with the basic markings of a Corporal rather than any which he had actually ever worn while in the service. _There should be plenty of those here. I can vanish into the crowd without too many questions._

Getting rid of the broken fragments of his helmet and making a non-functional one in the Onyx design, he put a mental note to get a working helmet before he left the installation. That, or taking apart one of the environment suits to remake his own helmet. For now, this would have to do for just hiding his face.

Grabbing a pair of batarian rifles and tossing one to Shepard, he settled across the room so that they could cover each other and the doorway into the command center if it turned out that hostiles were coming. Somehow Shepard seemed like she was enjoying herself all the while.

And not five seconds after they were both in position the attackers arrived.

"Systems Alliance! Surrender suckers!" An armored rifleman shouted from the door.

"That's not how that goes, say it right or I'll have you scrubbing toilets for a month, soldier!" Shepard shouted back. "Eh, never mind. Site clear!"

A head peeked around the corner, looking around the room.

It seemed to linger on some of the dead batarians until it finally nodded and the rest of the body entered into view. It was a man, wearing a fairly simple and nondescript Onyx hardsuit of his own.

Running up to Shepard, he crisply saluted her.

"Alright, good job making it here. What's your name? Run into any resistance on the way? Did you come alone?"

"Thank you, ma'am! Gunnery Chief Truong, and no we did not, ma'am! There are another four fire-teams on this floor, securing the rest as well, ma'am!"

While the Gunnery Chief was talking to Shepard, some of the others were looking around with obvious awe at the sheer destruction around them. The destroyed terminals, flipped over tables, the piles of dead heavily armed and armored batarians and the huge hole in the wall all left them quietly whispering and glancing at him and Shepard.

She nodded. "Alright, good. This place is busted, but down the hall and twice to the left there's the server room. It's a priority site, Truong, so keep it safe. Those servers are _important_. There's two wounded asari there too, so don't get too jumpy alright?"

"Yes, ma'am! Leave it to us, ma'am!"

"Good. Now, I've been shot and my leg is broken, so I'm gonna report myself right to the docs..." Shepard nodded, turning to look right at Emiya. "So, _you_. Get over here and carry my ass."

Emiya shrugged, tossing aside the batarian rifle without much care as he walked over to her. _Is she helping me get out? Or will she try and arrest me once we're near more soldiers?_

Regardless, it was obvious she wasn't letting him out of her sight just yet.

Well, it didn't matter.

In fact, if he got into a big fight with the Alliance it would probably help them avoid suspicion from the Citadel. Their matching timing was troublesome in more ways than just leaving him in the middle of an active invasion.

The soldiers saluted them as he borrowed a shoulder to her to lean on. Heading towards the server room, he inhaled slowly as they entered along with some of the Alliance soldiers. Both of the asari were already up and awake, behind cover and obviously not surprised by the new presences.

They must have heard the intercom.

"Did you get him?" Tryna asked with more than a little heat in her voice, nursing a bruise on her shoulder from before. Neither of the asari paid him any attention, not with all the other Alliance soldiers setting up defensive positions outside the room.

"Erm..." Shepard raised a hand to rub the back of her neck, obviously not sure what to say. "Nah, I think he got away."

"Oh... That's..." Tryna looked sheepish, her previous bravado deflating as she realized she might have raised an awkward point.

"Goddess, but we are lucky to have lived through that," Shiala said, hurriedly changing the subject. "Are you alright? Your leg must ache. Mine does and I merely saw it happen."

"Yeah, it's busted. Gonna have to pull back and check in with the medics. Live to fight another day, and all that," Shepard reassured them with a grin.

The two Matrons nodded at that, obviously relieved. "It seems that we still managed quite something nonetheless. We shall escort you back, yes?"

Though Emiya had hoped to avoid further contact with the two commandos, he said nothing as Shepard accepted the offer with a grin. _Well, this makes getting back up easy._

Though matters after that became slightly more difficult. _Can I still disappear among the slaves? No, no. With the servers back up, they can probably cross-reference and identify them all too quickly. Besides, the slaves would probably realize that I'd slipped in; a group like that should be very tight knit... Better to try and blend in among the soldiers until I can disappear._

Of course, that assumed that Shepard was going to play nice. Somehow as her arm over his should seemed to tighten around him, he doubted it would be quite so simple.

"Alright, let's go already. I think I might be bleeding out here..."

With that, the four were off to head for the upper levels. And since he had broken down the elevator, that meant he would have to carry her up all the stairs.

Joy.

* * *

;

* * *

"Lieutenant Shepard!"

She winced at the shout that echoed through the hangar bay. The walk up had gone a lot smoother than she could have even hoped, but she had figured this would be coming. She _had_ technically run off from her post in the middle of a battle, and all.

"Major Kyle," moved to stand by herself and to salute the man stomping her way.

 _Gotta keep some distance from Emiya, can't let him get made here._ She still had questions for him, and the fact was that if he got spooked then there would probably be very little that could be done to stop him. He had managed to sneak into the Torfan base with an almost disgusting level of ease, and had played both sides of the conflict as a mere afterthought. So if he thought he needed to disappear, there would probably be nothing she could do to stop him.

So, she would have to take the heat here.

It was a good thing the two asari had already left to rejoin their own companions, since that would have only complicated matters further.

"Explain yourself, Lieutenant!"

"Sir, I discovered a hole in the enemy defenses and—"

"Your orders were to secure the eastern entrance and captives, not to rush off and leave your post unattended!"

Already a crowd was forming around them and she could almost sense the tension building up in Emiya.

"Your thoughtless actions might well have cost hundreds of your subordinates lives, or this entire operation!"

 _He is angry, right. No. Venting. Frustrated. Something unexpected. But nothing did happen. Friction with reality eroding his plans and he was unable to account for it._ She glanced at Emiya again, wondering for a second if the Major had somehow noticed his presence on the battlefield.

No, that wasn't it—Emiya had used the same entrance and fought around the same sectors as she had. And if she hadn't heard anything about him from her subordinates before she picked up his trail by sheer luck, then there's no way the Major could have either.

So it was something else.

But what? She had no clue. Certainly she had acted on her own, but was it really such a big deal? The batarians hadn't been able to push back at all and the Alliance had managed to dig into defensive position well before she had left. While she hadn't received express orders to hold position, she had been told to acquire and defend that sector. That, and to free the captives. But given the collapsed tunnels, that would take hours. Even now, with most of their personnel no longer tied to the fighting it would take a while.

Was it that she had managed to end the battle so decisive seemingly by herself? Or that she had made use of the asari to do so? She wasn't familiar enough with the politics involved at his level, so even her best guesses were little more than shots in the dark.

"You—" The Major's nostrils narrowed as he inhaled powerfully, intent on shouting at her again.

"Sir," Emiya suddenly stepped forward, causing the Major to stumble mentally for a second as he wheeled to stare at the would-be Corporal. "As a result of Lieutenant Shepard's orders, we were able to prevent the complete wipe of the enemies' servers."

"Corporal, you would do well to—"

"And there we discovered the origin of the non-standard munitions and materiel that the Dusk Raptors possessed."

_What?_

"What?"

That one sentence managed to change Kyle's mood completely.

"It is all still down there, full records, dated and verified, sir."

"That's..." The Major blinked, obvious relief visible on his face as he exhaled slowly, almost shuddering with the effort of calming down. He turned to regard Shepard, the look in his eyes completely changed. "...You did a reckless thing, but it worked _this_ _time_. I will not praise you for it, but if it becomes a matter of the military courts then I will speak on your behalf."

He nodded and turned to leave, shouting at a group of soldiers that he needed an escort immediately down to the lower levels.

Blinking as she realized the storm had passed her by in an instant, she turned to regard Emiya. "What was that?"

As he offered her his shoulder to lean on and they continued towards the medics, he explained.

"...The batarians had some pretty advanced gear on some of the fronts. The marines took pretty heavy casualties and even now they're still struggling with pockets of resisting fighters," Emiya explained, though made no mention of _how_ he knew that. "On paper, there's no way they should have access to anything like that, which seems to have left that man a little on edge."

She exhaled, shaking her head. "The Armax gun...?!"

No wonder Major Kyle was so worked up. Materiel of that standard could change entire battles, if they were supplied in sufficient numbers. For a moment she imagined it, the scenario the Major must have seen on his tactical map in the rear of the battlefield. Reports coming in about the enemies possessing much better firepower than they should have had any right to. And then one report of the commander of a front over-extending and potentially leaving the entire sector vulnerable to a counter-offensive by moving out on her own.

All the ingredients for disaster were there, obvious for anyone who could look at the entire battle from above and see all the pieces at play. She frowned, not agreeing with the Major even if she understood his reasoning. But for now she would keep silent.

She had been there. She had fought her way forward in that sector. She had had boots on the ground and knew what had been going on. They hadn't had those weapons there. Maybe it was just her bullheaded pride talking, but she didn't think she had made any mistakes. With her ear on the ground and her finger on the pulse of the battle, she was certain she had been able to grasp both the timings for pushing forward and for hunkering down properly.

She hadn't made a mistake; she would do it again all the same.

Or had that just been Emiya, supporting her from the shadows and propping up her weaknesses? A sliver of doubt. She turned to look at him, though he seemed to still be staring at the receding back of the Major.

"Gutless rear-echelon officers should remain in the back and just handle the logistics, honestly..." Emiya muttered quietly and she could hear the disparaging scoff despite his helmet.

"What do you mean?" She asked, more curious than anything.

Noticing her looking, he cleared his throat and elaborated. "Those tunnels were obviously expendable ground meant to buffer invaders. There wouldn't have been a counter-offensive—no way to leverage it to an advantage in the other fronts or to launch a flanking attack on the Alliance rear given your airspace superiority."

While she didn't necessarily disagree...

Emiya made no sound, even as she rammed her elbow into his side. Somehow his silence made her more annoyed than his badmouthing a superior officer had managed to.

"Thanks, anyhow."

He paused. "No, don't misunderstand. That was just me getting rid of him. He was attracting too much attention."

She said nothing, but they both knew that sounded a little weak. _He's still a pushover if you know his buttons, huh._

Thinking back, he must have had a reason for wanting to go to Mars. Even if he had deserted, he had been adamant about being posted on Mars specifically. She had asked for his help in Brazil, though. And that had caused him a lot of trouble, to the point where he had had to fake a medical condition to keep going where he wanted to.

Another thing which she had thought about often and long. ' _Don't worry. I'm fine', huh._

Somehow she felt like punching him again, remembering those last few days. But...

Shepard sighed. She was fairly certain that if she had just asked, he would have told her everything. He had that mindset of focusing one thing completely, but if you blindsided him with a straight then it was pretty easy to get answers out of him. Ask him for help and he would do it in a heartbeat, and then afterwards rationalize it as having been something he had planned to do all along no matter how much it inconvenienced him.

"Hey," she nudged him as they arrived by the triage point.

There were hundreds of wounded, laying all around in cots and being taken care of by dozens of medical officers. They'd be fine, though; the rule of thumb was that as long as you got to the docs on a modern battlefield, you would at least _live_. So, for a given definition of 'fine', they were.

"Hmm?" He prompted her, as she hadn't continued.

She realized she was feeling pretty woozy and light-headed already. She _had_ bled a lot, hadn't she?

"Did you find what you were looking for on Mars?"

"Uh..." He blinked, completely blindsided by the question.

Somehow that made her grin.

"Kind of. It's... _complicated._ "

"Heh. Seem like everything is, with you."

That made her grin, knowing that she'd gotten a bullseye on him. He must have been grumbling but unable to refute, looking away as he did.

He was practically _sulking_.

* * *

;

* * *

_I really need to get out of here,_ Emiya grumbled.

The longer he stayed the more likely it was that he would be discovered. He had already deleted the footage in Shepard's helmet camera and combed through the Alliance logs for any mention of him, but he wouldn't be able to hide like this forever.

Not as a nameless, faceless mook.

Even in an military force this big.

And the longer he stuck with Shepard the more people would remember him afterwards. A strange Corporal who wasn't on any of the rosters, and whom nobody remembered having as a comrade when going in, would just draw heat onto Shepard in the aftermath.

Staying for much longer wouldn't be bad just for him.

Shepard noticed his quietness, staring up at him from the cot she had been directed to lie down on and wait for someone to come look her over. "Hey, we're still gonna have that talk, alright? So don't just run out on me."

"...No promises, but I'll try to stick around."

At least Shepard seemed to be enjoying herself in all the chaos, as she grinned up at him. Though he wasn't sure how much of that was just her tripping out due to blood loss currently.

Finally someone with a datapad and a medical uniform approached them.

"How bad is it, doc?" Shepard asked, looking up from her cot.

"I am not a doctor, ma'am," the man hovering over her answered testily. "And what the hell have you gotten up to down there... _Jesus Christ_ , ma'am."

"That bad? Doesn't feel that bad. I'll live, right?"

The man scoffed, tapping away at his omnitool. "No, you're _definitely_ dying. Your liver, spleen and upper intestine are practically all mush. What did you do, get hit with a shotgun? And how are you still even coherent—Oh, _wonderful_. Combat stimulants in your blood work; a real cocktail. Right, that means we'll have to check out half of the drugs we can use on you for the next two weeks..."

 _What_.

"Shotgun? Yeah I think I remember a couple of shotguns."

_What._

Emiya blinked, glancing at her hardsuit's abdomen as the cot began to hover and move after the man who was still fiddling with his omnitool. Those who lay around here mostly had superficial wounds and perforations in their limbs, nothing that would require immediate surgery.

But Shepard—he could see the marks where the plates had been repaired and fused back together. He hadn't thought anything of it before given how she didn't seem hampered by it, but had she been fighting him with a wound like that the whole time?

"Sign here and here."

Shepard took the datapad she was presented and signed it with a flourish. "A new liver? I'll have to toast the Sirta Foundation when I get out."

The man sighed as he took back the datapad. "Sometimes I think you soldiers get shot just so that you won't be able to drink yourselves to death. Your knee will have to wait for now..."

"Great! How about some painkillers? I think I'm coming down now and I still need to talk to my friend for a few minutes."

The man sighed, shaking his head even as he took out his omnitool and noted down something. Then, taking a hypodermic needle, he administered something straight to her neck.

"You're not going to be doing much talking, but the morphine should keep the worst of the pain at bay, now that you're going to start coming down from the stimulants. Your operation will start in twenty minutes." With that, the man walked away, leaving Emiya and Shepard in a corner of the hallway near the sealed operations tent erected by the doctors.

"So, about—"

Shepard began, but paused at the intent stare she realized he was giving her. _Is she suicidal? No. Is this normal for the Alliance? No, no. That guy was just as flabbergasted by her recklessness as I am... Meaning—_

"Are you an idiot?"

She blinked at the abrupt question, somehow taking no offense. She actually seemed to consider it seriously for a moment before she shrugged.

Emiya sighed, palming the front of his helmet and wishing he could rub his temples through the damn thing. Looking up, he noticed she was looking behind his back at whoever was walking up to them. _Quiet, soft steps. Not good, it's probably..._

He carefully kept himself from tensing up, even as the voice spoke up and confirmed his suspicion.

"Shepard."

The woman in question raised a hand to return a greeting he couldn't see. "Anatha, what brings you here?"

Emiya kept his body language in perfect control, only affecting mild surprise as he turned to stand aside and let the Asari Justicar speak directly to Shepard. He could feel her eyes on him, taking every inch of him and committing it to memory anyhow. _Really not good._

"Those two conveyed the events of hours past to me. Had I known _whose_ trail you were on, I would have joined you. For my failure to understand the severity of the situation and for allowing this to come to pass, you have my apologies," she offered a slight bow of her head. "The man you sought, I suspect is someone very dangerous. I am both relieved and disappointed that you did not find him."

"Uh, yeah, that... It's fine. Really." Shepard vaguely tried to reassure the Matriarch, throwing an awkward glance at Emiya as she did. "And it wasn't like you didn't try to get in, hahah— _Krhm_ , I mean... Uh."

Her words trailed off as she realized she might have said something she shouldn't have.

He carefully did not react, remaining quiet even as Anatha definitely noticed the glance thrown his way. She was definitely suspicious of him now. _Oh boy. Should I leave? But what if this idiot says something, stoned out of her mind on morphine as she is?_

"And yet, you came to great harm. From what I heard, you were saved by this man here, yes?"

"No, that's—"— _saying a little much, I simply carried her up here, really._ Is what he would have said to minimize his role in everything. To remain as much as an unremarkable background figure as he could, so that he could eventually slip away without being remembered.

But.

"Yeah, that's right!" Shepard immediately agreed, seeking to assuage any suspicions the Matriarch might have had regarding him, cutting him off in the process. "He was a huge help! Did you know, he was the guy who thought to check the servers for where that missing professor was!"

_Damn it, Shepard._

"Oh _my_ ," Anatha said, most definitely having not heard anything of that nature. "I had heard that Henell and her team had been discovered aboard a vessel on its way out of the cluster... But I had not heard anything regarding _how_ their locations were discovered."

She turned to regard him again. But unlike the first time where it had been merely a sense of professional curiosity at an unknown person in her presence, now it was a deep scan fueled by keen interest and truly ancient curiosity.

"It would appear that you have done us a great service... Mister...?"

He ignored her, turning to Shepard. "Hey, you surgery should be starting soon. Shouldn't we get you out of that hardsuit?"

"Huh...? Oh yeah, let me just pop the seals and... Huh, it's stuck?"

"Here, let me help you with that," he said leaning in and whispering next to her ear. "Shepard you're _sloshed out of your damn mind right now._ Shut. Up."

Her eyes widened as they met his as he pulled away. "Huh...? Right, right. You're... Right. _Whoa_ , you're actually _really_ right."

And any modicum of subterfuge had now been blown right out, given that Shepard had all but confirmed that he had said something to her to make her shut up. _Damn it, Shepard._

As he worked to get the hardsuit off of her, including cutting through the fused together pieces holding her knee together, he could feel the painfully intent stare of the Matriarch never leave his back.

And just as he thought things couldn't get any more hectic, someone who should have already long since become a non-issue saw fit to return and insert themselves into this drawn out mess.

"Shepard? I was told you were here...?" Major Kyle came walking down the hallway from the general triage area. Spotting them, he began to briskly walk over. "Shepard, good. You're still awake. The server room, it's right there and mostly intact. But we don't have the password for the mainframe. If you used it earlier, you must have the password, yes?"

Shepard who had raised a hand in greeting to the Major seemed to have trouble paying attention to his words. She frowned, her eyes wandering to Emiya as she tried to start several half mumbled sentences.

"Here, I have it. Let me come and show you," Emiya tried to salvage the situation.

If he just wrote down the password, surely the man would leave?

The Major blinked, noticing him again and narrowing his eyes to make sure it really was the same Corporal he had seen earlier. "Oh, it's you. Yes, that would be fine. But... What unit did you say you were with again? Who is your commanding officer? I asked around and no one seems to be missing in the lower levels..."

_Ah, damn it. Damn it...!_

As Emiya hesitated for just a second too long in answering, and he could see both the Major and the Justicar suddenly grow suspicious of him as they noticed his pause. The fact of the matter was, neither of them actually knew a damn thing about him when they thought about it.

Shepard didn't miss the change in mood either, even as high as she was. "He's good guy... Good, guy..."

The thumbs up she threw from her cot did little to reassure the two now staring intently at the quiet Emiya.

 _Should I run for it? Still don't have a helmet, but I can get one on the way out._ No, that would still burn Shepard.

The asari know she was hot on his trail, but minutes later she was making the intercom call? And then the Alliance soldiers arrived to find some Corporal with her? There was no way they wouldn't put two and two together there and realize what must have happened. Could she really have been fooled by him so easily? Would anyone believe her if she tried cover for him by saying that? And she had known him in basic; there was no way anyone would believe her.

If he ran now, it would completely blow up in Shepard's face. No matter how he spun this, it would be taking her down with it.

"He—I... Ay-eye, uh... DCFP-A3...?" Shepard tried to mumble something, but trailed off.

But Major Kyle blinked, looking away from him to stare at her. "Alliance Intelligence? What was that, Shepard?"

Emiya paused at the man's reaction. An _out_. Something about what Shepard had just said was an out for him. His cybernetics reached out and connected to her omnitool, breaking through and digging deeply to access everything he could find in a matter of centi-seconds.

_This...!_

Completely unexpected. But something he could use. There was no way either of these two—or anyone else here for that matter—would know that he was usurping her role and stealing her hidden identity like this. He would have to deal with it afterwards properly, once Shepard was sober again.

_Alright, you can do this. At this point it should be second nature to you already._

Emiya sighed, his shoulders slumping in feigned annoyance as he brought up an arm to tap away at his omnitool. He was pretending to be taking out something, but in reality he was busy manipulating the data with his cybernetic connection to make it fit him.

"I had hoped to remain in the shadows for a while longer, but it can't be helped I suppose."

Anatha tensed up, already expecting the worst as she had surely seen through his disguise. But too bad, he was about to double down so hard on his cover that even she would be too bewildered to realize she had actually been right all along.

"I am with the Alliance Intelligence Agency; Deep Cover Field Operations. My service number is DCFP-A341CJS. My name is not important."

And at the same time he brought out the holographic badge with 'his' ID number and specifications. His name and face were blurred out—or rather where Shepard's name and face could have been, were left empty. But there was a contact detail for confirmation of his identity, just for situations like this. For when a Deep Cover Field Operative needed to get out of a sticky situation by calling home, for a 'get out of jail'-card without revealing their actual identity.

Well, for that's how it would have been for Shepard anyhow.

 _He_ would be using it now for his own purposes though.

"You may contact Arcturus Station and request confirmation regarding my presence here if you wish. Of course, that is all they will confirm. My identity is a matter of sealed records, after all."

"The _AIA_...!" The Major said through gritted teeth, glaring at him now. "What are you doing here? You have no right to interfere with my— _this_ operation!"

"As it happens, I had been working with Lieutenant Shepard on a very important mission. This is a matter of state, _and_ galactic security. You see I am pursuing a very dangerous man...

"To that end... Could you tell me everything you know about the figure known as ' _Redhax_ ', one ' _Emiya Shirou_ '?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proofread by a hobo in a barrel. 
> 
> lol that was fun 
> 
> Shepard gets a double bonus against Emiya, because she's both a cute girl he knew in the past (like Rin), _and_ she's a hot-blooded redhead main character (like Shirou), so she gets past his thick skin pretty effortlessly. Plus, she's got the power of the DIALOGUE WHEEL on her side. Emiya thinks he can throw distracting topics at her to avoid specific subjects, but she never forgets and will always jump back to ask all the awkward questions :V 
> 
> That and she imprinted on all the worst(best!) qualities of Emiya back in basic. "Oh, senpai got himself shot again! How sugoi!" 
> 
> Also the title? _Really_ just "Reckless Reunions". The "Painful Partings" part was just there to fuck with the readers who might expect me to have Emiya and Shepard to part ways again. Well, I guess it was a painful parting for a moment when Emiya broke her knee :V


	32. Half-Cocked & Cooked

How long has it been _, he wondered._

_This grand catastrophe in the making, that had led him all the way here and now. Years, obviously. But when had it started? Truly started? What had been the first piece to fall over as a consequence of his choices, that began the inevitable spiraling out of control, until it all culminated in this? He couldn't tell. Perhaps it had been something so innocuous that he hadn't paid any attention to it at the time._

_The end result was the same anyhow. Even if he had known, he couldn't have stopped it. For that matter, he wouldn't have even tried._

_It was the end of that long and perilous road._

_Here he was, alone once again. Awaiting the judgment of the rest of the world, at the conclusion of his ideals. White on white walls, all around him, caging him in. Impermeable. Unbreakable. Unchanged for who knew how long. Closing in on him, day by day._

_His answer lay just ahead, soon enough. It wouldn't be long now, that much was obvious._

_Those outside were afraid of him._

_They did not know what to make of him. Not before he had walked up to them, nor after he had announced his intentions with full candor. He had accepted their fear, their anger and their confusion without hesitation and opened his arms to receive it all._

_That had only scared them further._

Well, the more things change...

* * *

;

* * *

_A storm raged. Crashing and breaking. All around her._

_Death._

_Helpless. Every step forward was too slow; more were suffering and dying because of her. Because of her. All because of her. Mars. Elysium. All because of her—_ She opened her eyes and somehow the change left her more at a loss than the turbulent dream had.

Above her, a white ceiling.

A few seconds later she realized she needed to breathe and she let her burning lungs start working again. Cold sweat clung to her body. The cot, moist underneath her touch and the gown she was wearing were both cool to the touch. Yet despite her body running hot, it didn't feel pleasant at all. Rather, she just felt tired. Sore and tired.

Shepard looked around, taking in the room she was in.

Austere. Plain white cloth. Little more than a tent with her cot lying inside of it. On the other side of the space was another cot, but it was empty. She realized that she must have been just operated on, if she was lying around here.

Had she been wounded?

_Emiya._

The memories came rushing back and she kicked off the cover, almost jumping out of bed before she flinched from the mind-wracking pain exploding in her mind, radiating all the way up to her chest from her knee. Blinking back the cry of anger, she grit her teeth and looked around.

She was alone. There was no one here.

_Emiya, he was here. I know he was here!_

His appearance had changed; his skin had seemed tanner and his eyes had lost that honey-shade of amber she remembered from years ago. And he was much more withdrawn and sullen than she remembered, even from the earliest days of basic. But he had responded to that name. It had definitely been that man she remembered.

And he was nowhere to be seen now.

Her knuckles turned white as she clenched her fist, the sheet on the cot straining between her fingers as the dials on the panel reflected her agitated state. _He left... He really just left. Again._

Anger. Yet also relief. She felt like her head was swimming, yet there were both of those emotions there. He was alive after all, and even if that fact only raised a hundred questions about everything, that he was still alive and well was a fact that she could feel relief and joy over.

But he had really just up and disappeared, hadn't he?!

"That son of—"

"Good grief. But at least that will serve as an answer, seeing as how you never bothered to speak up."

Her eyes shot wide open and her head swiveled towards that voice. Her jaw fell open as she blinked silently. She could have sworn no one had been there a moment before, yet there he was sitting on a chair with his legs crossed.

"After all, only a complete idiot would try to jump out of their bed onto a broken leg. It's a shame you didn't; I would have never let you live it down," he said with a crooked smirk.

Anger surged inside her, bursting into a blazing bonfire anew as she realized he was within easy reach after all! A hundred questions on her lips and with a thousand complaints on her mind, she opened her mouth.

Only to promptly close it, all forgotten as she blinked.

"Emiya, is... is that _you_?" She asked, staring now.

He looked up, giving her a long-suffering sigh before raising a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. "Who else?"

His hair had gone white.

 _Completely_ white, unlike anything she had ever seen in person. Even those who aged and grayed tended to have a silvery sheen to their hair, not this... Almost _snow-white_. Contrasting with his darker skin, and those sharp gray eyes, she had a difficult time reconciling the man before her with the man she had once known.

But it was definitely him. The demeanor was the same—his voice, while tighter and rougher was still just as she remembered it.

Yet...?

"You grew your hair?" Somehow that little thing changed his persona entirely.

"Those are your first words? Had I known, I would have cut it to save us the bother. But yeah," he nodded, not finding the observation particularly important even as he raised a hand to his head. "Or rather, buzz cuts aren't my style. Brings back bad memories."

" _Oh_..." She realized she must have touched a nerve.

He had had short hair when they had parted, right before according to Emiya he had been kidnapped and had to fight his way to the Citadel, where he had to make a deal with the salarians. She hadn't meant anything by the observation, but somehow she felt like she should have—

"What's with that expression, as if you had just crashed my funeral? Don't misunderstand, it just reminds me of a time I had to get into and break out of jail, nothing more."

"Oh, okay— _Wait_ , when were you in prison?"

He blinked, looking up in that manner she remembered.

That way he did when he had been remembering something and said something he immediately regretted, but didn't want to lie about. "...Actually, forget I said anything."

She had to laugh; his manner of evading questions hadn't changed at all in these years, at least. What had she been thinking about asking him before, again...?

"But seeing as how you're awake and feeling all better already, _here._ "

Shepard almost didn't manage to catch the datapad he tossed at her with a lackadaisical backhand. She was sure he was aiming for her forehead on purpose, too.

Frowning, she asked. "What's this?"

"Since I took the liberty of stealing your Alliance Intelligence persona, I figured I might as well put it to good use for a little _quid pro quo_."

"You did _what!?_ " She sat up, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Well it was either that, or letting Major Kyle and Justicar Anatha realize that you were working for the AIA _and_ forcing me to fight my way out, all while burning you in the process for having tried to cover for me. Your incoherent ramblings really did us no favors."

Shepard blinked, furrowing her brows as she tried to remember what had happened. And then she did. "Oh... That was pretty stupid of me."

"You're an idiot, yes. I think we have established that fairly solidly by now. Luckily I managed to somehow salvage that mess." He was smirking at her, she could tell even without looking at him. She just knew he was. "Well, by ' _salvage_ ', I mean I am now a representative of the Alliance Intelligence Agency on an important mission. There wasn't much in your files that I could use for cover, so I had to make something up and then fake the authorizations on the fly."

"That's..." She wasn't sure what to think of that.

For one, if anyone—be they Navy or Alliance Intelligence—found out her credentials had been taken, she would be in a world of shit. For another, she had no idea how he had managed to figure it all out and fool everyone. She hadn't even managed to say her whole service number before.

"...Okay, let's take it from the top... Files?"

He nodded. "Yes. On your omnitool."

A shiver ran up her spine. They stared at each other for a long moment. _He broke through the AIA protections that quickly? That's..._

Using the intercom was one thing, but getting past all of the stuff on her omnitool was something entirely different. _No, wait. Didn't he say he hacked open the batarians' servers too? And what was that about authorizations?_

"What the hell kind of hacker are you, exactly...?"

"Something of a _faker_ , really." He chuckled, though it seemed to be self-deprecating than anything. "But it ties in to that excuse I gave to those two, regarding my important mission for the Alliance Intelligence Agency. My cover is that I'm here to hunt down a hacker known as Redhax. I assume you've at least heard of him."

She blinked.

Well that explained his competence with computers. If you wanted to catch a hacker, you had to essentially be a hacker yourself. But something about that didn't sit quite right. "That Citadel hacker? Why would he be here...? You said you work freelance, so were you after him from the start, or—"

Emiya raised a hand to forestall any further questions. Noting that he had her silence and attention, he merely pointed down at the datapad in her lap.

"I had _them_ compile _that_ just for this reason. It should cover everything pertinent. And save me a lot of talking in the process."

Frowning, she turned on the display and figured that giving it a look couldn't hurt. Even if she would rather just ask him directly.

'Redhax _aka_ Fujimura Saiga _aka_ Emiya Shirou. Human, male, age unknown, estimated age in early twenties. Currently the galaxy's most wanted man for numerous counts of...'

As if the first paragraph hadn't been enough—listing out a truly staggering array of offenses, crimes and general mayhem wasn't enough—the picture right next to it showing his face certainly did. It even had his 'normal' colors, except he had the longer hair there too.

"What _._ "

She looked up, flat disbelief obvious.

Waiting for him to reveal that he was merely joking the whole time. She looked down again, eyes boring into that picture of him.

"What."

He merely shrugged, as if it were nothing more than a laundry list. Her head swam again and she had to breathe slowly, pinching her brow with her fingers as she tried to calm down.

"Okay, okay... So you're the galaxy's most wanted man, okay... Wow, I wasn't expecting that. _Why_ are you showing me all this?"

Emiya scoffed. "Because you wanted to know what I had been doing, didn't you? It's all there, more or less."

She looked at him and then down at the compiled list of events, all marked with further links and with numerous summaries and analyses. Dated and detailed, stretching back easily the five years he had been gone, it seemed like there hadn't been a day when he hadn't been up to _something_.

How had she missed this? She had known about Redhax, of course...

But it had only been days ago that names and a face could be attached to that individual. The Thessia incident, which was still being held under wraps by the asari and the Citadel had been the catalyst to that change, she realized. That massive upheaval that had sent the Citadel economy crashing and left half the galaxy frozen in shock.

That had been him? He had been involved in that?

Shepard looked up at him, and though he wasn't looking at her she could sense a tenseness to him. He was like a coiled up spring, compressed under pressure and simply waiting for the first opportunity to spring away. Like the weight of the entire galaxy was pressing down on him.

No wonder he hadn't wanted to deal with anyone here directly. _But what did he want here? Something about that asari VIP. It must tie in with why he wanted to go to Mars; to see the Prothean ruins. That's what he said years ago... Or was he lying?_

Something rose up inside her at that thought; a vehement denial. He wouldn't lie to her. Even so, that didn't mean he was always honest with her. _Because he would keep quiet and not tell me anything._

But...

That could all wait.

Tossing aside the datapad and turning around on the cot so she was facing him, she crossed her arms. "Who cares about that stuff. I want to know what you've been doing. I thought you were _dead,_ Emiya."

He blinked and turned to look at her with a crease between his brows, obviously slightly taken aback by her complete lack of interest in the datapad. _Touch and point._

Clearing his throat, he looked away.

"...Nothing really, I suppose. The dossier pretty much covers it all."

"Yeah, but you're here and I hate reading reports anyhow. Why didn't you ever call me? I thought you were _dead._ I went to that house on Mars, I saw what was left after it had all melted into a pile of slag... Why didn't you tell me you were alive?"

"That's..." He paused, and she realized that it had never _occurred_ to him to do so.

It had literally never even occurred to him to call in.

Had he just... written her off? No, that wasn't right? Something about this wasn't right at all. What was she missing?

She inhaled slowly, feeling some of her temper returning. But she kept it under wraps. _Right, right. He said he was kidnapped by Burnsfeldt. By an organization, that had infiltrated the Alliance Navy deeply enough to have an N6 and one of the instructors from boot camp on their payroll._

Which meant that he had no way of knowing whether she was under surveillance. _Or actually, if Emiya is Redhax, then the AIA probably knew the whole time. But they never told me, which means they were trying to trap him the whole time, which means—_

"Those sons of bitches!"

They had been using her the whole time! _No wonder getting the job seemed too easy! They were just using me as bait!_

Emiya blinked and Shepard realized she had been entirely side-tracked. Clearing her throat, she tried to remember what they had just been talking about. That line of thought could wait. This was more important. _Compartmentalize; deal with it later_.

Clearing her throat, she rolled back the conversation in her head.

"You did nothing. _You_? For five years?" She said, raising an eyebrow.

"Err..."

She had a hard time believing that.

He had always been doing _something_ back in boot camp. He looked slightly uncomfortable now, as if not sure what she was expecting him to say. Like she was pressing on a nerve, but he refused to admit that anything was wrong.

But she didn't look away, staring at him intently.

Finally, he sighed and gestured vaguely with one hand as he spoke. "...Well, I was on Thessia, attending a university, but beyond that there was nothing special."

"You got into an alien university? That's pretty amazing!" She didn't bother to keep the hint of surprise and awe from her voice, hoping that it would get him talking.

But his blank stare and shrug deflated that conversational ploy before it even got off the ground. Usually stroking people's egos worked to get them talking...

What had he liked, back then? Messing with people. Guns. Cleaning. Fiddling with everything he could get his hands on. Reading about everything. Manuals. Learning stuff. Food—

 _Food_. He had eaten like a horse and his cooking had been some of the best she had ever had. If there was something that could crack him open, it was _food._

"Is that really all you did? Did you at least learn any local cuisine? Do the asari even cook? Do they even _eat_?" She didn't actually know, now that she thought about it. She didn't remember seeing any of the commandos eat, at least.

He blinked, completely taken aback by the sudden change in topic. And then with a chuckle that seemed to unwind something inside of him, he nodded. "Yeah, they do. It's actually pretty interesting. Since biotics are so prevalent among them, and the water is so heavily infused with eezo that it gives a strange tang to everything. So they developed an entirely unique method for preparing food. Of course, since it relies so heavily on biotics and decades of practice, it's not something I could just pick up. Instead I took a few simple dishes I could find recordings of and broke them down into simpler processes that I could replicate using—"

_Okay, wow that worked really well. In fact, I have no idea what he's talking about._

Noticing her nonplussed reaction, he stopped and cleared his throat. "Well, anyhow. I did learn some new cuisine and methods while I was there. It's not that important."

"No, no. Tell me more. What do you mean they don't use water? Like, isn't there water in _everything_?"

He actually seemed tempted for a moment, before his eyes darted to the side. "Maybe another time. Someone is coming."

"Huh?"

And then he was gone. Even the chair he had been sitting on seemingly having vanished into thin air before she knew it. She blinked, rubbing her eyes and looking around the room, yet not finding him anywhere. _Cloaking...?_

The flap opening on the tent moved and a medical orderly entered. "Ah, good to see that you're awake. Well then, let us go through the specifics of the operation, your prescription medications for ensuring your body will not reject the new organs, and then finally go through the last of the paperwork."

"Oh—alright. Uh, actually gimme a sec," Shepard said as she nodded, still trying to find any signs of Emiya. "Hey, you! I know you're here! We're not done, you hear?!" As the silence of the room was her only answer, she cleared her throat and looked at the clearly uncomfortable man before her. "Lay it on me, doc."

The man cleared his throat, looking up from his datapad and frowning. "I am not a doctor. But let us, yes. Your operation lasted 1 hour and 13 minutes and there were no complications. There were six slugs and four pieces of steel shrapnel were extracted from your intestines and abdomen..."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled quietly, tuning out most of the orderly's talking as he stayed out of the way and out of sight.

He had already read the report anyhow. It and some of the related files and appendices. Because just as he had suspected, this wasn't a one time thing. For several of the achievements listed in her military record, there was an update made to her medical record at the same date. Not the following dates, which might have suggested a number of things, but on the same day. Nothing quite on the level of today, but she did get injured quite often.

Shaking his head, he dismissed those thoughts for the umpteenth time; she was many things, but suicidal was not one of them. As far as she or those under her command went.

Reckless, yet _calculating_.

Or rather, she had a clear sense of priorities.

There were a dozen notifications about how much gear she was abusing and breaking. Normally the loss of a gun wasn't something that was just shrugged off, but it seemed like Shepard regularly went through months' worth of gear out on the field. Most of the costs had been docked from her salary, but it seemed as if she was a logistical black hole at times. _Anything_ within arm's reach that could help her in the field...

And it seemed to have gotten worse since the Blitz. And as a result it seemed that she had made few if any friends among the commanding officers. Especially among the brass of this operation it seemed, as he listened in to a meeting through one of the omnitools he had patched through to.

" _Finally, what about Shepard?_ "

" _Sir?_ "

" _That Staff Lieutenant who was ordered to hold position and secure the captives. The one who ran off and got herself shot up. What of her?_ "

" _Shepard... Shepard. That's right, now I remember._ "

" _General Maeda?_ "

" _Leave her be. The marines and N7 play by different rules from the infantry; the admirals won't let us touch her even if we had something. She was a rule breaker back in boot camp and back then it got her a ticket to the Villa. With how those asari have been swooning over her, I am certain she'll receive a commendation for this._ "

" _A commendation! She should be demoted!_ "

" _Fat chance the Parliament would sign off on that._ "

" _I believe we should rein matters back to the subject at hand. Lieutenant Shepard's actions during the operation have already been tabled,_ " this voice he recognized at least.

 _He's not a bad organizer and project manager, huh._ For all that the man didn't have what it took to stand on the front-lines, his talent at handling them in the abstract was peerless.

Emiya felt like he was watching a chess grandmaster at play, with how logistics would be ordered even before actual reports regarding a need would come in.

A real talent for reading the tables and charts.

" _Certainly, but I believe the matter was to be shelved until the vessel she had highlighted for boarding and searching through was found._ "

" _And it turned out that she was right all along, meaning that she is certain to come away squeaky clean from this debacle._ "

" _Rules matter only as much as they bring results. They are not an end unto themselves, gentlemen. That is enough on the subject of Staff Lieutenant Shepard._ "

He sighed, pulling his focus out of that conversation as his interest was lost. Checking the various ship logs and comms, he noted that the Janiri's Sickle hadn't been found yet. Changing its transponder had been a good idea, since that kept most, if not all flags from being raised in the automated systems that might have recognized the starship.

Of course, if anyone bothered to take a closer visual on the thing, they might still recognize it. He had gotten rid of the name and serial number on its hull, but it was still a high-end asari corvette. Which would make it stand out anywhere in the galaxy, least of all this backwater. _Maybe I should just "find it" and claim it as evidence for the Systems Alliance. I'm already hunting myself as it is, maybe an achievement like that would look good?_

But that would mean giving up the starship, more or less. Someone from the Council or Thessia would doubtlessly demand its return sooner or later. And even if that didn't happen, it wouldn't solve his antimatter problem.

Sighing, he glanced at the medical orderly who was trying to talk to Shepard, his annoyance at her apparent lack of attention obvious. _Is she really trying to find me? What an obstinate woman._

He had plugged himself into the base's power-lines, allowing him to remain invisible indefinitely to avoid having to talk to people. But that also meant he couldn't move around too much.

What was he going to do about all this?

She was asking all sorts of questions and it was putting him off his game. It was difficult trying to focus on how to get cleanly away from all this when she kept throwing curve-balls at him. For a moment he simply considered leaving without saying anything.

It would be the quickest method. But the fallout...

Emiya blinked, standing up straight as he picked up something on the comms. Without hesitation he turned around and unplugged himself from the outlet and disengaged his cloak behind the orderly, donning the face-covering helmet in one smooth move.

"I'll be right back," he said, making the man jump and Shepard frown as she realized she had been dead wrong the entire time as to where he had been standing.

Ignoring everything going on as the Alliance personnel was handling the aftermath of the battle, he moved towards the stairs he had taken hours prior with Shepard. Arriving all the way at the bottom, he quietly pushed himself in among the Alliance soldiers who were standing around the open doors to the elevator shaft.

The same that led down to the _bottom_.

They were pulling out something from there now; three bodies. Batarians, he knew. The ones he had left there. _I forgot about them entirely, but what happened?_

Their dead forms made everyone there erupt into hushed conversation. How couldn't they? Each of the three batarians had torn out their own eyes, two of their throats had been ripped open and the last one's skull had caved in. Almost as if he had run headfirst into a stone wall.

Emiya frowned.

_Was there something down there?_

But he had made sure nothing had been there; there shouldn't have been anything capable of taking out three heavily armed and armored batarians down there. _Those wounds almost look like batarian teeth..._

Aside from the wounds visible at first glance, there was nothing of consequence on their bodies. Inhaling, Emiya muscled past the group and to the elevator shaft.

"Hey! What are you—"

"Are there still people down there?" He asked, staring down the soldier.

"Uh, yeah, yeah they're looking—"

He didn't wait longer, dropping down to the bottom with a single step over the edge. Four lights instantly homed in on him as his boots impacted on the roof of the elevator car.

"What the fuck! You almost scared the shit out of me!"

"Wait, the fuck are you...?"

He cleared his throat, raising his omnitool and letting the holographic badge light up in the darkness. "Alliance Intelligence. How many of you are there down here?"

"Alliance Intelligence? What the hell...? Uh, two four-man teams, sir," came the hesitant reply as four heads looked at each other in confusion.

Which meant one of the teams had gone in deeper.

"I am declaring this a hazard site. Get back up and inform the personnel to set up a level 3 NBC-quarantine for this level. Report yourselves for a full medical and psych evaluation."

The four looked at each other, their heads waggling left and right as they obviously couldn't comprehend what was going on.

"But, sir..."

" _Do it,_ " he ground out as he jumped down. "Before I have you court-martialed."

That seemed to do it, even if he was fairly certain he didn't have that kind of authority, regardless of the authenticity of his cover. They grumbled, but moved to start climbing back up the shaft.

Once the last man was climbing up, Emiya turned around and began to run down the narrow tunnel, towards the room he had explored the first time he had been down here. As he moved, he kept all of his senses peeled for any kind of movement or hostility, seeking out that thin presence he thought he had sensed before.

But before he could find anything unusual, he caught up to the second team.

"Who's there!"

"Hold your fire, Alliance Intelligence." Emiya immediately identified himself as they came to view.

Though given the twitchy reactions of the two aiming their rifles at him, they must have thought he was a spook of an entirely other kind. "What the hell is Alliance Intelligence doing here?"

"This place just got sealed. Pull out and report with the other team that came down with you."

"Shit, there really is something down here..." One of them muttered, only to get told to shut up by one of his teammates.

"...Fine. But who'll handle this place then?"

"I'll secure it myself, don't worry about it," Emiya reassured the team-leader. But he wasn't having it.

"Bullshit. If my team has to pull out, then there's obviously something down here. Sir, you're not even armed, and we've sealed suits! If you're staying then we're coming with you."

Emiya frowned, but instead of arguing the point only nodded. Sticking together might be the safest option for them, now that he thought about it.

"Staggered diamond, max out your torches; I want to see _everything_."

The four obeyed, settling around him and covering every angle as they brought up the brightness of their rifles to maximum. The shadows receded and brought the contours of the tunnel into stark contrast with the darkness that had swallowed everything. It was almost like the porous gray rock absorbed light, refusing to let go of anything that came into contact with it.

They moved out, Emiya keeping his senses peeled and his favored pair of swords in his mind's eye. Last time something had nearly sneaked up on him, before he had noticed it. But that could have just been a trick of the shadows; the lingering alien emotions in this place fooling his mind into seeing things which weren't there.

They came to the end, right before the alien room where something had been removed.

"Nothing, sir."

He nodded, turning around.

Obviously if something had been here, then it could have escaped long ago. The batarians had not kept this place sealed up, even if they had been wary. So whatever had happened to those three must have been a local phenomenon of some sort.

Which brought an uncomfortable question to his mind...

If those three batarians had taken so poorly to being a few hours down here, what of Henell and her team who had been working down here? _I've got a bad feeling about this..._

* * *

;

* * *

"You have done my mistress a great favor, Shepard. Thus, she has expressed her wish for me to invite you to dine with her aboard Dreyn N'var," Shiala said with a warm smile.

Shepard blinked at the offer.

"Dinner?"

"Yes. In fact, I would be the one preparing the meal. It would be a great joy to have you aboard the ship, where we could express our gratitude."

"Is this like a... private thing, or...?" She hesitated. At the moment, it was probably better if she did not leave her cot until she was given leave to do so. Especially since she was certain some of the local brass was still be annoyed with her.

Going off on her own to have a party with the asari would ruffle all the wrong feathers, she suspected.

But it seemed that the asari had been aware of this, as Shiala shook her head. "Not to worry. Matriarch Benezia has spoken to the Admiral and I have been assured that there will be no problem. In fact, many of the officers who played a part in the battle have already accepted invites to allow us to offer our thanks."

"Huh. Yeah, that sounds great. I heard you guys had weird cooking, so I'd love to see what that's all about."

The asari had only the slightest twitch at the comment. But Shepard realized that the Matron—rather than feeling insulted—had only become determined to blow away all of Shepard's expectations now.

"I am glad and shall pass on the word to Matriarch Benezia. I am certain she will be overjoyed to meet you as well. Speaking of, do you know where we might find that man who you had been cooperating with?"

That made Shepard pause. Why were they looking for Emiya?

Perhaps sensing her confusion, Shiala continued. "We have been made aware it was the Alliance Intelligence operator's swift thinking and forethought that made possible the rescue of honored Professor Henell. Though we have expressed a desire to thank him, it seems that he is a hard man to reach."

"Right, that's... I'll pass on the offer when— _if_ I happen to see him."

Shiala nodded, smiling beatifically. "Thank you. I shall inform Matriarch Benezia of this. A shuttle shall come for you in two hours for the dinner party."

Bowing once, she left Shepard alone once more.

Exhaling loudly, she fell back in the cot and relaxed against the pillow. She hadn't signed out yet, meaning she was still ordered to stay in bed for another hour at least. But she had been updated on how everything had gone during the operation.

The captives had been found and were in good health, if a bit scared and hungry from having to wait so long. Injuries and casualties during the initial push had been considerable, but as soon as the defenders' communication had begun to crumble, the fighting had begun to favor the Alliance. Materiel losses were considerable, but given the amount of credits that had been recovered it shouldn't be a problem.

While much of it would be given to the captives and surviving victims of the Dusk Raptors, a great deal of it would still end up effectively in the Systems Alliance's coffers after a few years.

Even so, she had received another formal warning for destruction of Navy property, along with a notice of her salary being docked until the accounts were balanced. That and there was going to be a formal investigation of some sort into her conduct during the operation, especially in relation to the mysterious AIA operative she had been in contact with the whole time.

And since they had set her out as bait for Emiya the whole time, she was sure that the AIA would have already realized that something was up. Maybe if she could find something momentous, they wouldn't realize?

She had nominally been assigned the task of investigating and compiling reports of the batarian pirates, to see whether there was any connection with Khar'shan and the seemingly independent actions of various slavers, pirates and merchants. There hadn't been much in the way of any evidence, so she had been hoping to continue digging through matters here on Torfan. But with him now in the picture and her leg broken...

"Damn it, Emiya."

"Hmm?" He asked and she jolted upright, her eyes widening as she realized he was sitting in the same spot as when she had first woken up.

"When did you get back?!"

"...Just now," he answered, only glancing at her briefly.

_Where did he get the chair again?_

Shepard blinked, calming down as she realized he must have simply been too preoccupied with something to realize he had practically sneaked in. She thought about asking what his plan was now, but belatedly realized after a second that he must have been winging it the whole time given that he hadn't objected at any point to her demands.

Somehow she didn't know what to think of that.

But seeing as how he was brooding now, she figured she should give him some time.

While she was at it, she might as well take a look at that damn dossier he had given her. She had heard about Redhax of course, but only really in passing. It hadn't even been relevant to her before.

Might as well finally see what all the fuss was about.

And soon she did; reading through the dossier properly was eye-opening on many regards. She had known that electronic warfare superiority and hacking were important, but this was the first time she had been confronted with just how much of a difference it could make.

She glanced at Emiya, wondering how he had been able to do all this. Could he have really learned how to do all of this in a mere five years? Of course not. He had been already _doing it_ for five years. The marginals noted collective losses in the billions of credits as a result of his actions, showing how the economies of entire sectors had been affected over the five year period.

But she didn't see how it was possible.

If it was possible to destabilize the galaxy with just some hacking skills, then how come it had never been done until now, she wondered.

"How do you do it?"

"Regular exercise, a healthy diet and plenty of sleep," he answered promptly, but it was obvious he had no idea what she was asking.

She scoffed, more amused than annoyed by his behavior.

"You're a real role-model for kids everywhere, Emiya. But I mean all of this? How can you just... Hack things this easily?"

He looked up, inhaling slowly and she immediately spotted his tells. _He doesn't want to tell me... Because it's complicated_?

"You can give me a pithy one-liner answer, if you want."

Emiya made a noise of amusement, before shrugging. "Brain problem's solution, _partly_."

"...How much of your brain was..." She hesitated.

"Scooped out and put in a jar by the salarians? Don't really know. Never cared."

"...You never cared about your brain?"

"It's not vital, or anything," he shrugged, before smirking as he looked at her. "I mean, you go through internal organs on a pretty regular basis. Why wouldn't I?"

She scoffed, shaking her head with disbelief. "So you're like a hacker robot now?"

"More of a superhero ghost, but close enough."

Throwing up her hands, she went back to ignoring him and reading the dossier.

Reading quietly for another fifteen minutes, she finally spoke up again.

"What was this all about?" She asked, frowning at a summary of a firefight that had taken place on Illium.

"Hmm?" He looked up, eyes first darting to hers before moving to look at the datapad. It was like he could see what she was reading, even though the pad was turned away from him. "That was... Corporate espionage that ended up escalating until one of the salarian directors involved tried to send a hit-squad after the other party. He was trying to take them out because they were blackmailing him."

"Yeah, but... Why? Why did you care about this?"

"The hit-squad was planning on bombing a shuttle station and framing it as a terrorist act to take out the blackmailer. It was the only point where his security was open," he answered and then shrugged. "There would have been civilian casualties, so I intervened."

She frowned. "But how could you have possibly known?"

"I had been eyeing them for a while, based on some extranet rumors. Expected to find evidence of them cheating their workers and nothing more when I broke into their central servers, to be honest."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense? But it says here that you just sent a mail with the banking records to the local police...?"

He nodded. "Right, which snowballed when investigated and ended up burning them as a result."

"Wait, wait. How did you know that would happen?"

"The local police department's SOP was pretty predictable. There were precedents to compare with and draw conclusions, so predicting how it would play out was more or less entirely possible if I put a few hours into figuring it out before I made any moves. Big organizations like that tend to be fairly easy to analyze and predict; blue team and all that."

"...How did you even get there in time? According to this you were on the Citadel the day before. I thought you said you were on Thessia?"

"The email server is stored on the Citadel, sure. So I did both jobs essentially at once, though the other took a longer while to run its course. Piecing it together and tipping off the locals didn't even require me to leave Thessia," he shrugged, returning to his own thoughts.

So essentially, rather than a feat of hacking it was one of social engineering? He had read all the parties involved and played them out like puppets.

So Emiya had turned his habit of messing with people into full-blown puppet-mastery. But somehow, even as she could see how it all worked out and understood his reasoning, he didn't seem particularly satisfied with the result. _Two police officers died during the operation to arrest those guys. But if he was on Thessia, then there was nothing he could have done about that._

"...Huh." That reminded her; Thessia. "Shiala—one of the asari commandos who was with me when we met—came by earlier."

His intent eyes returned to her, his brows slightly furrowed. He wasn't just listening now, he was suddenly very interested. Suddenly she felt curious about that. Did he and Shiala know each other? What was the nature of their relationship?

"She was asking about you, in fact," she prodded.

"...Did she now," he replied blandly. _Too_ blandly.

Emiya really did not want to run into any of the asari, then. "Do you know her?"

He blinked, before scoffing and shaking his head. "I've met her once before in passing."

"But you're afraid of her."

"I'm more _wary_ about who she is working for, than anything. That Matriarch— _Benezia—_ would recognize me instantly if I get too close, helmet or no helmet. I would rather avoid that."

Shepard blinked, sitting up straight. Something about the tone of his voice told her he was actually wary of this Benezia. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "So you have some kind of history with her? If she can instantly recognize you?"

_He wouldn't have... No, he absolutely would have._

"...Something like that. Nothing like what you're imagining, I'm sure," he said with an amused smirk and she realized how obvious she had been. "Sure, I may have made a pass at her, but she blew me off rather coolly. I actually feel a little bit embarrassed over letting myself get so worked up by her. Anyhow it would be better if I don't meet her at all." Then he quietly added to himself. "Not after what I did to her wife and daughter, anyhow."

She paused, her expression strained. "...After you did _what_ to _whom_?"

He blinked, sitting up straight as he realized he had said that last bit out aloud. He cleared his throat. "Never mind that. We still need to talk about what happens now."

Shepard paused, biting the inside of her cheek. On the one hand, she wasn't finished with this. But on the other hand he was right. They did need to discuss thesituation they were in right now.

Sighing, she nodded.

"Yeah... You're not going to turn yourself in, are you?" She asked.

He didn't so much hesitate, as consider his words for a moment. Was he trying to weigh how she would react to what he had to say? "There doesn't seem to be any reason to. There are still things I need to do."

"You know, I should be placing you under arrest right now. Your circumstances being what they were five years ago, maybe it was fine? I don't know, to be honest. That's for the legal team to figure out. But saying that you don't care about going back is actually something completely different. It changes everything."

"And are you?" He asked, raising a lone brow at her.

Grabbing the datapad she waved it at him. "Right. And have you pull another fast one with millions of credits in damages in the process? Thanks, but if we can just _not_ do that, that would be great."

He huffed, obviously amused. Whether it was due to her or the fact that someone was seemingly not shooting from the hip at the first sight of him in a long while, she wasn't sure. _Probably both_.

"I'm still going to have to talk to my Alliance Intelligence contact about this. I'm sort of a... contractor, I suppose? I do fieldwork for them and they give me answers I wouldn't normally get. So while I technically had the pull to keep your identity a secret from the Major..."

"You're still going to have to tell your contact what actually happened once you report in. That's fine," he said with a nod. "The bigger problem really is how this whole debacle will appear to outsiders."

"Can't you just hide? ' _Deny, deny, deny_ ' usually works, doesn't it?" She proposed.

"The two asari commandos with you saw me, it's a little bit too late for that." Emiya sighed, shaking his head. "Besides, there's more. I came here on a corvette that's—How do I put this... A little _hot_ right now?"

"...How hot, exactly?" She didn't like the sound of this. But it was just a corvette, right? Something like that shouldn't be too big of a deal. Something like a frigate would actually be a huge deal, but a lone pilot could probably steal a corvette easily enough. _How did he get past the Alliance warships blocking off the Mass Relay, anyhow?_

"It's the personal starship of a Spectre who died while trying to catch me. Antimatter reaction engine."

She paused, inhaling slowly. "Oh yeah, that's _hot._ "

"You didn't actually read the dossier all the way to the end, did you?" he sighed.

"I _skimmed_ it; there's a lot of stuff here," she weakly protested.

He stood up, shaking his head once. "Fine. Fine. It doesn't matter. I need to go investigate something else right now. We'll... Talk later?"

"Yeah, so don't go skipping town just yet."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," he nodded and waved his hand lazily as he left.

Well, she had to prepare for the dinner party now. Too bad Emiya wasn't coming along. _Maybe that's for the better. This way I can ask them about him._

* * *

;

* * *

Henell was being kept in isolation aboard the Dreyn N'var.

Her and her whole team.

Something was wrong. He could feel it. The Alliance team that had boarded the starship and secured the missing Dretirop archaeologists hadn't reported anything unusual. But the asari had moved out to immediately receive them, and after that there hadn't been a peep out of them.

He had tried to find Henell or any of the other formerly-missing asari onboard the cruiser, but with little luck. Perhaps it was simply because of how large the asari starship was.

Which meant that he needed to get there himself. Even without astralization he still had the cloak and his hacking, which meant that infiltration shouldn't be a problem as long as he could just get aboard the Dreyn N'var. Normally that would be a problem...

"Welcome aboard, gentlemen. Right this way, please," an asari commando wearing a slinky dress spoke, addressing the shuttle's passengers.

"Oh my, of course. Of course..."

Emiya ignored the Systems Alliance officers stepping out of the shuttle, moving around the unarmed commandos as he stepped aboard the asari cruiser for the second time. Hidden beneath his cloaking, no one noticed him as he kept his presence bland and shallow.

Behind him the shuttle rose up and moved to give way to the next entourage of Alliance personnel, as Benezia had apparently seen fit to invite half the command structure aboard for the dinner party.

Slinking out of the hangar unnoticed, he continued along the passages until he found an unremarkable corner without surveillance coverage. There he turned off the cloak and revealed himself. Once again disguised, he exhaled and looked down at the magnificent pair of breasts jutting out of his chest.

At a distance he might fool the asari with this, but up close anyone would realize that he was far too large to be an asari. Hopefully that wasn't going to be a problem.

With most of the asari cruiser's personnel focused on the dinner party Benezia was throwing, sneaking around was proving to be quite easy. He ran into no one, even as he checked through fourteen possible locations for where Henell could have been in five minutes. All the while he kept the cameras and door security spoofed, ensuring that no one should be aware of his presence.

Even so, he detected some of those strange light balls in the system. Similar to the ones he had found on the STG vessel. _What are these things even?_

Earmarking the matter, he made doubly sure to hide his activities from them as well.

Coming to the twenty-third location without direct surveillance that would allow him to simply write it off, he mentally overrode the door controls. It was a guest suite, with all the luxuries that entailed. He wasn't expecting much as he leaned his head in through the door to look inside quickly, already mentally prepared to move on to the next location.

"Who is it?" An Asari Matriarch asked, her face set with deep haggardness. As if she had not been sleeping well in a long while, even though her immediate appearance spoke of well-being. She was wearing only a thin robe with an open front, having most likely been resting after a bath.

Emiya paused, recognizing the voice and face immediately.

Nirida Henell. Hale and healthy, in the flesh. She blinked at him, frowning and noticeably wary at his presence. _Alright, how should I handle this...?_

"Who are you? You aren't a part of the crew," she said with a wary certainty as she stood up, placing aside the datapad she had been holding. He hadn't actually expected her to be completely fine, given how thoroughly she had been sequestered away by Benezia. Yet here she was.

Clearing his throat, he spoke. "I apologize for barging in like this, professor Henell."

She blinked, obviously perturbed by his voice not at all matching his appearance. He had forgotten to modulate his voice, not that it really mattered since he was suspicious anyhow.

"You are that man who left all of Thessia in a tizzy, aren't you? Saiga, was it?"

_She's sharp._

He nodded, dispelling his layered disguises and leaving him in his usual full-body diamene weave armor. "That's right. I am something of an... acquaintance of Baliya's. I had hoped to meet you for a while now. May I come in?"

"...It would appear that you have not been informed. That is certainly peculiar. Or are you perhaps lying?" The Matriarch said, drawing to her full height as she stood up square against him. "But very well. No reason for you to stand there in the doorway, come in and close the door. No reason to let the incense go to waste..."

Emiya blinked. She certainly was casual and relaxed. But what had she been talking about there...?

"Baliya Haphia is dead."

He froze in mid-step.

"...You did not know, then. _Hmm,_ " she narrowed her eyes at him, moving to lounge by a settee.

 _Baliya is dead? How...? No, it doesn't matter. It's..._ It was...

"She appears to have died painlessly. Natural causes. Or so I was told."

"I see," he exhaled and closed his eyes. It didn't matter. "My condolences."

Henell paused, having reached out for her glass. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him. "Thank you. But you speak as if you were not close to her."

"...I cannot say I was anything more than a passing acquaintance. Especially if I hadn't even heard of her passing until now."

The Matriarch's expression softened, the lines of her almost jagged mien turning almost pleasant for a moment.

"I see. No wonder she wouldn't stop writing about you. You certainly are everything she said you would be."

Emiya didn't know what to make of that, merely frowning quietly.

"But it does not matter. Why have you come here? Given your rather perilous status at the moment, I would have thought you would have more pressing matters to consider," she crossed her legs slowly, the hem of the robe spilling aside to reveal long, firmly toned limbs. "Not that I am not flattered. But I do not take little Benezia's sloppy seconds."

He cleared his throat, ignoring the barb and show of skin. The woman was trying to play him. "I've been attending Serrice University for a handful of years now, studying the Protheans. I had hoped to attend some of your classes, and to discuss some thoughts I had regarding them."

"The minimum attendance requirements for my courses are 25000 hours of coursework performed. I doubt you would have achieved even half of that in a mere five years. I don't make exceptions, not even for my friends."

"I had 20000 hours performed, as far as credits were concerned. Of course, that doesn't matter any more given that I have likely been all but expelled already. But I had been hoping to still discuss matters with you," he said patiently.

"Hmm, I see."

Emiya waited, seeing as how she had not given him anything more to latch onto. He would have to wait and see what she thought of what he had said so far.

Looking around, he took in the details of the suite he had entered. Beyond the dimensions and exits he had already taken in before he had even walked in, it was quite fancy. A real luxury suite of the highest order. It would have certainly been a change from the Dretirop camp and the batarian's holding facilities.

"I refuse."

He inhaled, not reacting otherwise. "May I hear your reasons?"

"Oh, certainly you may," she said with her voice dripping contempt. "Before her death Baliya had apparently begun to support some fringe theories. Lunacies which have all but disgraced her entire legacy, given her untimely death. Hundreds of years of work; thousands of discoveries and tens of thousands of priceless artifacts analyzed... All that, washed away because of _you_."

"Me?" He blinked, his brows furrowing.

"I've no idea what nonsense you planted in her ears and how you managed to convince her of its authenticity... But I'll have nothing to do with it," she sniffed, looking back up at him. "Will that be all?"

 _She's certainly a tough old lady, I'll give her that._ But he wasn't quite satisfied with this much. Though the problem still remained, what did he want from her? If she wouldn't share her knowledge with him, then what?

It wasn't like he could forcibly meld with her— _Or well, I suppose a tantric ritual could work for that... But that's not an option._

Emiya sighed, nodding. He supposed he would have be content with knowing that she had been saved, even if she wished to have nothing to do with him. "Alright. Apologies for barging in and disturbing you. And... thank you for telling me about Baliya."

Henell's eyes only narrowed slightly as she said nothing.

He moved to turn around, intent on leaving the starship, already plotting his method of exfiltration. But then a thought occurred to him; he had almost forgotten.

"One more question, if you don't mind."

She said nothing, crossing her arms and inhaling slowly to show her growing impatience.

"What was being stored in that room at the end of the lowest floor, on Torfan?"

Immediately Henell's entire body language changed. She sat up straight, her eyes narrowing at him as he could sense the biotic build up. She was gearing up for a fight, even as she questioned his words. "What are you talking about? There was never anything there."

Emiya frowned. _That's a damned lie._

"You're lying."

She stood up, ram-rod straight with her hands balled into fists now as she exhaled loudly, agitation obvious.

"What was down there? Why did the batarians fear to go down there? What was that murderous shadow lurking just beyond your sight?"

"You _know_ ," she seethed.

And he pressed on. "Answer me. What was in that room? What did you remove?"

She inhaled slowly, unballing her fists as she relaxed and stood up straight. All the tension bled out of her body, and she opened her eyes to behold him with clear eyes.

" _The cycle must not be broken_."

* * *

;

* * *

It really _was_ good.

Shepard's mouth watered as she thought about another morsel. It was good. It was really good. Maybe even better than— _No, I'm sure he could do better._

Shaking her head, she turned to look away from the sashaying Shiala clad in shimmering silks. Most of her male fellow officers couldn't even manage that much. There was just something enrapturing about that dance, something that inflamed all of one's desires all at once.

She looked around, noting who was present once more. Major Kyle wasn't present, but General Maeda had seen fit to attend. She still didn't like the man, but Emiya had been right all along; the General took care of his own. And he valued relations between humanity and the asari greatly.

It was little wonder he was here. She just hoped her presence wouldn't sour his evening.

"I trust everything is to your liking, Lieutenant Jane Shepard?"

She almost bolted upright at the vocal silk tickling her ears. Turning around, she came face to face with a seated and smiling asari. Blinking twice, she cleared her throat. "Uh, yes?"

The asari smiled, inclining her head gently.

"I am glad. I am Benezia; a humble spiritual guide among asari."

Shepard blinked, realization slowly dawning on her as to who the Matriarch before her was. Shiala's and Tryna's boss. _Anatha's_ boss.

"Uh, yes?"

She realized she was utterly flabbergasted and cleared her throat again, looking away as she focused on slow breathing. Failing that, she lowered a hand beneath the table down to one of her legs. Wearing the uniform dress, the brace she was wearing that kept her leg stiff and healing couldn't be seen unless one knew what to look for.

Smiling, she jabbed a finger right into that leg and kept from reacting as the lance of pain shot through her entire nervous system. Extending a hand, she tried again. "Jane Shepard, but you already knew that, huh. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Benezia replied, accepting the hand with one of her own as they shook hands. _Just like Major Kyle said; don't worry about customs. Let them handle it, it's a show of trust and respect to do so._

"So, I heard you were looking for Fujimura Saiga," Shepard said and for just a moment the Matriarch stilled entirely. _Touch and point._ "What a coincidence; as it happens so am _I_. Let's exchange notes, yeah?"

"Very well. Do you mind if we exchange questions?" Benezia agreed, recovering quickly. "That would seem the simplest manner for an equitable exchange, no?"

"Sure that's fine, you go first."

The asari elder nodded with a smile, accepting the gesture. "Are you hiding him?"

"No," Shepard immediately shot back without hesitation. He was doing that all by himself. "What makes you think that?"

Benezia paused, both to weigh the answer and to allow Shepard to consider her own question. Did she really wish to ask that, when they would exchange a question for a question? But seeing that Shepard had no intention of changing her mind, Benezia spoke.

"He has been on Nirida Henell's trail for weeks now. Given that he was seen down on Torfan, it would suggest that he still has something he wishes with her. Do you know where he is?"

Shepard made a thoughtful noise, saying nothing. Benezia waited for a moment, before finally sighing. "We also discovered a strange weapon on Torfan. One, which upon closer inspection is human in origin. Something you humans call a ' _bow_ ', I believe? Some of the wounds on the slain batarians here match some of the wounds we found on slain batarians on Dretirop, where Henell had last been before her kidnapping. Do you know where he is?"

Humming thoughtfully, Shepard remained quiet. Because that still wasn't the reason Benezia had asked that question, and they both knew it.

"...And his sudden disappearance after he ran into you—a noted _friend_ of his from his youth—is certainly peculiar," the Matriarch finally revealed, putting her suspicions out in the open.

"I have no idea where he is. Probably somewhere on Torfan," Shepard shrugged, speaking truthfully. "What does he want with Hen—Actually, what does he want with the Protheans?"

"...I do not know. What _does_ he want with the Protheans?"

Shepard shrugged, having no more idea than Benezia had.

"Actually, may I rescind that last one. Consider it a rhetorical slip, perhaps?" Receiving a nod in reply, the Matriarch smiled. "Thank you, I shall owe you a favor. Well then, what do you _believe_ he wants with the Protheans?"

Inhaling slowly, Shepard considered that. "Honestly, with him it could be anything. But probably..."

"Probably?"

She looked up and met eyes with the Matriarch. "It's something _huge._ "

"...I see," Benezia replied and they sat quietly for a moment. After a moment, she cleared her throat. "I believe it is your turn, Lieutenant."

"Right..." Shepard mused.

A servant-asari, carrying a sapphire-silver pitcher walked up to them, moving to pour more drink for both. But as she did, Shepard caught her whispering something to the Matriarch. It wasn't much, but she certainly caught the word " _intruder_ " there.

Benezia turned to face her, giving her an apologetic smile as she rose out of her seat. "Excuse me, Lieutenant. It would seem this will have to wait."

"Sure, I'll be here," Shepard gave her a thumbs up.

But as the Matriarch walked away, her expression fell away. _What the hell is Emiya doing now...?_ Seeing that Shiala was finally slowing down, she cleared her throat to catch the Matron's attention.

"Hello Shepard. I trust I have managed to satisfy you."

She grinned back. "Oh, definitely. It seems like things are winding down. Want to go take a break with me? I was hoping to find the ladies' room and, ah, _powder my nose_ a little."

The flushed and smiling Shiala _tittered_ , nodding.

"Follow me, Shepard."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya ran.

Something had taken over Henell.

Was it the same influence guiding her sudden silent murderous intent that had caused those three batarians to die? He had tried closing in and knocking her out at first, but with her biotics capable of covering the volume of her suite, it did not matter how fast and strong he was. He had nearly been caught, just as he had been back at the museum, by her mass effect fields. Standing his ground wasn't an option; not so deep in what was effectively hostile territory.

So he had turned and made a run for it. Best to let things cool down and see what happened. And then once she calmed down, he could try and observe her more closely. _If the trigger was related to whatever was stored at the bottom of the shaft, then is she protecting it?_

There was something rotten here. That something he had first sensed when he had landed at the bottom of the dark, yawning abyss of an elevator shaft.

 _Duck_. He rolled on the floor, kicking off to the left as a biotic throw went flying past him and impacted against the hallway wall. Just as her quarters had been, the hallways of the cruiser weren't large enough for him to properly leverage his advantages over Henell. _This really isn't the place to be tussling with a biotic..._

"It's obvious you aren't going to catch me, so how about we just part ways here?" He asked, turning around to run fifteen steps backwards so he could look at her.

His only reply was a biotic singularity that would have caught him in its event horizon, if it weren't for him kicking off the wall and performing a back-flip over it. Behind him Nirida Henell ground to a halt as she could not pass by the singularity with similar ease, even though she possessed the ability to keep up with him here.

In the relatively short and narrow hallways of the Dreyn N'var, she could always catch up by Charging and Blinking in straight lines to catch up. Despite his overwhelming physical advantage, he couldn't run away, nor could he close in and take her out. Not with the staggering biotic fields she had layered over herself.

 _No wonder Matriarchs are considered to be in a class all their own..._ He mused, turning another corner by kicking off the wall.

Trying to close in would only result in him getting caught up and lifted off the ground. Unlike the museum, the ceilings weren't high enough to permit him to use his speed to his advantage either; she could cover the entire space with her fields with ease. And since he couldn't outrun her and his cloaking gave him no method of evading her biotics, his options were limited to say the least...

That left wearing her down— _which would take time and make noise_ —and escaping— _a much simpler affair_ , he figured. Thus he had chosen the better part of valor and decided to hightail it before things escalated out of control. And even with his attempts at shutting down alarms, it seemed like somehow fights were breaking out in other parts of the Dreyn N'var and the asari were being roused to the trouble.

Thus he had made an effort to steer clear of the more populated sections of the cruiser, like the dining halls and the crew quarters. But that had also taken him further away from any emergency escape pods or the hangar bay. _I need to break line of sight, get cloaked and then let the situation calm down first._

Which meant he needed to trip up the suddenly mute Matriarch to create some space for himself.

"No? Alright fine," he called out as he grabbed a potted purple plant of some kind and chucked it at Henell.

She hadn't said a word since this had all started, and didn't say anything now as she shaped her biotic fold-fields into a funnel before her, stretching out from her fingertips.

 _Oh, great. She's played biotiball!_ He groused as he prepared himself.

The potted plant barreled towards her, but gently she received it and almost like an orbiting body accelerating out of a planet's gravity well, she spun it behind her back and sent it flying back towards Emiya at more than ten times the speed it had started with.

But he had been ready, setting his feet and mimicking her stance as he angled his palm to receive the potted plant. And then, he spun around on his foot, using his entire body as an axis to replicate the biotiball orbital pass without any biotics. She had barely time to take another step, when the potted plant smashed into her abdomen and knocked her ass over kettle.

He grimaced, but did not slow down. The pot had been lightened to a minimal fraction of its original mass, by the Matriarch. It would be more like being hit by a beach ball than a cannonball despite the velocity; she would be fine, he told himself. But there was more; two presences, just up ahead. _If they get caught up in this..._

Emiya would have get them out of the way. Knock them out? Or could he pretend to be one of the visiting Systems Alliance officers? With so little time to invent a cover story, he sighed and figured that it didn't matter— _Anything will do._ Rounding another corner in the hallway, he came face to face with two Matrons. He immediately recognized them as members of the Dretirop contingent. "Hey, professor Henell—"

" _The cycle must not be broken_."

" _The cycle must not be broken_."

 _Oh god damn it,_ he complained as he felt their biotics rousing. But neither of them was a Matriarch or a commando; so he easily dove right past them, placing a hand on the back of their necks each. "Oh, stuff it already."

They collapsed like a pair of puppets with their strings cut, and he hastened to grab a hold of them so they did not fall. As a result, their shapely bodies pressed up against him, looking as if they had embraced him if one were to take the situation in at a glance.

Which was exactly what Matriarch Benezia's pinched expression seemed to suggest she thought he was doing, as he noticed her standing at the other side of the hallway. Had she seen the whole thing, or had she just arrived? What was she even doing here? _Did she come to check up on Henell? I thought I had suppressed the alarms and spoofed the cameras._

The two asari bodies pressing against him entered his consciousness, and he rolled his eyes. _Of course._ If Henell wasn't the only one who had suddenly gone out of control, and he hadn't suppressed any other alerts, that meant she must have come to investigate it herself. Eyeing her up and down, he noted the lack of any weapons or protective gear. That didn't mean much, however.

 _Asari Matriarch,_ he reminded himself.

He licked his lips, raising a hand as much as the shapely asari matron pressing down on his arm allowed to greet the Matriarch. "Hey, it seems like they've had a little bit too much to drink..."

_Right, I'm not wearing any disguise or even a helmet._

Benezia wasn't buying it.

And just then Henell came running down the way he had just come, pincering him in between the two Matriarchs. Worst of all, the professor had torn off her night robe leaving her only wearing a purplish, see-through negligee of sorts. Combined with her panting and the bits of dirt from the potted plant, it wasn't a very good look.

"Uh, I can explain...?"

"Professor Henell...?" Benezia asked, clearly getting overwhelmed by the situation.

A chill ran down Emiya's spine and he _jumped_ , twisting in the air and kicking off the ceiling with both of the Matrons still in his arms as a biotic warp field ravaged the spot he had been standing in a moment before. As a _Pull & Throw_-combo followed, he kicked off the wall before he had even hit the ground to dodge that as well.

Landing him precisely next to Benezia, whose wide eyes found his as he turned to face her. A Matriarch she may be, but this was far beyond anything she had ever seen. He could see the metaphorical gears turning in her head, as she realized she needed to do something, as she was about to kick down into _fight_ -mode.

So he tossed both of the Matrons at her. "Here you go."

And then turned tail and sprinted away, leaving all four behind him.

"H-hey! Wait, you!"

But he ignored her, already thirty meters away and beyond any of their biotic range. Turning another corner and finally starting to mentally plot his path, he figured it was time to head for the hangar bay and make his exit. Or maybe cloak and hide until things had cooled down, only leaving then?

It would allow him to keep an eye on things—

Emiya halted, frowning.

The biotic fields behind him had intensified, and were remaining mostly _stationary_ in relation to him. _They're not coming after me?_

Rather, they were fighting...?

"That doesn't make any sense."

Not unless...

"It's a _berserker_ -state. Like the three batarians. I thought she was fine because she was lucid, but..."

Apparently he had been wrong.

Turning around, he scowled. "This is a fine mess I've managed to stir up, huh."

Returning to where he had left the four, he found Benezia and Henell engaged in a pitched battle with the two unconscious Matrons lying on the floor. The Matriarchs were evenly matched, even if Benezia was not attacking at all.

"Professor! What is the meaning of this!?" The Matriarchs were matching one another move by move, yet the difference in intent between the two was obvious. "Please calm yourself, Nirida!"

But the stalemate wouldn't last. Not if the other Dretirop asari were all affected in a similar manner by Torfan. The two on the ground might wake up any minute, or others might come to take out Benezia. _Or are they making trouble elsewhere on the cruiser?_

It didn't matter.

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

His bow materialized in his hand, as mentally he noted a double-instance had occurred. Dispelling the other bow to ensure the one in his hand was the only one, he raised it up and fingered the string.

Four hollow, blunt-tipped collapsible arrows were loosed in an instant.

Two hit the opposite walls, one the ceiling and one the floor, all flying past Benezia and aimed straight for Henell. Ricocheting off the hard surfaces, their flight path would have been impossible to follow all at once with just eyes. But for the Matriarchs who clad themselves in their biotic fields to sense everything around them, it wasn't a problem.

Henell swiped aside two of them, let a third fly past her harmlessly and caught the fourth, intent on orbital passing it right back at either him or Benezia. _As if!_

The arrows were all dispelled, creating a moment's opening as the professor lost what she had been focusing on. In that moment, Emiya had closed in and was binding the hands and legs of the two still-unconscious Matrons with projected zip-ties.

" _You...!_ "

"Eyes front," Emiya chided Benezia, "she's still trying to kill you."

"And whose fault is that...!?"

"Definitely not mine, I didn't even talk to those two before they decided to try and kill me too," he defended himself.

"Those two?" Benezia blinked, almost missing a Shockwave the other Matriarch launched their way.

"The short of it is this; there's something going on down in Torfan. Three batarians went crazy and ate each other alive before bashing their heads on rocks down there. The Dretirop contingent would have spent way longer down there than those batarians, so something is definitely wrong with them!"

She hesitated, not certain what to believe. "But there was nothing wrong with her before now...!"

"Right, I thought that too," Emiya said and looked at Henell who was panting now. "Professor, what was in that room, at the lowest floor? It wasn't Prothean in origin, so what was it?"

" _The cycle must not be broken._ "

Benezia flinched at that, taking a step back at the sheer coldness in Henell's voice.

"There you go, I've no idea what that's all about."

"...I see. Very well, let us take her down. Can you do to her what you did to those two?" Benezia asked, squaring up as her fighting spirit flared.

He nodded. "If I can get close enough. It's a bit difficult with how constrained we are here, but if I wear her defenses down and you give a push, I can do it."

"...I see that you have recovered your bow. Very well, let us do that!"

"Haaah!" He released sixteen hollow, blunt-tipped collapsible arrows in one long stream straight at Henell. She raised a biotic barrier and with a wave of her hand pushed for the arrows' mass to increase too much for them to continue flight.

But.

"Too bad—that was the feint!" He called out as he loosed one more arrow just as he sensed the field ebbing away.

Riding in the end of the effort, with her unable to raise her field quickly enough to stop it, she twisted out of the way. It barely missed her, assisted by the re-directing biotic field around her body. _Like that Justicar in the museum!_

Only a direct hit would go through.

Not that he needed one.

"Do not forget about me!" Benezia called, lashing out with a truly monstrous wave of biotic force as she cast a Stasis field on Henell, made only possible by his covering for her. He had intended on wearing Henell down, until she was too physically exhausted to continue, playing it safe. But with Benezia matching and stalemating her fellow Matriarch's biotics, there was no need for such a long stratagem.

Emiya dashed forward like a loosed arrow, crossing the distance in a heartbeat, just as the Stasis was broken from the inside by an equally staggering effort of biotic force.

Henell moved to swat him down, the fields building up as her eyes honed in on him. But it was too late; he kicked off the ceiling and vanished from her sight, appearing behind her. "Time for your nap, grandma."

The hand placed on the back of her neck made her jolt, her eyes shooting wide open, before she collapsed like the two Matrons had before her.

Emiya exhaled, catching the Matriarch gently before she hit the floor as he had dispelled his bow. Looking up, his eyes met with Benezia's and they both tensed minutely. Without a common foe...

The silence stretched on for a minute, until he spoke. "I've informed your security personnel to apprehend the Dretirop contingent. It seems like they were all affected."

The Matriarch blinked, before letting out a shuddering breath and raising a hand to her brow.

"Are the guests undisturbed?"

He nodded once. The Alliance personnel had not been disturbed.

"That is good. For now... I suppose I should thank you."

Emiya blinked, tilting his head at that. His honest at-a-loss reaction made his elder smile. "For Liara and Aethyta, I mean. I do not know what truly happened on Thessia, nor do I know whether it was your intention to safeguard or bring harm to them... But they have both come through alive, despite the great danger they were in. For that at least, I am grateful."

She inclined her head gently.

But he could only shake away that undeserved sentiment.

"Your thanks are misplaced—nearly all of the danger they were in was due to _my_ presence there. I should be apologizing, but I suspect neither of them would accept even that much from me."

"...I see that your appearance is not all that has changed since we last met, Saiga. Or do you go by another name these days? I have come to learn that name to have been a mere disguise."

"...Emiya is probably simplest," he replied.

She nodded, quietly muttering the name once under her breath to memorize it. "Emiya it is then. Do you mind taking another one? I am afraid carrying one unconscious Matron is my limit."

He nodded, hoisting up Henell over one shoulder as he walked towards the other two archaeologists. Crouching down and snaking an arm around the mid-section of another, he nodded his thanks as Benezia helped support the Matrons head until she was securely on his free shoulder.

With that done, she with obvious experience grabbed and hoisted up the last unconscious asari over her shoulders in a manner that spoke of having done so many times before. _That she must have been a commando at some point or another shouldn't come as a surprise..._

"...Where are we taking them?"

"You mean to tell me that you have subverted the communications and security systems of my vessel without anyone but I noticing... But you do not know where the brig is?" Benezia asked, curious amusement bleeding through her stern visage.

He hadn't been sure if she would really want to throw her recently-rescued VIPs behind bars, but... "The brig it is."

* * *

;

* * *

"Thank you, Shepard. I do not know what I would have done without you..." Shiala sighed, having finally managed to wrestle down the flailing asari.

Some meters away, Shepard shrugged.

"I didn't do much; I just saw someone suspicious. Sorry I can't be of more help. But you know, my leg..."

"No, no. I understand completely and I must apologize for this..."

"No, I mean it's fine. I get it, sorry to be in the way when something's obviously happening and—Oh, she's trying to go for your leg there."

Shiala grunted, flipping the struggling asari around as she got a proper arm-lock on her to pin her against the floor. All the while, biotics sparked as the two wrestling asari tried to leverage their own abilities to gain an advantage. The Matron who had been trying to sneak into the armory was older, but Shiala was in much better shape and had more experience with unarmed fighting. Biotic or otherwise.

"You know what, let me just grab one side of her and this should be a lot easier..." Shepard finally said after another half minute of struggling.

Before Shiala could refuse and assure her it was fine, the N7 had already crouched down to press one of her knees into the Matron's buttock, pinning her down with most of her body-weight against the muscle.

"Just grab her other arm and we can carry her."

The commando chef did not argue and soon they had the Matron in a handy carry. With both holding one of the arms pinned behind her back and grabbing onto a shoulder and leg each, the struggling asari could only wriggle helplessly as she was womanhandled. _Heh, it's almost like we're holding a battering ram._

"Thank you," Shiala said again, panting with exhaustion. "She just doesn't _stop_ , even when I try to leverage a joint-lock..."

"Maybe she's on something? Druggies tend to not feel any pain..." Shepard suggested.

"Perhaps... Nevertheless it is strange. Come, this way."

They carried the still combative Matron down the hallway, entering a lift and nodding at other asari who gave them a wide berth and curious looks as they passed by. Every step was more painful than the last as Shepard could feel her leg brace slipping and her broke bones grinding. Still, she managed to handle it the whole way until they made it to the brig.

Where she almost promptly dropped the asari from sheer surprise.

Emiya and Benezia turned as one to regard her.

A second passed, and then they stared at one another. And then back at her. All three hastily piecing together what was going on and trying to put together their stories.

"Good party?" He asked, his flippant humor getting a chortle out of Shepard.

She threw back an equally flippant thumbs up. " _Great_ food. You were right, Shiala is a hell of a cook."

"Huh?" The commando chef in question blinked, only now noticing Emiya standing next to her boss. "...Matriarch Benezia, that is—!"

"Yes, thank you Shiala. It is alright for the moment. Please place professor T'rehi in the holding cell and make sure to bind her arms before you administer the tranquilizer."

"Ah, uhh... Yes, of course, at once."

Another commando, fully suited and armed, came to take Shepard's place and she gladly gave it away as she exhaled. Cold sweat and nausea assailed her as she finally relaxed. Her leg really had not liked that.

Emiya frowned at her, worry apparent.

But as he realized Benezia was staring at him, he wiped his expression to a complete blank. _This is such a mess..._

"Then am I to take it that you are working for the Systems Alliance?" Benezia asked, breaking the silence.

"No," he immediately shot back.

"Yes," she shot immediately back.

They both paused, glaring at one another.

"No, I am not."

"Yes, he is."

"Ah, shall I leave you two to sort matters out for a moment?" Benezia queried with an amused smile.

"No, that's fine. Your huntresses can confirm that I've nothing to do with the Alliance. Shepard is just an old acquaintance, that's all."

"Nuh uh, ask _Anatha!_ He's with the Alliance Intelligence Agency—"

"Ignore her, she's had a trying time recently. I may have hit her on the head a few times too many," Emiya interrupted her, throwing an arm around her shoulders and a palm over her mouth to keep her from talking. She tried to wrest away the limb, but found it as solid as steel. So she bit him instead, but he didn't so much as twitch.

"I see. So he wishes to protect you by distancing himself from the Alliance to minimize the possible political fallout, while at the same time she wishes to protect you with the clout of the Systems Alliance," Benezia said, giving the two alternating glances as she spoke.

Emiya glanced at her, clearing his throat even as Shepard tried to grind her canines into his glove-covered hand to little effect.

"Then the only way forward in this situation... Is for you to silence all of us, is it not?" She was now smiling dangerously at the carefully stolid Emiya. "But you've no intention of harming any of us. Fufufufu... Now I see why matters at Thessia played out as they had. You are that kind of man, after all." The Matriarch smiled, cheer obvious as she raised a hand to her chin in a gesture of deep thought. " _Then_ , it would appear that I have excellent _blackmail material_ as far as the both of you are concerned."

_What._

"For as it happens, that while I do think that Emiya's actions have been rather extreme, I do not particularly believe him to be a threat, as such. Be it to Thessia, asarikind, humanity, the Alliance or the Citadel, strangely enough. Would I be correct in that assumption, Emiya?"

He exhaled, narrowing his eyes at the Matriarch. Finally, he sighed and removed his hand. Well, tried to anyhow as the canines had really dug in and even as he tried he couldn't pull his hand back until she opened her jaws. Wiping at her mouth, Shepard scowled at him. But he studiously ignored her glare as he nodded at Benezia.

"...What do you have in mind?"

"I have recently been courting a certain individual, probing him so to speak. But he has been rather reticent to accept my advances, in all their forms. A rather troubling affair, and one upon which's success _much_ may well rest," Benezia explained. "That is, until he approached me on the subject of locating and returning professor Nirida Henell. He—let us call him... Mister _A_ for simplicity's sake—has a keen interest in the past, including all things Prothean, you understand."

"So... He's like a big-shot with a weird hobby, of some kind?" Shepard asked.

"...I am afraid not. Though our interactions have only been shallow and short, I sense a deep desperation and desire in his actions. I am convinced that he believes the matter to be of the _greatest importance._ "

Emiya sighed, raising a hand to rub his brows.

"And a concern I believe our mutual friend here shares. As you said, ' _something huge_ ', no?" Benezia nodded to Emiya as she locked eyes with Shepard.

She nodded, frowning as she glanced at the locked up asari in the brig and then at Emiya.

"Yes. As you can see, there does seem to be something rather peculiar afoot. He assures me that he has done nothing to professor Henell et al., yet their behavior is most troubling."

"Okay... So, if Emiya helps you out and explains what he knows—" Shepard began, kicking at him with her good leg as he was about to interrupt her. She could tell he was about to give some stupid objection, thus made sure to scowl at him hard enough to shut him down. "Like I was saying, _Emiya helps you out_ and you promise not to blow his cover here. It's just your people who should know what's going on, right? You haven't told any of the Alliance brass?"

Benezia smiled, nodding once. "There is more value to information that is only known to a few, after all."

Shepard grinned. "That seems like a fair deal, eh?"

"Don't I get a say in this?" He groused, scowling with his arms crossed.

"Do you wish to refuse?" Benezia asked as the both of them raised a questioning brow in tandem at him.

"...No," he finally said, through a sulking frown.

"Great! Shake hands on it then," Shepard grinned.

Emiya and Benezia blinked at her, before looking at each other for a second. Then with a mutual shrug they extended a hand and shook on the matter.

"Matriarch Benezia," one of the commandos who had been keeping a wary eye on Emiya by the side approached. As the eldest asari present acknowledged her, she bowed lightly and continued. "All but one of the professors have been detained. But she is being chased down as we speak, it is only a matter of time now. Those who we have found are all unharmed and have been sedated and secured."

Benezia sighed and then after a second nodded. "Good. Find the last missing professor. Have the human guests become aware of anything unusual going on?"

The commando shook her head. "No Matriarch, they appear to have not."

Benezia nodded, turning to face Emiya and Shepard once more. "Apologies, I shall have to leave for a moment and end the night's official matters with the Alliance officers. If you would follow Y'lana, then we may convene to discuss matters properly once I have brought the festivities to an end."

"Huh...?" Shepard blinked, only to realize she hadn't meant to object. But as Benezia raised a brow at her, she cleared her throat. "I was uh... Hoping to eat a little bit more still."

Emiya scoffed beside her and she felt her face pink a touch.

"I see, then..." Benezia smiled widely, turning to look directly at Emiya. "I do believe I was promised a ' _more private dinner_ ' last we met? Shall we convene at my private quarters then?"

Shepard's eyes shot to Emiya, suspicion shining as she stared at him. Yet, he didn't back down, instead crossing his arms as he smirked. "That's fine—It's about time I got a swing at you. I just have two conditions."

"Oh? Name them then."

"Have the chef of that time— _Shiala_ , was it?—be present there as well." He grinned, revealing teeth as she realized he had been waiting for this. "I've no intention of cooking if my opponent won't be there to witness it."

Benezia returned a smile just as toothy and flaring with fighting spirit. "Oh my. Of course, of course. And the second thing?"

"That rifle," he said pointing at the commando who blinked at being singled out. "I'll need to borrow it."

"Unexpected, but why not. _Y'lana_."

The asari grimaced, but at the behest of her Matriarch obeyed.

"Good. Prepare to be blown away, because I'm going to go all out on this," Emiya proclaimed, his confident smirk never so much as having wavered

* * *

;

* * *

War is the essence of cooking.

The rifle he had procured lay in a hundred and thirty-six pieces before him on the table he had requested be brought in. He would need it if he wished to match up to Shiala's biotic cooking, much less surpass it. Preparation and planning are the key to success in all things.

Including making food.

Dipping a finger in the spice-bowl filled with freshly ground herbs and roots, he nodded at the taste. It was a close enough approximation that he could use it. By the chair on the other side of the table, Shepard was curiously looking by while his _enemy_ sat with her arms crossed. The Matron was trying not to stare, as she was noticeably uncomfortable with his presence. _Good, that means I already have the advantage._

"Did you use your fabricator to make all of that just now?" Shepard asked, staring at the wide array of pans, pots, cutting boards, knives and many, many other instruments between them on the table.

He nodded. "Of course. The asari believe they have no need for these things, after all."

Shiala twitched at that comment. She must have heard him, but did not know what he meant. That was fine.

Seduction is the essence of cooking. _Mystery_ was the first step to raising interest.

He had already determined how to approach this battle long before now. His first true biotic cooking experience had been extremely enlightening, both in the sense of revealing the true depths of culinary mastery of the rest of the galaxy, and in that it had revealed to him the weakness of the asari palate.

They prized presentation, performance and promptness.

How the meal looked; how it had been prepared and how long it took, in other words.

Cooking for them was as much a show as it was about the meal itself. It was somewhat similar back on Earth. Much of gourmet cooking was merely a matter of presentation and performance, as well; it was why high level cooking had been and still was such a popular subject on television and extranet vids.

But where he could match Shiala on the first two parts, he had no way of matching her in promptness. Without biotics of his own, it was impossible to prepare food as quickly as she could. At least, without his _pagoda_.

But he did not have one, and constructing one would take too long.

Which was exactly what he had realized to be the weakness in asari cuisine. _Promptness._ Cooking is seduction; it is the slow dance where the victim is lulled into a moment of weakness and then taken down by the powerful and concentrated thrust. Cooking is war; appearances had to be deceiving and one's plans had to be carefully safeguarded to ensure that a critical impact was realized at the optimal moment.

He checked his knives.

Razor sharp.

 _Perfect._ Now, all that remained was to await Benezia's arrival and the battle could begin. _Speak of the devil..._

"Apologies for—oh my..." The Matriarch paused as she beheld the change to the room. "It would appear you have everything ready, then."

"Yes. Go ahead, sit down. Do any of you wish for something to drink before I start?"

Once that was out of the way and everyone was seated, Emiya smirked. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, focusing on his heartbeat. _It's time._

"Do you mind if we begin discussing while you prepare the food? Without biotics it will take quite a bit longer to prepare, I am aware," Benezia asked.

There was just a _touch_ of patronizing. _Matronizing...?_

"That's fine, I don't mind." _If you can, that is._

He wasn't going to leave them with enough presence of mind for anything like that.

The apron he had prepared was raised from below the table and he put it on with a flourish, creating a contrast with the black diamene weave he wore beneath it. He had dispelled the arm extensions; he needed his hands bare and unhindered for this. He had noted that Shepard and Shiala had both been eyeing his arms for a while now, more and less openly, obviously having noticed his seriousness. _As expected of a veteran chef; she doesn't miss a thing._

The pans were already heated, the ingredients were all in place, the tools were all checked and prepared. His plan had been chosen; this battle had already been won before it had begun. He remembered what Benezia had eaten during the last time and had made sure to taste it all, and just now he had made sure to check her usual fare and favorites.

She wouldn't be a problem; he already had a grasp of her palate.

Shiala would appreciate anything he made, thus personal taste was irrelevant. She was an _expert_ ; a _pro_. There was no room for personal bias in their world.

Thus, it was Shepard who remained as the wildcard in this battle.

He didn't know what she liked, as she had mostly been eating military rations as far as he could tell for the past few years. And there hadn't been anything that stood out from his memories back in boot camp, either. Barcelona had been the only opportunity he had had to probe at her tastes, but he hadn't been gather intel intently back then, thus his memories weren't of any use.

Therefore there weren't any hints of her personal tastes or palate anywhere he could find.

But that was fine; the fog of war was not something he would balk before. There would always be friction between ideals and reality; between plans and realization.

He could only confront that unknown with his greatest effort!

Grabbing the _grysh_ -root, he raised it to eye-level.

It was an onion-like root vegetable, both in appearance and in taste. In his other hand he grasped a sharp knife, intent on peeling the thing. Judging the distance and dimensions of the _grysh_ , he spread his fingers slightly around the exterior, feeling out the texture of the dry surface.

The knife flashed.

A backhand sweep with the knife sent the cleanly removed peel flying into the designated trash bin by the side.

"Huh!?"

None of them had seen how it had been done; the benefits of truly superhuman ability. In this company, there was no reason to hold back either. And this wasn't _anything_ yet; if he could not match up in promptness, then his performance and presentation would have to compensate.

Emiya tossed the _grysh_ into the air and they gasped as their eyes followed it up. In the same instance his other hand swiped at the animal fat he had chosen for his frying. Slicing a long, thin peel of it with the knife, it was sent it flying straight into the hot pan.

The loud sizzling made three pairs of eyes swivel back down from the _grysh_ still in the air, a mere second before it fell right into the pan and into the melting fat. They must have expected the whole _grysh_ to bounce off, to cause the melting fat to be sent flying everywhere by the whole root vegetable's impact.

However...

It fell apart on contact, into perfectly proportioned slices. He had already cut it.

— _Sight._

"What—!"

"When did he...!?"

He was going to _sauté_ the _grysh_ and some other vegetables for starters. But even if the explosive heat and rapid movements would be enough to keep most entertained for the duration, he wasn't satisfied with that. No, he needed to _blow them all away_ with his performance if he wanted to surpass the asari.

Which meant he needed to up his game from here on forward with every step!

More flair! Faster! More precisely and with that dance-like rhythm to his movements! _Pay attention to the sounds, build a symphony out of it and blend it all together!_

He had to make music.

— _Sound._

As he prepared the ' _duck_ ', he spared a glance at the three. _It should be about now..._

Shiala was the first; her throat contracted as she swallowed some of the excess saliva building up in her mouth. The smell was starting to waft about, unlike in biotic cooking where the foodstuff was carefully contained in mass effect fields. He smirked for just a moment, and then his full attention was back to his cooking.

— _Scent._

The essence of cooking lies in seduction, and that was the root of greatest mistake asari made.

For what is seduction, but playing up on someone's anticipation and imagination? Of tempting and teasing them? And with biotic cooking, was the promptness not the greatest possible hindrance to that? For all that they romanticized seduction and wrote masterpieces on loves that took decades to bloom, they had no patience for the finer part of _build up_ when it came to cooking, he had observed.

Perhaps once upon a time... But today when their love was characterized by how fleeting and transient their partners were, it was no wonder the asari had come to value promptness. The asari courted others with that difference in lifespan and ideology in mind. But to woo the asari it was important to realize the opposite was true, something he judged they must have started to collectively forget already.

Certainly they could build up and create a wondrous play of transient tastes with their samples and bite-sized offerings...

But why make an affair out gentle caresses and kisses, when one could go for something _headier_ and more fulfilling? Why dance and twirl around, when instead one could offer something more solid and unyielding. Something that would sweep them off their feet, and give them no reprieve as it overwhelmed them fully.

They already wanted it.

Which meant he _wasn't_ going to give it to them. Not just yet. After all, it was time for the _pièce de résistance_ of his performance.

The rifle had been procured for just this. Optimally, he would have had more time to prepare and would have let the meat slowly cook for hours at a low heat. Promptness was all well and good, but sometimes taking things slow was necessary for getting _all_ the flavor out of an ingredient.

Bones, marrow and cartilage in particular had such a _rich_ taste, if one only knew how to extract it with the necessary patience and deliberation. Fish heads, pork hoofs and horns alike, all had something to offer as well, yet few knew how to seduce forth those essences.

Emiya scoffed.

He knew that to compete he needed time, yet he was _cheating_ again. But this dinner had come up on such short notice, so he had to make do. Besides he only needed a hint of that richness for now.

The rifle had been turned into a small warp field engine, creating rapidly shifting mass lightening and heavening fields in alternation, mimicking the effects of slower cooking methods in breaking down some of the harder ingredients. It wasn't perfect, but it was close enough.

Which left only the final preparation.

He brought out the last pan and put the meat in. The searing and crackling was like a bolt of lighting from a clear sky after he had let the symphony of sounds settle down to let them rest. But it was time for the _crescendo._

Taking out the bottle he had procured from Benezia's personal collection, he gave a wry smile as both of the asari immediately recognized it. He could see the confusion on their faces, after all what place had such a strong alcoholic beverage here with an open flame?

_How naïve...!_

It was time for the flambéing.

A seemingly careless swipe sent a long rivulet of the pink liquid flying into the pan before three pairs of expectant and confused eyes. And then the whirl of fire that almost reached the ceiling sent them reeling back, almost making them fall off their chairs in their shock.

The temperature in the room rose in blazing waves, leaving all four flushed and sweating as he continued.

— _Light and heat._

And before he knew it, it was done. The flames receded, leaving them all just a little bit colder and dazed by its passing. Shiala and Shepard had been wearing long sleeves, but Benezia's bare arms shivered just a touch at the perceived chill.

Just in time for the presentation to be finished.

He set the plates, carefully placing each piece and morsel according to an arcane logic of aesthetics that only those who could lose themselves to the art of cooking could comprehend. And then with a flourish and flick of his wrist everything was in place before the three breathless spectators.

What did it matter if he could not prepare a meal with equal promptness, if he could instead vanish away their senses of time and bedazzle them with his performance?

" _Bon appétit_ , ladies."

There was an absolute silence as he cut off the last of the heat and set aside the pans.

Finally, someone reacted.

" _Holy shit_ , Emiya."

"Language, Shepard," he chastised her as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the far wall. "And do eat; food is made to be eaten, after all."

That last bit had been directed at Shiala who had been turning around her plate and taking in the thing before her with a scowl that was all too familiar to him. _Go on... Taste it then._

He hadn't been known as the undefeated iron chef of the underground cuisine scene for three years for nothing after all.

The first to dig in was Benezia. Carried by a millennium of experience, she must have been confident in her palate's refinement regardless of the show he had put on.

— _Flavor._

And so she was the first to lose; this meal had been tailor-made to defeat her. Cooking is war, and he had already researched her thoroughly. Her eyes shot wide, and a second later her throat bobbed as she swallowed, raising a lone hand to cover her mouth and the expression she was involuntarily making.

The Matriarch looked up and their eyes met.

He smirked. _It's my victory._

She looked away and promptly began to savor the meal with the full attention it deserved, gracefully ignoring his petty posturing. He had to chuckle quietly at that; he had gotten worked up again, hadn't he? Next to her, Shiala and Shepard had already caught up and were long lost to the flavors overwhelming their transient existences.

It had only taken four bites, but finally Shiala grunted. She stared up at him with _almost_ resentful eyes as he met her gaze down the length of his nose, and they both knew she had been defeated.

As for Shepard—

"This is really good! I knew you were good, but... Just _wow!_ " She had obviously enjoyed it, seeing as how...?

"Is there any more? I could go for another... Maybe a third helping, too?"

Seeing as how it was already all gone...?

" _Huh,_ " Emiya blinked as he realized he might be staring down defeat already. Cooking is war, and he hadn't accounted for another glutton of _that_ level. Yet, he realized his error immediately now. Shepard was a soldier, and soldiers all ate like horses.

 _Kuh, what an amateurish mistake. I've still a long way to go._ With that, he kicked off the wall and returned to the table. He had a belly to fill, after all.

Yet somehow he felt like he was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That was a thing. 
> 
> Also, Benezia is a good girl! 
> 
> Thanks to Olive Birdy, PseudoSteak and Dumdum for proofreading.


	33. Winnowing Wail

Emiya sighed quietly.

They were all seated now as all the plates and pots had been well polished off and set aside to clear the table. With each woman opposite him having sated themselves and settled down for the _main course_ of the meeting as it were, it was time for the talks to begin.

Only Benezia and Shepard remained in the room with him, Shiala having left after a subtle gesture from the elder earlier. Whether her intent was to remain discreet, or to only allow him to notice for whatever reason, he didn't know. Regardless, he still took note as the commando left the room, joining the six others standing within a stone's throw of Benezia's quarters. He would like to think that he was just overthinking everything, but the fact was that _this_ was how the Matriarchs fought their battles.

With minute gestures, veiled smiles, and open arms. With subtleties too small for all but the subconscious to notice, piling perceptions and paradigms around which the conscious mind would be forced to run ragged around.

He took a sip of water from the glass before him, as much to wet his throat as to keep himself from frowning, as he consciously kept himself from crossing his arms. He didn't want to close off his body language, even if the old belligerent comments brewed just below the surface at a simmer. _Overt gestures will only be thrown right back at me; close off and remain as blank as possible._

His last meeting with Benezia was still in his mind. She had easily led him around by the nose, not giving him a single chance to regain his balance. This time he had come slightly better prepared, but he had no idea whether it would be enough. But he would just have to try.

Especially since Shepard had set this whole thing up. Having shaken hands on it, he felt the need to go through in more than just the motions, now.

Cooking had helped distract himself and relax a little before it had begun, which was why he had jumped at the opportunity to do so—on top of it being message back to the Matriarch, saying that this time would not go the same as the last. It helped him shift gears to a less confrontational but still confident tack, which should help. But ultimately this was still an extremely fluid situation. It could still so very easily go _anywhere_ from here.

"So, how about you start?" Shepard began as she looked at him, glancing at Benezia immediately after.

She was passing the ball to his court; giving him the opening, putting the onus on Benezia to give it away; to let him define the discussion at the root. Did she do it without too much thought behind it as a mere icebreaker, or was it a calculated move to ease him into this situation? She already knew he wasn't the most open of people—had to be fully aware of her own unique position in that regard, that he was unusually prone to answering her questions.

Emiya grimaced, only now really giving that fact—which he had stubbornly tried to avoid thinking about—conscious thought for the first time.

That he was unusually _soft_ on Shepard.

Her face scrunched up at his expression, thinking that it was a reaction at her suggestion when it was aimed at himself more than anyone else. Try as he might, he couldn't deny that Shepard was a great, big lever to him. And the wily asari elder had said that she knew as much, already.

"But of course. Please," she said, politely acquiescing.

 _Blackmail material,_ he thought anew, reminding himself.

Which meant he had to think through what he said here. Every word would be weighed and judged. Benezia was a Matriarch; a respected asari elder with great political and social power, standing preeminent even among the ranks of Matriarchs. If he was pulled in too deep into her sphere of influence he had little doubt that he would sooner or later be trapped. Even he had his handles. Especially he. And this political animal before him would undoubtedly find all the buttons to press to make him dance to her tune once she figured him out.

Benezia must have already realized that she had minimal chances in a direct confrontation, even with all who lay subordinate to her. Which was why he had been so flippantly confident with her, why he had been hoping to keep it like that. As long as it remained strictly hostile, that disparity in their powers would not change.

Which was also why she would not remain content to keep it as such, he intuited.

The first time they had met, he had taken out a batarian spec-ops starship with apparent ease, despite never having so much as engaged with them directly. He even had a relatively reliable and trustworthy eye-witness in the form of Hoana who would swear that he had never left her side. Yet something must have taken out the batarians and only he had been present at the time.

Which on its own it wouldn't have been enough.

But following Thessia, and now Torfan? And him having infiltrated her cruiser with such ease? So she must already know that Dretirop had been his work. Know that there was no meaning in trying to directly oppose him.

Which meant she wouldn't. And that made him nervous.

He thought back to Baliya, feeling a pang of something as he did, remembering Henell's words distantly. He had approached the Curator for a multitude of reasons—one among many having been her status as a Matriarch, and one that was known to be among the least sociable. He figured that if he wanted to figure out how shrewd and sagacious an asari elder truly was, then he would be best served trying it out with someone who engaged in as few social games and political jockeying as possible. Someone who did not go out of their way to master the skills of manipulation and social subterfuge that their race was so well known for.

Baliya Haphia had practically been a hermit; perfect in that regard.

And yet he was certain that the lazy and absent-minded professor had been able to see through him, clear as glass within days of their first meeting. If Baliya who spoke with less than a dozen people on an average month could do that in days...

What could Matriarch Benezia do?

Emiya wasn't sure how much of her spiel regarding some mysterious individual she had been trying to court he believed. But for now, he would play along. Especially since Shepard had already intervened and injected herself into this mess. Flipping the board and throwing the rules aside only worked when you didn't care about what lay on that table. On what might be broken in the aftermath.

He needed to focus; as much for his own sake as for Shepard's.

For starters unlike before, he might not be able to brush off certain questions, given that he was seated with not just one but two women who could talk circles around him. _I've been in cross-fire ambushes less dire than this..._

Shepard was the core of the problem, he knew. Not knowing how to act around her, she kept getting past his expectations and he just couldn't bring himself to brusquely brush her off. He needed to stop letting himself get caught up in her pace. _I lower my guard around her far too easily..._

"To be honest," he finally began, with a shrug at the silence that had seemed to stretch a tad bit long. "I don't even know where to begin."

There was simply too much going on.

He barely had a handle on it himself, and now they wanted him to explain everything? Oh, certainly only the desire to share information regarding the situation with Henell had been verbalized. But he could see the hunger in their eyes; see the gears turning as they both considered how to pull more out of him. Of the two, he wasn't sure who he worried more about right now.

Emiya almost sighed again at just the thought.

"I believe that in such matters, _the beginning_ is often the best place to start at," Benezia advised, and he had to snort. "If for no other reason then to help you speak matters in order for our clarity's sake."

He scoffed, crossing his arms as he shook his head. _Right, four and a half billion years ago the Moon Cell came into existence and then..._

"No, that would just take too long," he said instead with another shake of his head. "So let's just keep it simple. At the conclusion of my time in the Systems Alliance Navy, I was posted on Mars for further training. To make a long story short, I headed for the south pole and made for the Prothean ruins there. Having looked around at the known ruins for a while, I realized that it was not what I had been looking for, and looked _deeper_. Which is how I found the second ruins, buried far beneath the much more well-known ruins that had already been found."

Both Benezia and Shepard paused at that, if for entirely different reasons. He could see the various questions in their eyes, buzzing about and struggling to escape through their lips.

"You discovered a Prothean ruin, all by yourself?"

"Wait, wait... You found the ruin in _one day?_ "

The Matriarch had been intent on drilling Emiya for further details, only to pause and glance at Shepard again, before staring at him with obvious disbelief. "A mere day...?"

She licked her lips, as he shrugged.

"I've a knack for getting into places I'm not supposed to," he said with some amusement. "I thought that had already been established."

He had managed to sneak past the Alliance invasion and onboard the Dreyn N'var without too much trouble, hadn't he? Of course, that had mostly been due to the cloaking belt he had pilfered from the salarians. He still hadn't figured any reliable means of countering that, even with a belt of his own to mess around with.

"So, then you..."

"But how did—"

They obviously wanted to continue questioning him, but he pushed on. Forging ahead resolutely, he spoke over them. " _Anyhow_. I poked around for a while, and I explored until I hit the bottom. Any guesses as to what I found there?"

Shepard blinked, leaning back with a thoughtful look as she gave it serious thought, the previous questions already filed away for a later time. But it appeared that Benezia was quite well-informed, as she quickly replied. "The Prothean firearm that was analyzed in Serrice, which you have since recovered."

He blinked, considering for a moment that last bit she had asked. Was she trying to confirm something? Looking inwardly, he realized that he had in fact dispelled the gun, noting the lack of any extant instances. _When did I do that...?_ He knew he had left it behind, but somewhere during that hectic day it must have been unraveled. _Hmm, probably an effect of my spiritual core being destabilized._

It didn't matter, thus he nodded as he continued. " _That_ , and a room full of long-dead yet remarkably well-preserved Protheans. Or what I think are Protheans, anyhow."

Benezia's eyes widened and for a moment she seemed to have gone utterly still, before she shook herself and lowered her gaze. A dozen thoughts running through her mind, as she tried to parse the things she could bring herself to believe in all that he had said just now.

Well, it didn't particularly matter, since Shepard seemed to believe him.

"And you didn't think to tell anyone about this...?" Shepard questioned, exasperation apparent as she leaned back.

"I've told a few people since. But, well... That's what I had joined the University of Serrice for; to meet with Nirida Henell, So that I could ask someone who might know what it was all about, and what to do about it. Besides, at the moment I had _other_ problems to deal with."

"Right... ' _brain problems',_ " she said while rolling her eyes, causing the Matriarch next to her to look at them with clear confusion.

 _The STG has kept a tight grip on that information if she wasn't aware of my operation, huh. But wait... Miranda knew?_ How come the Matriarch was not aware of the matter if Miranda did? That human supremacist organization had access to that information, when the Matriarchs who were far less antagonistic towards the Citadel did not? Were the salarians hiding the matter from their own _allies_?

_Focus. Worry about the salarians some other time._

Speaking as much to himself as to the others, he continued. "The important part is this; they had locked themselves in there. In the deepest, most tightly-locked hole in the ground they could make."

Benezia frowned, her eyes locking onto him again.

"Locked themselves in? What do you mean?"

"The doors on that chamber could have taken a hundred shots from any mass accelerator you could have possibly dragged all the way down there. They had no intention of letting anyone in," he clarified and then added with emphasis, "or _out_ of there."

"Like those asari we've now thrown in the brig? You think someone locked them up?" Shepard asked, brows furrowed.

"Maybe. But I don't think so. There were no obvious restraints on any of them, and they were all seated on the ground in large circles. Besides, it was locked from the inside. Also... they had all shot themselves in the head. That's where I got the gun."

That left the two sitting opposite him in a state of silent shock.

"That is... Certainly unusual... But, I do not quite understand how it relates to what has happened here at Torfan." Benezia pursed her lips, drawing a tight line.

He glanced at her, noting that he was getting there with his eyes. "During the Alliance invasion, three batarians who had been patrolling were left stranded down at the lowest levels of the compound, when the elevator ceased functioning. They were only discovered hours later when an Alliance investigation team stumbled down on their corpses; they had turned on each other and killed themselves." He paused again, inhaling slowly to let them have some time to consider what he had said. "That place was where the Dretirop contingent had been working, during their captivity here. They had been down there, every day, for hours on end."

"... _Oh_." Benezia voiced her horrified surprise, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

Meanwhile, Shepard was frowning.

"Additionally... There's a... _gut feeling_ I have about those two places. They're somehow related, even if I can't quite place the connection."

He didn't know how to explain something he didn't know himself completely either. He was fairly certain that it was not strictly mundane, but nothing he really knew of in mystical seemed to match.

Twisted, spreading shadows and ancient malice, was all he could call it for now.

"...I see," Benezia replied with a considering nod even though she still appeared somewhat skeptical.

"Did they lock themselves in to protect themselves on Mars, only to turn on each other like those three batarians, if they shot each other?"

Emiya shook his head at Shepard's question. "No, that probably wasn't it. It seemed too..."

He struggled for words, frowning and looking away as he recalled that chamber on Mars. Sitting in concentric, regular rings, all facing inwards, hundreds of Protheans. They had seemed at peace. Serene. Accepting of their end, somehow. Yet... _Valiant. Adamant. Victorious in death._

"No, I think they did it themselves _before_ it happened. On purpose. I think they knew about whatever it was that affected those batarians—and professor Henell and her colleagues—and decided to end things on their own terms before it came to that."

That seemed in line with what he remembered.

Perhaps it was time to re-visit the Prothean gun again and see if he could piece together that jumbled mess better now? Not that his grasp of the Prothean logos had particularly improved since. He looked up and took in their reactions.

Benezia had gone very silent, all of a sudden. _She knows something,_ he realized. Clearing her throat as she noticed his looking, the Matriarch spoke up.

"Do you know when this event—this, _mass suicide_ —took place?"

A lone eyebrow rose at this question. It was why he had handed over the Prothean gun to Baliya and Liara, so of course he didn't know. But _she_ knew. She must know if Henell had been already informed of it. It was likely it had been Benezia who had told Henell, even. _It's related to what Henell said, about how that information was enough to utterly ruin Baliya._

But now she was probing whether _he_ knew. Why? Did she suspect he had done it on purpose, to undermine Baliya, or even... _No matter. Turn it back around._

"No. But your daughter would know. She was there after all, wasn't she?"

"Daughter...?" Shepard blinked, turning to stare at Benezia as pieces began to fall in place in her head. He had to internally wince at the look in her eyes; no doubt it was in all the wrong ways, but falling into place nonetheless.

"...She was, yes," Benezia said, lips tight as she stared at him. Considering. Weighing. Had he set her up for whatever it was that Henell had talked about? She must have wondered, given his reputation. It wasn't as if he hadn't ruined hundreds of people over the years in his guise as Redhax.

But he had no reassurances or denials to give her.

"So I'm guessing they found something they shouldn't have, huh. Let's hear it, then."

If she was annoyed by his attitude, it did not show as she cleared her throat and glanced at Shepard. "...Very well. It is somewhat a difficult matter to discuss, given certain more... _delicate_ aspects of asari culture. But I am certain that neither of you two will needlessly spread what is spoken at this table, yes?"

It was phrased as a request, but the edge underlining her words was obvious to both.

Shepard frowned, glancing at Emiya who kept strong poker-face to hide the fact that he had no idea what Benezia was talking about. But he supposed he was about to find out why Liara had originally reacted so violently to his thoughts, back on Thessia.

"No promises," he said with finality as Shepard nodded in agreement.

If she chose to refuse here, then while all discussion wouldn't come to a crashing close it would mean that the burgeoning trust between them would end here. He had already shared quite a bit, having given the asari a strong lead to follow, and he could well argue that he had upheld his side of the bargain, far more than he would have been normally willing to divulge. So much so, that he had no intention of agreeing to any terms. Of course, if she could accept his refusal to any conditions, then they certainly still had much to discuss.

Emiya was certain that the wily old woman before him could read him that well. _Better to be too cautious and risk offense, than get myself ensnared into something troublesome._

"...Well, that is fine. It is a secret you have already begun to become aware of—more or less. I am certain it would only be a matter of time regardless," she said with a shrug, before continuing. "What do you know of _Ardat Yakshi_?"

"Ardat Yakshi?" Shepard repeated the strange word, frowning as her translator failed to interpret it at all. "What's that?"

Emiya's eyes narrowed, as he recalled that word. The Justicar in the Museum of Serrice had spoken it and in the aftermath he had looked it up. It had taken some time, but he had managed to roughly translate the old asari dialect and concluded it to mean ' _demon of the night winds_ '.

And there had been one other word, one he had only managed to find after poring over every asari text he could get his hands on relevant to the first words' results.

" _Kshirae_ , is it...?"

Stemming from the same root as the ' _night wind_ ' in Ardat Yakshi, the state of _kshirae_ was to be enthralled, ensorcelled and enamored with something to the exclusion of everything else. To be ' _lunatically in love with the night winds_ ' in a sense. At times a manic love that transcended all, at others a state of rampant, murderous insanity. It was a common plot device in asari literature and theater until some two thousand years ago, but had since been effectively phased out of their culture, both as a term and as a concept.

The only instance of the word he had found in digital storage had been in a dry text discussing ancient asari culture and storytelling, having had to check through library records to find scanned pages of the actual old manuscripts for reference separately.

"...You are certainly knowledgeable," Benezia bemoaned with a sigh before she continued, "it would seem that I was right after all, to take you into my confidence in this matter."

"Huh? What now?"

Emiya turned to Shepard, raising a lone hand in a gesture to quiet her down so he could explain. "Ardat Yakshi are asari boogeymen, to put it simply. Think something like a malevolent succubus-vampire, from human popular culture."

"Oh," she blinked, before frowning. " _Oh._ But they're real...?" He nodded. "And they can control people?" He nodded again. "...And you've already run into one, _huh...?_ "

Somehow he felt worried about nodding carelessly to that last part, given the measuring look he was receiving. So he looked away and cleared his throat instead. "I may have run into someone like that, but it wasn't anything on the level that some of the myths would suggest. It seems more like a difficult genetic condition than anything else. Much like erythropoietic protoporphyria may have once led people to believe in the existence of sun-fearing undead monsters in the night."

Or well, attempt to rationalize them away, after the fact.

Dead Apostles and various monsters still had roamed the nights in his time, even as mystery had long been waning from his world, though in this timeline he hadn't seen any signs of such creatures existing. At least, not anymore. Similarly, it was of course entirely possible that once upon a time, the Ardat Yakshi had been everything the legends and folklore had made them out to be, just as once upon a time on Earth great monsters and heroes had walked the land.

"Tyra T'Sanis, yes. She is particularly strongly affected by that condition, but not enough to truly be called an Ardat Yakshi," Benezia continued, smiling just a little at their byplay. "Or so we have held for two thousand years. For millennia, we have held to a definition of a 'true' Ardat Yakshi, and by that strict definition there exist only three cases today."

Emiya narrowed his eyes. _If they know that much, then how much a threat could they be?_

Even _he_ could only do so much alone. Unless...

"Just three?" Shepard questioned, obviously having similar doubts.

The Matriarch looked at Shepard and said, "You are right in that regard. Irrespective of how powerful an individual is, if they work alone then they can only accomplish so much." Somehow even though she wasn't looking at him, he felt like she was singling him out there. "Especially since two of the three I mentioned remain under constant watch in exile, and are of no harm to the galaxy."

"So... Why? What is the problem?"

"Yes, well. I shall continue," Benezia nodded, not arguing as she had not quite finished yet. "It ties into a set of particularly pernicious beliefs that still remain among some asari. The belief in a time when asari and Prothean walked alongside each other, long ago."

"Ah. The seventh age." Emiya nodded. Suddenly the tension inherent in the subject started to become clear to him. Why Liara, Baliya and Henell had all reacted they ways they had. Noticing the confusion on Shepard's face, he turned to give a quick explanation for her benefit. "Mainstream archaeology states that all Protheans vanished fifty thousand years ago, with all physical evidence until now supporting that. But some hold that remnants of the Protheans still remained after that point, for thousands of years even. It's a rarely— _if very hotly_ —debated topic, and heavily frowned upon in the official circles."

The soldier nodded, not entirely sure she understood why it would matter, but keeping her mouth shut and listening quietly regardless.

"Yes, that is right. The seventh age has long been held up as a... _beacon_ of sorts, for certain ideologies and beliefs. Some of these... _tales_ hold the Protheans as gods to the asari; protectors and teachers, who mysteriously disappeared. Others hold that the Protheans upraised the fledgling asari and made them into demons and gods among other races. That asari were made to serve the Protheans directly, as warriors, advisers and even lovers. And... that the Prothean disappearance was caused _by_ those asari in an uprising or internal schism."

Emiya blinked; all of this was news to him.

But if the tales of what kshirae could do were true, then perhaps those ideas were not so outlandish as it might have initially seemed. The crux of the matter was...

"So can an Ardat Yakshi _kshirae_ someone into doing things like that? To kill each other and themselves?" He asked.

"...Yes."

He inhaled slowly, raising a hand to rub his brow. _Great..._

Mind control, hypnosis, geas and methods of coercion magical and mundane. He had had some experience with things like that both in life and after death, meaning that he didn't find the idea quite so outrageous as Shepard seemed to.

But knowing that there was someone running around with the ability to mind control people with such ease and potency was disquieting to say the least. At least in his time, there had been institutions that sought to control and curb such events—incidentally if for no other reason—protecting innocent bystanders. _What was that about the Ardat Yakshi being alone...? With this, can't someone like that have entire armies on her side?_

"Well, at least that narrows the suspect down to just one then," Shepard concluded.

He frowned, but it was Benezia who answered.

"No; I suspect something has changed. He— _Mister A—_ I believe would not be so drawn to action if it were merely a lone Ardat Yakshi. I believe there is something more at work. After all... Nirida Henell is very nearly an Ardat Yakshi herself as well," Benezia said, with heavy intent seeping into her words.

Shepard blinked. "You think the professor you both came looking to rescue was the one behind all of this?"

He and the Matriarch both considered that.

"There is a precedent for it. After parting ways with _Mister A_ I investigated a few leads into his past, an there was a similar event." Benezia paused, turning to regard Emiya directly. "You spoke of an object that was on Torfan, as such am I correct in assuming that professor Henell lost herself only after you mentioned it?"

He nodded.

That had seemed to be the trigger.

The Matriarch sighed and nodded as well. "Based on what I was able to gather of the event in _Mister A's_ past, I believe that we are dealing with a relic of some kind, that acts similarly to an Ardat Yakshi, or is perhaps able to awake latent potential in those asari who are afflicted by the condition."

Emiya inhaled, considering it.

There just wasn't enough information. They would need to find the object or then manage to communicate with one of the affected asari if they wanted to find out more.

Focusing on the comms during the lull in the conversation, he belatedly realized that it seemed as if there had been some kind of trouble down at the installation as well. Some of the batarian prisoners had been getting rowdy, but the situation had been contained by the Alliance personnel without too much trouble since they were already being held prisoner.

"What about the records down on Torfan? Didn't you manage to recover most of their computers?" Shepard asked. "If they were digging there, they must have kept some records right?"

He looked up, broken out of his thoughts and meeting eyes with Shepard. "There wasn't anything really useful there. Everything was being kept separate, on a pretty strict _need to know_ -basis. Much like the personnel handling the captives and mining operation didn't know that the whole operation was funded by Khar'shan, neither did the command center personnel know that—"

"Wait a minute!" Shepard shouted, standing up so quickly that the chair shot from beneath her. "Khar'shan?! You're saying this whole operation was under the Batarian Hegemony's orders?"

He looked at her, blinking twice. "Yes?"

"Do you have, you have proof, _right?_ You're not just saying that off of a gut-feeling, right?" She pressed.

Frowning, he nodded. Well, there wasn't anything per se here that would incriminate Khar'shan, but the credits from the starship on Dretirop had undoubtedly come from the batarian homeworld. He had checked some of the other funds on the base, and he had been able to find more of the same cash trails that matched up to the ones he had already identified.

A few credits were one thing, but when they were receiving millions of credits every month from Khar'shan?

"Obviously."

"Emiya, we've been trying to find proof for, for years now! Where did you—" Shepard paused, finally realizing in whose company they were right now.

Benezia smiled lightly, inclining her head sideways a little as if indicating that she had heard nothing or at the very least understood little of what she might have heard just now.

Shepard pulled back the chair, sitting down as she cleared her throat. "We'll talk about this _later_."

He didn't nod, but he figured he could at least hear her out later.

"There is one more thing... What was that they were saying? Henell and the others, I mean... Something about a cycle?" Benezia asked, breaking the silence that had just begun to stretch out.

"Hmm?" Emiya frowned. He hadn't given the apparent nonsense much thought. After all... "It could mean anything. Or nothing at all."

Without context it was worthless.

"What if we just ask one of them?" Shepard suggested.

"Awakening one or two of them should not be a problem, but I am not certain we will be able to question them much at all. Not unless you have something in mind?" Benezia asked, seeing the same issue he had.

Shepard had to shake her head, admitting that she had no ideas.

"How about melding with one of them, instead?" Emiya considered out aloud.

The asari's expression turned difficult, as she considered the proposition. "It would be... Unlikely to result in any answers, and it would be..."

"Right. Forget I said anything," he said with a nod.

 _Melding with a possible Ardat Yakshi would not be a good idea._ Additionally, if his experience with Tyra was the norm, then it would be difficult to get anything beyond surface thoughts and experiences out of an unwilling participant.

"Then it would appear we are at something of an impasse. Perhaps it is best we table the discussion for now, until a later time?" Benezia turned to look at him. "Thank you for the food and for sitting down and discussing this with me."

Emiya nodded, slightly surprised that she would be willing to leave it at just this. _Well, she must have other leads of her own._

"Lieutenant Shepard, could I ask for one last favor of you? I understand of course that it would be something of an imposition, but..."

The woman being addressed blinked, realizing that suddenly she was the center of attention in this conversation. "Go on...?"

Emiya's narrowed, as he suddenly realized something about Benezia; she had already seen through Shepard.

"This incident is quite delicate, you understand. While we are thankful for your assistance, both in locating our missing people and in helping contain everything that occurred aboard my ship... I would hope that you will not inform the Alliance of this. To protect professor Nirida Henell's reputation?"

_Benezia knows what makes Shepard tick already; she's seemingly putting herself in Shepard's debt, playing on that feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. Topping from the bottom to reverse the dynamics._

"I..."

"No," Emiya interjected. "There are batarians on Torfan, who were also affected though they were taken down with much less of a fight. This is already an Alliance problem."

Both of the women blinked at him, no doubt taken aback by his blunt refusal for Shepard, as well as what he had just revealed. It was necessary since he still had no idea what to really make of Benezia. At the very least however, he had no intention of letting her get a grasp on Shepard that easily.

"...Yeah, sorry but I don't think I can let this go if it's already an Alliance problem," Shepard said, agreeing with him but appearing none too pleased about his speaking for her like that.

"Of course. I apologize for asking something like that without considering your situation with the proper care it deserved." Benezia recovered quickly, smiling politely and hoping to wave away any awkwardness that might have sprouted from the request.

 _Hmm, so she hopes to make this into a long term investment then?_ Turning down short-term gain for long-term benefits, it appeared that Benezia had plans for Shepard and himself.

Well, that could wait.

"It seems like that last asari was finally found," he said and they both turned to look at him. "It seems like she's snapped out of it and was found by your subordinates."

Benezia perked up at that, brows furrowed and obviously alarmed.

"Don't worry; they're taking the proper precautions. She's being moved to the brig under careful watch. It's not like any of them particularly believe her." He shrugged, getting up.

"But, well... Since it would appear that speaking has become possible perhaps it would be time to try asking, just as Shepard suggested?"

Emiya blinked, turning to look at Shepard. They shrugged and moved to follow after Benezia.

* * *

;

* * *

Y'lana scowled at the cowering Matriarch who had stopped, turning around to look at her with quivering eyes.

"Keep moving. The brig is just up ahead."

"I—

"Shut up."

The Matriarch—a professor from Usaru, if Y'lana remembered correctly—had never seen any combat, having sat behind a desk her whole like. Thus, it was no wonder the harsh words were enough to make her flinch.

But the commandos cared little.

Orders were orders, and not more than a handful of minutes ago this cowering Matriarch had been a hostile combatant. Or rather, a sleeper saboteur. What guarantees did they have that all of this was not merely another ploy to make them lower their guards?

" _Move,_ " another said as she shoved the professor forward.

The Matriarch stumbled, a hand reaching out to the wall for support as she hastened to keep ahead of the three commandos behind her. Being guided to the brig, she kept her eyes low and her mouth shut.

As the door to the holding cell of the brig was opened, she looked up and swallowed. Hesitating with fear, apprehension and confusion all apparent on her face, the professor looked at all of them and then back to the cell.

"I—I... Where are, where is professor Henell...! What have you done to professor Henell!"

Y'lana ignored her, turning to regard the asari on watch. "Where did you put the sedatives? We need to put her down before she tries something."

"We used most of it already for the others, but I sent someone to go get some more from the doctors."

"Right," Y'lana replied with a frown, turning to look at the professor. "Which means we'll have to keep an eye on her."

"We could just keep her in Stasis until then. Keep a rotation and it should be fine," one of them suggested.

Another shrugged. "Hmm, fine I guess. Who goes first?"

"I—I asked you a question! What have you done to professor Henell?!"

"At least it'll shut her up."

"Wait... Matriarch Benezia is coming here. She wants to talk to _her_ ," the warden said, nodding at the distraught Matriarch. "Put her in the interrogation room, past the others..."

Y'lana nodded, turning her head just at the moment to miss the calculating spark in the professor's eyes. Or rather, the desperation of someone down to their last resort.

One of the commandos grabbed her shoulder and turned her around. "Move."

They headed for the interrogation room, walking past the three other holding cells. Y'lana, taking the lead glanced only momentarily at the captured and unconscious asari inside, making sure to keep at least one eye on the Matriarch at all times.

"Hey, Y'lana! Your rifles back, if you want it!" Someone shouted to her, and she turned to regard the commando, holding aloft the rifle. She nodded, taking her eyes off the Matriarch for just a single instant as she thought that she would have to perform a full check on it just be sure it hadn't been tampered with.

But that momentary distraction was still enough.

It was just an instant; a single fraction between one second and another, where not a single one of them was paying attention to her. A cowering non-combatant, they had all thought. What danger could she pose, unarmed and alone? Especially since they were all wearing hardsuits.

But she wasn't trying to hurt them.

The biotic wave—an all-encompassing dome of expanding force, pushing everyone in the corridor away with the force of a runaway shuttle, sent all the commandos flying off of their feet. It was merely a second that they were taken off guard. A mere second before they recovered and were back on their feet, their own biotics kicking in to allow them to catch themselves and prepare to retaliate.

But it was already too late.

Y'lana's barrier slammed into place around her as she prepared a biotic slam, gritting her teeth at having been too lax. But her eyes widened as she beheld the Matriarch.

The gaping wound in the Matriarch's torso; the long rivers of freely flowing blood; the slim, black shard of something held in her hand. All of that, Y'lana registered at once as the gears in her head rolled into place to take down the Matriarch.

So when she plunged into one of the holding cells—through the mass effect field which allowed entry into the cells, but not out of them—she did not recognize it as a hostile act, one requiring her to prioritize a take down. If the Matriarch wanted to run into a holding cell she could not possibly get out of, that was hardly a problem for them.

Y'lana watched it in puzzlement as the arm was swung down. The black shard was plunged straight into Nirida Henell's chest.

She had time to realize that they had royally fucked up, just as all hell broke loose.

"Aa _a_ aa _aa̷a̸h͘h_ h̻̦̻ _ẖ̮̯͔̫_ **h̦̩̬͙̼͖͟ͅ _h̡͎͕̙͖͖͖͔̉̈́͑͗ͭh̢͕̬̘̳̠̼̫̮͕̝̭̘̰̟͚̲̬̭͙͛ͨ̇̈̿͌ͩ͠!_** "

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard stumbled as something seemed to hit her in the chest, the ephemeral impact knocking all the air out of her lungs in one gust-like gasp.

She blinked back confusion as her teeth seemed to vibrate in her mouth; like tuning forks being pressed against each other, resonating off-key and discordant. Then the sensation spread, as all her bones and joints seemed to become afflicted as well. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her as her knee began to ache anew, the amplified pain and weakness making her vision swim even without all the other strange sensations affecting her.

"What is this...?" Benezia asked out aloud, before turning to regard her. "Are you alright, lieutenant?"

She nodded, waving away the concern with a quiet thanks and a reassuring smile that she really didn't feel. "I'm alright... What's going on?"

Behind them the commandos who had been escorting and following Benezia rushed up to them, radiating concern and worry for their mistress.

It was Emiya who answered, clicking his tongue with annoyance. "It's the Dretirop asari... The one who had supposedly given up. She did something in the cell, but the security cameras didn't catch it properly. Whatever it was, it also broke the camera."

Beside her, Benezia frowned at the cross-armed and far-eyed Emiya. Didn't he realize he was revealing just how completely he had subverted the ship's security systems by telling them this? Or rather, he was completely aware and didn't care, even as the commandos tensed and buzzed at his words.

"What was that?" She asked, motivated as much by curiosity as a hope to distract Benezia's commandos, even for just a moment.

"I'm not sure, the footage was—"

His words were interrupted as all the lights in the hallway vanished, plunging them into darkness.

"Huh?"

"What the?!"

Several of the commandos scrambled to use their omnitools, bringing back light. But a few seconds later the lights flickered back on.

"Emergency power. Your fusion reactor has gone offline due to overheating," Emiya explained, unmoved and still frowning as he continued. "Henell just broke loose and took out three commandos. I need to go and— _huh?_ " he spoke as he moved to start running, only to stumble at the first step. "She's... gone? A biotic blink...?"

Benezia moved to stand in front of Emiya, catching his attention as she started to speak. "Professor Henell has broken loose?"

"That's impossible, the holding cells are lined with mass effect containment fields—even Blinking would not allow one to escape the cell," Shiala objected immediately.

"...She broke through them; two of the power conductors in the brig blew out trying to contain her," Emiya explained, his eyes still looking at nothing.

The asari blinked, her expression one of complete surprise and disbelief at what she had been told. "That is _impossible_. Even a Matriarch could not possibly—"

Emiya ignored her and the other asari, wheeling around as he began to walk with purpose. "She's at the aft-munitions storage."

"—have... _Aft-munitions_?!"

"Hey, Emiya wait up!" Shepard shouted, moving to follow.

Looking over his shoulder, he stared at her. "You're in no condition to fight."

"The hell I'm not!" she objected loudly, rushing to catch up to him. And as he halted in the middle of his step she almost ran into his back, looking up at him with a few choice words as he frowned with that still far-off look in his eyes.

"She's gone again."

"Wait, what?" Shepard blinked, all else forgotten. "Again?"

"Where?" Benezia asked, looking away from her commandos who were desperately working to figure out what was going on as well.

"Near the engines, by the emergency generator. Maneuvering is already offline, but life-support systems are still working. I think she's aiming to disable those by turning off the power completely."

Shiala drew in a sharp breath of surprise. "That is ridiculous, no one could move through that many walls that quickly."

"Move through walls?" Shepard repeated with disbelief. "How is that possible?"

"Certain biotic techniques are capable of allowing one to phase through solid matter by shunting themselves to adjacent physical dimensions; it is how a biotic charge can move one through certain obstacles and why starships do not ram directly into every particle in the void during flight. A biotic blink is a short-range movement ability that focuses on shunting oneself as much as possible out of these physical dimensions to maximize that effect," Shiala hastily explained, before hesitating as she glanced at the still and silent Emiya. "In theory, it is possible to jump around a ship in such a manner with a Blink... But the distances are much too great, and the amount of matter to 'move through' exponentially increases the difficulty. I can barely go through a pane of glass, myself. And at those distances, she would be likely to phase back inside of a wall or floor, given that she would have no way of knowing where she would come back."

"Ah, uh yeah okay...?" Shepard muttered, a little overwhelmed by all that. The Alliance files regarding biotics had made no mention of such techniques, perhaps due to never facing an organized fighting force with a large number of biotics before. _That changes everything; none of the tactical assessments have factored in such mobility._

"Two teams, headed by Anatha are heading for the emergency power. She will have it under—" Benezia said out loud, looking up from her own omnitool and breaking Shepard from her thoughts.

"Too late, she's on the move again." Emiya was growing increasingly frustrated, Shepard realized. "There were casualties among the engineering crew—send a trauma team and engineers down there instead."

"What happened?"

"Henell wounded two asari mechanics and crippled the Dreyn N'var's back up generators. You'll lose all power in 10 minutes at this rate," he said as he stared at them, then turned around to start walking in a completely different direction. She could just hear him mutter to himself "I knew she was being too methodical for this to be a mere berserk-state," as he passed her by before he added more loudly. "Fine, then. Guess I'll just have to stop her myself."

"What are you...?" Shepard began to ask, but then he vanished on the spot. "Emiya!?"

Benezia and the assembled asari seemed to gasp as one, their heads turning left and right as they began to search for him. "Where did he go?"

She hobbled over to where he had stood moments before, worry radiating in her chest as she looked around. Even the grinding pain of shards of bone in her knee wasn't able to penetrate through her concern.

"Hey, Emiya, this isn't funny!"

She reached forward and then suddenly felt something, as her hand felt something familiar. _Warm skin._ She blinked, brows furrowing as she felt human flesh where her eyes saw nothing. _Cloaking technology?_

That one realization sent her mind a whirl, knowing that such technology was the cutting edge of military technology, that not even the Citadel had still fielded reliable cloaking on the field as far as the Alliance knew. How had he gotten it? And why was he just standing there, leaning against the wall?

Then, the whole starship seemed to shake.

Rumbling echoes, transmitted through the walls. Like a far off thunderstorm and quake, still rumbling at this distance with enough power to raise the hairs on the back of her neck. Except that was impossible on a starship, right? They both looked up and around, confused by the continued sounds.

"Is someone shooting at the cruiser...?" Shiala asked.

"Surely not," Benezia answered, in a voice that sounded as much in need of reassurance as it was one.

And just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended.

The next second Emiya reappeared exactly where he had been, his mood twice as black as it had been mere seconds before, leaving the frazzled asari at a complete loss at his scowling visage.

"Huh!?"

"That was unexpected, she's pretty tough... At least now I know how to trail her. No mistaking that wake," he muttered quietly, before turning to regard Benezia. "You need to get your commandos and all your personnel somewhere defensible; Henell is rampaging across the whole ship and if this keeps up the casualties will start piling up. I'll try to take her down as quickly as possible, but I don't think this will be that easy."

"What, what are you talking about? What was that rumbling just now? Was that your doi—"

"No time, Benezia!" He stalked up to her, grabbing both of her shoulders as he shouted. "Where can you defend yourself on the ship? Assume you're being attacked by an overwhelming force of commandos who have already boarded the ship — where would you take refuge?"

The Matriarch blinked silently, taken aback by his forceful demeanor. Finally, Shiala spoke up, "The... the communal dining hall is the designated fallback-point. It's—"

"Good, go there and protect your people!" He didn't bother listening to the end as he turned to look at Shepard. "And _you_ need to get out of here with the Alliance personnel; half of them still haven't left."

She blinked, realizing that this was serious. It was one thing that things were going crazy, but if an Alliance officer was injured during all of this, it would become a huge deal. Nodding twice, determination flooded her. "I'll have 'em off the ship in five minutes. Then I'll grab some gear and come back you up, you can patch into any comms, right? I'll call out to you—"

"Like hell you will," he cut her off, not even looking at her as he did.

"Like _hell_ I _won't!_ " Anger erupted in her chest as her arms lashed out, grabbing a hold of his shirt. Or trying anyhow, as she couldn't get a proper grip on the tightly fit material. So she settled on grabbing his shoulder instead. "You can't tell me what I can and can't—"

His distant eyes snapped to hers, bringing down the full brunt of his wrath on her. " _Bullshit_. You're in no condition to fight."

She blinked at the sheer anger in his voice, feeling her own temper flaring again. Who the hell was he to—

"Were you cleared for active physical duty by the medical staff?" he asked, sneering as he stared at her down the length of his nose.

She blinked, deflating instantly as she realized what he meant. She _hadn't,_ as a matter of fact. In fact, anything more strenuous than a brisk walk could be grounds for official reprisal, given that she was supposed to be recovering from multiple organ transplant surgery. Even having helped Shiala carry that one asari was skirting that line if the Alliance medical personnel were to find out.

" _Exactly_." He glared at her, seething the lone word out. "Or are you going to risk it here? Your Alliance insurance won't cover those kinds of fees, especially if you ignored strict medical orders. Are you really willing to risk the kind of debt you would accrue from having to pay that? The reprisal? It won't end with just a slap on your wrist, you know that." He lectured her, his eyes boring into her as she had to take a step back. "So the _next time_ you think about turning yourself into Swiss cheese, remember that you have to live with your choices."

"—But... What if—"

She realized then that he was actually angry with her. Had been angry, since he had realized the condition she had been in when they had fought back down on Torfan. That he was _scolding_ her for having been too reckless.

" _Tough,_ " he said, still glaring down at her.

Cold eyes. Hardened by similar experiences. Had he been here before, too? In her shoes, in this situation, or one just like it? She faltered, for just a second, and realized he had won.

Shepard grit her teeth while still holding out for long seconds of silent protest, but finally nodded as she pushed down the white-hot anger in her chest. It wasn't the time, the place or the right people to take it out on. Not while people's lives were at stake.

All she was accomplishing here was distracting him and keeping him from getting on with saving lives.

"Fine," she managed through clenched teeth. "Guess I'm staying out of this one. _This_ time."

Emiya nodded and turned around, giving the still frozen Benezia his full attention. "And _you_ , what the hell are you still doing here? Do you think this is a show or something? Get moving already! You're the only one who can hold off Henell's biotics when she shows up; they need _you_ there."

Some of the commandos bristled at his words, but Shiala and a few others appeared actually worried by his words. The Matriarch blinked, as if only just now pulled back to reality as she shook her head. "Ah yes— _yes_ , of course. I understand."

"Then what are you going to do?" Shepard asked.

He huffed, some amusement finally peeking through his foul mood. "I'm going to stop Henell."

Having said that, he sat down again.

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I'll stop her, so just go. Both of you!" He waved them all away. "And you should be _running_ , Benezia!"

The Matriarch gave him a queer look, before finally turning around and taking off as quickly as her low-cut dress allowed, her retinue of scowling commandos following right behind.

Shepard hesitated, seeing that none of the asari were staying behind. Was he planning to just sit here, alone? Why had he closed his eyes now? _No, he's got a plan. I can trust that... Right?_

As she thought that, the quaking booms resumed from an entirely new direction. Far closer this time, she could feel the starship vibrating beneath her feet in rhythmic, pulsating tune. Like the heartbeat of the ship itself, she thought for a moment before shaking that thought away.

"What the heck... If _he's_ the one doing that, _I_ need to get me some brain problems as well..." She complained as she stared at Emiya. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do...?"

Her omnitool buzzed to life. " _Shepard, the Alliance personnel is evacuating now. Head for the hangar. It's the next left up ahead, follow the hallway to the end and take the stairs down._ "

"Emiya? Hey, no way am I leaving you behind!" she shouted back, but he didn't answer. She waited for long seconds but still received no reply. _Huh, he can't hear me then..._

Was there any point in her leaving with the Alliance officers? In fact, would their waiting on her not just keep them here longer? She pulled out her omnitool again, opening a commline to the general frequency the other officers should have active and open at the moment.

"This is Lieutenant Shepard of the Systems Alliance. Any receiving Alliance personnel, please acknowledge, over."

A few seconds later, a reply came. " _Shepard, this is Commander Boroff, we hear you loud and clear. Where are you?_ "

"I was with Matriarch Benezia—kind of stuck right now with something." She side-stepped the question, breaching comm protocol entirely as she continued."Are you at the shuttles already? There was an evacuation order because of the fusion reactor failure, right?"

" _Yes, but the bay doors are sealed due to the power going out. The asari are trying to fix it right now. There's something rotten going on; get your ass over here, lieutenant. The asari are all arming up, but they're being tight-lipped as to why._ "

Shepard's mind raced, before settling on a likely explanation. She wasn't sure how much of what she had become privy to during Emiya's and Benezia's conversation should be spoken off on open comms. But a harmless little fib which got the facts across, should be fine. "There was some kind of agitant down on Torfan, hooked up with the captives' quarters. I think there's been some kind of leak on the ship; be advised that unidentified asari might be hostile."

There was a long silence, during which she was certain the cadre of officers on the other end were discussing what she had said heatedly.

Finally, she received a confirmation.

" _...Acknowledged. Do you require assistance, lieutenant? What is your current position?_ "

"Hell if I know. It's not like they gave me a map," she groused. Emiya had given her rough directions, but that didn't mean she knew where she was. But she did know what she was going to do. "But I'm in the company of a VIP so don't worry about me."

She meant that she was _protecting_ a VIP, but she was certain they would think she would be receiving the protection such a person would be receiving. When had it come to this? That she would repeatedly and with intent lie to her superiors and comrades, serving her own ends like this? _God damn it, Emiya. Things were so simple before you popped back into my life..._

To commline buzzed with a reply. " _Understood, lieutenant. Commander Boroff over and out._ "

"Will do, Lieutenant Shepard over and out," she said and closed the line. Inhaling slowly, she turned around and shook her head. "Now I need to find a gun. If he's sat his ass down to focus, then just about anyone could sneak up on him..."

Hadn't she done the same a mere day earlier?

She wasn't sure who she was convincing here; herself—or the annoyed Emiya who would be out for answers once he realized she was there and not leaving the ship with the other Alliance officers. He was still seated where she had left him. Completely vulnerable and helpless.

What _was_ he even doing? He was obviously doing _something—_ but what?

Shepard frowned, gingerly crouching down to stare at him. With his eyes closed and leaning back against the wall, he could have been asleep for all she knew. _Or dead_.

The creases in her brow deepening, she tried to ignore that thought but found that it would not leave her so easily. Hesitantly, she reached out and placed a hand against the bare skin of his arm. It was warm to the touch, and reaching down to his wrist she found his pulse without issue, beating strong and slow.

But even as the worry about his life receded, she realized that he hadn't moved at all even as she had touched him. He _was_ utterly helpless right now; she felt vindicated in her choice to stay. Like hell was she just going to run away, especially when she had no idea what was going on. Well, if he felt confident enough to just sleep here, then she might as well stay here too. It wasn't like either of them would be any safer alone.

 _Should I move him? We're completely out in the open here._ She could take him back to Benezia's quarters. _No, the doors would be locked._

What the hell had been his plan? Was he focusing on hacking so much that he couldn't even stand up? She had noticed that he had a tendency to zone out during conversations recently. Had he been hacking then too?

As she stood there for a minute, just weighing her options, the rhythmic sounds of what could only be combat continued. It was constantly changing, moving closer and further away every ten seconds, it felt like. And every twenty or thirty seconds Emiya's body twitched, tightened up and then relaxed again. Almost as if he had been asleep, kicking at his covers while dreaming of running, she mused.

And then her entire body froze up.

Her every muscle seized up; her neck and head shaking at the stress as she could feel a headache budding, while at the same time she felt the bones in her knee flaring up again.

Biting the inside of her lip, she spat blood and got a hold of herself. Realizing belatedly the cause, she frowned at the queer howling she could hear in the distance. Echoing through the winding passages and hallways of the asari cruiser. Somewhere not far from here, _something_ was screaming.

Shepard swallowed, getting back up and gearing herself up for a fight.

As the asari came around the corner, she relaxed so completely she almost fell over. Exhaling and shaking her head, she grinned at the asari as she shouted out. "Hey! What are you doing here, its—"

And then she realized that something was off about the asari ahead.

Sluggish. Slowly swaying with every step. Turning her crested head in a manner too exaggerated to be natural, as if her eyeballs did not function properly... Everything about the asari's body language was just _off_.

She swallowed, as much to cool her nerves as to wet her suddenly dry mouth.

 _Shit. No gun and biotics are a bitch..._ If it came to a fight, it would be a pain in the ass. Especially with her leg the way it was. She blinked, noticing that the asari was walking closer at a sedate pace. Almost as if she thought Shepard hadn't noticed anything off.

Maybe...

 _Right, nothing to it._ Plastering an easy smile, she shouted to the asari. "Hey! You mind coming over and giving me a hand? My friend slipped and hit his head!"

Shepard ignored every instinct screaming at her, telling her that this shambling asari was _Dangerous_ and turned her back to her, as if bending over to check on Emiya. _Something about her is off. Like she's lost her mind..._

But some predatory instinct seemed to remain. Some remnant of sense that told the asari that getting closer would be good. The kind of ambush instinct that existed in the ' _lizard brains_ ' of nearly all sapient beings, that knew that killing your prey was easiest when they allowed you to draw near, right behind them.

"You grab his other arm and..." Shepard continued talking as the asari neared.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. _Not yet... Not yet... Now!_

She pivoted on her foot, lashing out with an elbow at the asari's face the moment she was in range. Cartilage crumpled beneath bone on impact, the blue head rocking back. Yet the asari made no sound of protest beyond a wheeze of air.

Shepard ignored the twinge of pain from her leg as she shot forward, dancing around and behind the asari in a one-two-one step and twirl. Arms shot forward over shoulders and clamped down into a vise-like sleeper hold. The asari struggled with more wheezed gasps, and suddenly Shepard found her legs floating off the floor. But that didn't matter; her arms were wrapped around the asari's neck and weight mattered little here.

The asari flailed, arms uselessly swinging about as wheezing gasps rasped at Shepard's senses. But ten seconds of struggle was all it took until the cut-off blood flow to the brain had done its job and the asari lost consciousness. Crumpling down and returning Shepard's mass to normal, she had to struggle to avoid landing on her bad foot.

Grimacing at the tangle of limbs she had made on the floor with the knocked out asari, she scoffed. _Sheesh._

It was only then that she realized that her chest was slick with blood. Her heart froze in her chest for a solitary, drawn-out second, but then she realized it wasn't hers. Looking up, she found the wound on the asari's back bleeding freely and already pooling on the floor from the exertion of wrestling.

She frowned, pushing away the body practically on top of her as she peered at the wound. _There's... something in there?_

A black, jagged piece. Sticking out ever so slightly. Someone had stabbed it into the asari's back. Somehow, something about that made her spine crawl as she kicked off the asari and pushed herself away.

"I need to tie her up..." she muttered to herself, as much to distract as to remind her that this was no time for freezing up.

Taking off her dress uniform jacket, she made do with it and bound the asari's arms at the small of her back, just below where the black thing was peeking out of her flesh.

"That should do..."

It wasn't bleeding anymore, she distantly noted after wondering whether she should try to pull the thing out. _It's probably pressing against veins; I shouldn't remove it... Right?_

She still had medigel with her.

Sixteen courses on first aid, seven of which were on battlefield triage. Bi-monthly refresher courses as per active personnel regulations. Hell, she was even subscribed to the Sirta Foundations weekly extranet magazine just for the articles...

All of her experience told her that she could easily treat such a wound. Even on an alien. Yet her _gut_ told her to stay as far away from the unconscious and bound asari as possible. That she shouldn't touch whatever it was, that had been burrowed into her back, that she was too far gone already. Filthy. Infected. _Dangerous_.

"Like hell," she cussed and moved forward.

She wasn't going to let this stranger die, not if she could do something about it!

Omnitool program set; medigel being adjusted to function using the blood sample she had taken from the asari; hands sterilized, she exhaled as she placed one hand around the wound on the asari's back. Her knee was leaning down on the small of the asari's back to keep her down in case she started struggling, but she didn't want to put weight down on or around the wound. Not before she had managed to pull out that _thing_.

Fingers reached in and grasped for a good grip. The white-silk glove of her uniform soaking in the almost-black blood and she knew she would never be able to wash it white again. But she wasn't going to touch that _thing_ directly. She pulled, yet it didn't even so much as budge. It was as if it had spread roots out into the asari's body.

Shepard grimaced, getting a better grip and leaning down more, using the other hand as support to exert more force. One pull. Two pulls. It budged and Shepard instinctively knew that it had been the asari's body that had started to give way as the thing was being uprooted out of her flesh. The act would probably do catastrophic damage, yet Shepard only became more convinced that it had to be removed by the second. It was something vile and disgusting. _Unnatural_ and _perverse_ to life itself.

It had to go.

The asari gasped, and there was a touch of panic to it. That timbre of genuine, humane horror and fear, that she _knew_ that the asari had been knocked out of her puppet-like state.

"It's alright, just hold on for a second. I'll get this thing out, so fight the pain! I have medigel, so—" She spoke to reassure her, almost missing the change.

It was the change in air pressure that made Shepard turn around and pause in what she had been doing.

And the second she did, she saw _it._

"Aaaa..."

Having appeared out of nowhere, clad in blue sparks and torn shreds of clothing. Emaciated and with a skin color of long-rotted death, Gray and mottled, almost torn at places. Not emaciated, she realized. _Stretched out_.

It was an asari, yet not, she realized instantly.

Too twisted, and too grotesque to be truly called that. It was a living creature that had been warped. Changed by something. _Perverted._ So tall that her crest almost brushed the ceiling, walking on shambling and twisted legs, its eyes bored down on her.

No.

At the black _thing_ she had been trying to remove.

The air itself seemed to freeze, as suddenly Shepard felt like her mass had tripled. No, it _had_ tripled—at the very least, possibly and easily being a dozen-fold more than that actually—she realized with dawning horror. A Stasis-field encompassing the whole hallway was being created by this creature.

A mouth far too large and broken opened up, stretching enough that the black teeth could have bitten off a head. And then the sound...

"Aaaa _aa_ a..."

Pain. Like her teeth were vibrating in her mouth, trying to loosen themselves from her skull and shatter explosively in her mouth. Her bones thrumming in tone with that scream that was only rising in pitch and volume with every second.

"Gah...!" Shepard lost her balance, despite being on her knee already. Her vision doubled, but even so she could see that gangling creature approaching with slow strides.

"Aa _aaa_ aa _aa̷a̸h͘h_ h̻̦̻ ** _!_** "

Death came for her, she knew with absolute certainty.

Red flashed before her eyes, warring with blue lighting as the air itself thundered. Her ears popped and her lungs felt like they were about to burst, leaving her a coughing mess on the floor.

But she was still alive, she realized.

Blinking away the tears of agony, she looked up and froze. _Emiya...?_

But he was still behind her, still slumped over and unconscious she knew. But there, clad in crimson and black, kneeling on the ground twenty meters away... It was definitely him. Even with that same featureless helmet he had worn down on Torfan hiding his face, she still instantly recognized him. But that feeling shrouding him; that aura of barely restrained murderous intent was entirely new.

"Aaaaa..."

The twisted asari-creature shrouded in deepest blues and purple lights groaned, turning to half regard him as he stood up. He must have tried to tackle or kick it, only to be tossed aside by its crackling biotics. One of the ceiling lights had been shattered between her and him, broken pieces falling to the ground as he exhaled, his shoulders relaxing just the tiniest fraction. Had he been thrown into the ceiling that hard? How was he still standing, when the ceiling and lights had been shattered completely by that impact? In fact the ceiling itself was bent and _caved in,_ the metal and plastic completely broken.

Their eyes met for a second—she knew despite the opaque visor hiding his features—and she nodded.

No words, yet something had been transmitted between them in that instant.

The next second white lighting flashed.

The creature raised an arm and swiped it aside in a willow-in-the-wind-like backhand and sparks flew as something embedded itself into the wall next to it. But that had nothing to do with her, as she spun on the ground and delivered a spinning ground-kick to the back of the creature's knee.

Something resisted her for a moment, but the surprise attack still went through as its focus had been completely on Emiya.

Its stance broke as it keeled over backward. He didn't miss his chance, exploding forward with his left arm raised, vanishing entirely from her sight for a moment. Like a collapsing mountain, he crashed forward and struck down.

The creature was bowled over, sent flying over her and down the hallway like a cannonball had folded it over. She had just time to turn around to see it spinning on the ground like a rag doll, certain that at least one arm had been broken on impact with the floor.

"Yeah, take that!" she shouted, getting back up to all fours with a toothy grin plastered on her face.

Yet, Emiya was still radiating that anger beside her as he clicked his tongue. "Tch... A direct cut and it just barely grazed."

"Huh?" she muttered looking up to him for further explanations, but he only lazily tossed the thing in his left hand into the air away from him in a long arc. She blinked, eyes taking in the curved black blade, realizing that he had been trying to cut down the creature just now.

And then he vanished; disappearing into nothingness. " _Huh?!_ "

She blinked, swinging her head left and right in an effort to find him, and in the corner of her vision she saw movement, drawing her eyes. The until-now unconscious arm of Emiya snatched the spinning blade out of the air, drawing her eyes back again to him and the blade. Ignoring her entirely, he kicked off the ground and stood up as if nothing had just happened.

"What the hell is going on...? Hey, Emiya!"

He sighed, glancing at her. "It's complicated, and this really isn't the time."

She inhaled slowly, before finally nodding. But there wasn't a chance in hell she was going to just forget about all of this, once it was all over. Getting up as well, keeping her eyes on the form of the creature that had been blown away as she did. "Okay, then what the hell is _that_ thing?"

Emiya sighed, some of the tension in his back returning as he spoke. "...That, would be the esteemed professor Nirida Henell."

"Huh, she hasn't aged all too gracefully, has she?" she quipped, eyeing his tense form. Like a bow at full draw, it somehow gave her the impression he was on the edge of snapping.

He relaxed a little, scoffing at her words. "No. No, she really hasn't. Though you can't blame her; late growth spurts can be a pain to deal with like that."

"So what's going on?"

"She's too slippery, and keeps teleporting around and I can't pin her down," he explained shortly. Sighing, he looked away and back to Henell. "Fourteen people have already died, while I wasn't able to catch up. That's the first significant wound I've been able to put on her."

Following his gaze, she frowned at the wound he had inflicted. It was a deep gash, running from shoulder to hip—the kind of disemboweling wound that should have bled anyone out in minutes. Yet on the creature it seemed to have done nothing; there was no bleeding, no awkwardness of motion to hint at any perceived pain or actual damage, nothing.

"Of course, that has nothing to do with _you_. I thought we agreed you should get out of here."

"Uh huh. That was before I realized you were just going to sit here in the middle of a hallway. What if she had showed up and bitten off your head before you, uh... showed up...?" she rebutted, raising a challenging brow at him even as her own words petered into a question at the end.

"Hmm..."

It seemed like he had nothing to say to that. But it was still as good as a confirmation that it had been him making all that noise earlier. _What was that, some kind of advanced drone? How advanced is his technology and where is he getting all of it? I've never seen anything like it._

"Just sit tight and let me handle this," Emiya said as he swung the blade in his left hand easily as if limbering and warming up before exercise, as he started moving towards Henell.

She flinched as the object that had embedded itself to the wall behind her was torn loose and snapped to his right hand. A white blade, mirroring the black in his left and creating a set and reminding her of over-sized butcher's blades. It took her a moment to realize what they were, the absurdity of the antique armaments leaving her aghast. _He's using swords...?_

"Aaaa _a_ a..."

Shepard's fingers twitched, itching for a rifle as the jarring, hollow scream began again. A solid thirty-round burst would do wonders to shut the creature up, she thought through gritted teeth. But it turned its head, taking a step towards the wall on long gangling limbs, as if utterly dismissing them in favor of some other unknown purpose.

"Tch. Leaving again huh," Emiya said, turning to look at Shepard as the blades in his hands vanished. "If you're going to stay here... Then I'll leave myself in your care."

He inclined his head slightly, and she could only nod.

The air crackled, and she turned her head, realizing a second later that Henell had vanished again. A second later, Emiya's unconscious body was sliding down the wall into a seated position again, leaving her completely alone again. The swords had vanished, too.

She blinked, looking around and taking in the devastation that had come to pass in a mere handful of seconds with those two's presence, noting how even the floor hadn't been spared as Emiya's feet had left cracked indentations behind. It was like the hard and unyielding material was like mere cardboard to them.

"...Well, what the hell do you think I've been doing until now?" she complained to no one, huffing as she shook her head.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya jumped out of the security camera, immaterial and invisible as he phased down through the floor, his mind racing as he left Shepard behind.

Only a handful of cameras still remained online, giving him fewer and fewer points of exit to work with, unless someone fixed the power soon. The longer this wore on, the more difficult a time he would have catching up to Henell after every time she used a Blink to relocate.

Currently she was another two levels below him in what was labeled as a personal quarter on the cruiser's internal schematics, but this had been the closest point out that he could find and save time through. While he had been in, he had also taken in everything during his short stay in the computer, coordinating the commandos as he tried to keep the conflict from boiling over. But he knew it was a losing battle if he couldn't take out Henell quickly; unless someone fixed the power soon, life-support systems would start going offline.

He shook his head. This really was the worst place possible to be fighting a biotic, he thought for the _n_ th time.

The first problem was that a Blink's trail wasn't like a Charge's; it could go through walls and curve. He couldn't just pick a direction and try to catch up; he had to knew specifically where she had jumped before he materialized. He had set himself a twenty-second limit on manifestation since Thessia, but already he had been pushing himself closer to thirty just to minimize the collateral damage every time she jumped in the middle of a group of commandos fighting it out with each other.

Tight, narrow hallways which made flanking and pushing through difficult. The lack of space for him to attack from multiple directions simultaneously with projectiles.

And unlike the meat-grinder of Torfan's underground tunnels, there was plenty of room for a biotic to fall back or move around, since at these distances Blinking made walls immaterial. She could jump from room to room, going up or down levels without any problems, forcing him to constantly keep track of her. That was what asari ships had been designed around; the seeming luxurious space all actually extremely suited to their biotics, giving them enough space and cover to work with without allowing them to be outmaneuvered easily.

Adding on top of that his constant timer, which forced him to disengage and jump back to his body through the connection to his cybernetics, which meant that he simply couldn't pressure her enough to break through her biotic barriers. Not that he had had much opportunity to pressure her, given how much effort he had to put to keep casualties to a minimum until now.

Before—when he had run away—he could have probably powered through if he resolved to take a hit in return. But this change—whatever it had been caused by, which had turned her body into a grotesque monstrosity—had explosively increased the potential of her biotics. He was certain that it was causing damage to her body to operate on this level, but Henell was long gone and had no care for such matters anymore.

But even with his full physical might brought to bear thanks to the chance Shepard had created, he still hadn't been able to lay a decisive blow on Henell. It was like trying to cut down a falling leaf with a fan; she just moved out of the way, her biotics acting like layers of padding, slowing him down just enough that he couldn't pierce through. Even when he managed a direct hit, she had managed to blunt the impact and only be blown back as her biotics took the actual brunt of the attack.

And he couldn't speed-blitz her, either.

Biotics regularly stopped hypervelocity rounds, and she had cloaked herself in three dozen layers of various barriers. Even getting within line of sight was already putting him inside of her outermost folds, giving her a perfect sense of his movements and actions. On top of that it was like fighting underwater; a constant Stasis-like pressure she tried to exert on him to slow him down while reading his movements to reinforce wherever he tried to break through by sheer force.

It wasn't by skill or intent, he suspected. There was no delay between action and reaction. There was none of Henell left in the monster that was roaming the cruiser now. Merely a murderous intent; an instinctive battle-logic fully focused on trying to kill this entire ship.

So he hadn't managed to cut her down yet, but neither could she really hurt him either. The Stasis-field was barely an annoyance; the slams and throws couldn't touch him unless he closed in and even then they merely battered him around, and the Warps were much too slow to catch him.

It was like two titans trying to punch each other out with balloons for fists, neither able to land a decisive blow on the other. It was turning into an endurance match, more than anything. Sooner or later one of them would give, thus he had to conserve his magical energy and be mindful of how long he spent out of his body.

But if that was all, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Henell was elusive and slippery, capable of killing even commandos with ease if he wasn't there to stop her, but if it was just her then he could have easily contained the situation.

The problem was that Henell wasn't alone, nor was it just the Dretirop contingent that he had to deal with. For some reason, commandos had begun to turn on commandos, just as crew had begun to attack fellow crew, wherever Henell went. He had said that fourteen people had died, which was true enough. What he hadn't said was that _he_ had killed half of them. Or rather, they had turned on him and acted as willing meat-shields for Henell whenever he tried to take her out.

The entire ship had gone to bedlam in mere minutes.

He could catch glimpses of the struggle through the security cameras while he had been jumping between his body and the computer, now spreading to nearly every level. Benezia and Anatha had their hands full even now as more and more crew seemed to turn mad, reminding him of what he had been told by Benezia earlier. _Is the thing that was down on Torfan somewhere aboard? The Alliance logs made no mention of it when they boarded the ship..._

He shook his head. He had no idea where it was, and every time he left Henell alone things kept on escalating.

"Aaa _aa_ a..."

He could already hear it, despite the floor still between them as he phased down through it. That wail, growing in strength and intensity matching Henell's own. Those biotic fields held closest to her were simply _massive_ in breadth and depth. Such being born of a living biotic beggared the mind. If he hadn't seen it himself, he would have thought she was a starship's eezo core. Just the heat alone from the currents necessary from operating on that level should be killing her.

But it hadn't, meaning it was up to him to put a stop to her. And not just anything would do; he was certain that she could tank shots from gunships in her current state.

_Should I use a broken phantasm...?_

Caladbolg and Hrunting would blow clean through the hull before he could stop either, meaning they were right out. Additionally, Henell always seemed to fight in the middle of a crowd. How much collateral was he willing to accept to land a hit? He hesitated to use his bow now too, after she had proved capable of reacting and re-directing projectiles as she willed, earlier.

 _Perhaps a weaker phantasm planted as an explosive mine._ Like on Torfan.

But balancing the necessary power to kill Henell with how much the starship could take would be a problem. It couldn't be anywhere too near the outer hull, either. It wouldn't be a joke if he broke the starship's integrity and explosively vented everyone out on accident.

Perhaps if he pulled her into his reality marble... But she would not stand still long enough for that to work, he suspected. And what if she could teleport out of it? He couldn't deny that possibility.

Dismissing those thoughts, he focused and got his mind back in the game.

Materializing, his boots slammed on the floor as he beheld the scene of carnage. Three asari lay dead, all commandos who had been fighting back and fallen before Henell moments before, taken down as much by her as well as by five of their former comrades who must have turned on them. A mere four-second lead on him had led to this.

Six pairs of eyes turned to him, all intent and murderous _._ Yet his failure here was an opportunity; with no further collateral around he could go all out here. As much as the starship's integrity would allow, anyhow. _I need to take her down here before she jumps again somewhere with more people._

Just five on her side with zero unaffected civilians, was some of the best odds he had had until now. That moment with Shepard aside; it had broken the pattern he had been seeing until now. _Why_ had _Henell jumped there...?_

Dismissing those thoughts, he ran through his options.

 _Eighteen seconds..._ His mind's eye began to play out moves, dismissing several opening ploys as he disguised the instant as an eternity.

This was too close to the starboard side; a broken phantasm would break through the outer hull. Which meant that if he wanted to take her down here, he would have to resolve himself to making an _exchange_ of blows.

"Aa _a_ aaa _aaa_..."

Henell began and the five others joined in with a chorus of moaning wails of their own. None of them had been transformed as she had, nor had any of them her potency. But in sufficient numbers and with Henell leading them—using them—they were hindrances.

He would have to take care of them first, to clear the battlefield of obstacles. Besides, their bloodied fingers and teeth stained with the remains of dead commandos' littering the room, had already sentenced them in his eyes.

Twin married swords appeared in his hands, hailed by fire and anger, as his fingers closed around the hilts.

Henell sensed his intentions, screaming again.

"Aa _aaa_ aa _aa̷a̸h͘h_ h̻̦̻ _ẖ̮̯͔̫_ h̦̩̬͙̼͖͟ͅ ** _h̡͎͕̙͖͖͖͔̉̈́͑͗ͭh̢͕̬̘̳̠̼̫̮͕̝̭̘̰̟͚̲̬̭͙͛ͨ̇̈̿͌ͩ͠!_** "

Shadows all around him roi̵led̷ and pu̡l͘śate͝d͝ in tune with the headache pressing down at him, but he suppressed the sensation through sheer, _cold_ rage.

Taking that as the signal to begin, he exploded forward, faking a frontal charge to buy time. In this enclosed room, Henell could cover the whole space with her biotics.

Kanshou lashed out, loosed from his grasp at one asari like a flying buzz-saw. A bait as much as an attack; she would focus on the flying projectile.

He felt the fields shifting, mutating to intercept and swat aside the blade in the air, but he swung Bakuya in his hand and changed its course at the last second. The black blade twisted and turned in the air as it continued spinning, going through the neck of another asari then embedding itself in the wall through a third's arm. _Two down._

Kicking down and pushing forward, he jumped over a table and lashed out with the blade in his right hand, as his boot connected with the chest of an asari leaning forward with lethal intent to Charge him. Ribs shattered and a neck was cut, as his left hand slammed down on the back of a chair. Using it for support, he righted himself in the air. It toppled over with a clatter as he got his bearings, lashing out with another two cuts that dismantled the cupboard sent flying at him by Henell.

_Fifteen seconds. Two down, two left._

He sneered, flicking the white blade and leaving a crescent of purple blood across the otherwise still pristine white wall. The chair was at his feet; Kanshou embedded across the room in the wall. He could box Henell in, if...

The chair was sent flying straight at Henell as his leg exploded up, as he pulled back Bakuya while reaching through the wife-blade for its husband. The embedded sword pried itself loose and primed to return to his hand; through Henell's neck along the way.

But the mass effect fields wavered for an instant and the sword's mass increased a hundredfold instantly, stopping it dead in the air before it fell to the floor. The chair was swatted aside by another biotic exertion, the physical motion making Henell's broken arm limply swing at her side.

He dashed to around the room, stopping at a corner and kicking off the room towards the last standing asari. The white sword flashed, parting head and one arm—shoulder and all—from the rest of the asari's torso as he moved past her. _Just Henell left...!_

Making a beeline for the last combatant standing, he rushed in low and fast.

She raised a hand, blue sparks crackling as she opened her mouth to scream again. He clenched the blade, placing his free hand against the back as he put his whole weight behind the sword, thrusting forward like a bolt of lightning and slamming everything against Henell's defense.

It was like slamming into a mountain, as he came to an immediate stop. The crackling barrier completely impenetrable, bringing all of her biotic power to bear.

"Kh...!"

Gritting his teeth, he tried to push forward but found the floor did not give enough purchase, and that his blade would not budge even an inch forward.

Henell's other hand twitched, the shattered shoulder-bone allowed little movement beyond that. But it was enough to guide the intent and practiced maneuver she had wanted, as a biotic pull was enacted on the kicked-over table behind his back. _That's fine, I'll take your neck from behind in exchange!_

"—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

Locked into place and forced into a standoff, she had unwittingly given him enough time to pull off one of his slower maneuvers. The two swords appeared in the air behind Henell's head, crashing down to pierce her spine at the same instant as the table smashed into his back.

Henell did not visibly react, only swaying at the last second just enough for the two swords to miss her spine and skull. Punching through until the crossguards hit her skin, the swords met almost no resistance. She swayed, blood welling in her throat as a gurgling groan as one of the blades had pierced her throat.

At the same time, the table folded over and shattered as metal and plastic broke on impact with his back. But it didn't move him, his full weight already leaning into the sword in his hand. Rather, it only pushed him forward, towards Henell.

The resistance Bakuya had been met with weakened, perhaps as much from the impact to his back as from the sudden damage she had taken. It didn't matter; he surged forward—forcing through with a roar—aiming to sever her neck with one swing.

A massive build up; the innermost folds draining to power up an attack; the fabric of space bending to accommodate— _A Shockwave...!_

He jumped to the side to avoid being thrown back, dancing around the biotic freight train that rocked the room sending tables and chairs flying and shattering against the walls. Sliding against the floor to correct his course while struggling with the wake of the Shockwave, he slammed Bakuya into the floor to create a handhold for himself. He needed to attack, now! Having drained all her momentary reserves, she was completely open for his counter for this half-instant!

The Kanshou lying inert on the floor shook, and then returned to his hand as if reeled in or pulled by a strong magnet. Parting Henell from her leg below the knee in the process. She was off-balance, falling over. _Just as planned._

Wide open, spent and with no cannon fodder to rely on, he _had_ her now.

But that was his mistake; assuming that the Shockwave had been all that Henell had been setting up.

"Aaaa _aa_ hh—!"

Space itself froze, his hunched over figure one second away from dashing forward stopping awkwardly just as she froze in the middle of her falling over.

 _A Stasis field... Can I ride it out with just ten seconds left?_ He considered coolly as he reminded himself of how little time he still had before he needed to reset.

If he failed here and she got away again, she would be rested up and ready for another round by the time he caught up again. He needed more time to properly pressure Henell, to wear down her reserves until all her biotic strength was spent. But he also needed to be able to keep up with her Blinking, thus he had to use his Servant body. It left him in limbo, stuck between two opposite pulls.

The _fabric_ began to stretch taut, vibrating and gathering in clumps.

Emiya blinked as he realized Henell's intent, feeling the surge of biotic power she was building up while holding everything stilled. With his increased mass right now, it would be difficult to affect him physically. _But using a Warp to perform a biotic explosion..._

That would certainly put the hurt on him.

He struggled, trying to force himself to move. But even with his strength it just wasn't enough. It was as if his skin and muscles had turned to stone, with even the air itself around him having turned viscous, almost solid with how massive it had been made.

Astralizing, he tried to get out of the sphere of heavened mass. But the same property that had kept him airborne in the Museum of Serrice now kept him completely frozen in place, despite his nominal lack of mass. Henell hadn't even blinked or slowed down in her charging of the Warp, despite his vanishing for a moment.

Materializing again, he exhaled as he closed his eyes—or _tried to_ anyhow, the Stasis field denying him even that much—and focused inwards.

He could feel the space he occupied being pulled ' _down'_. Like a fabric drawn taut being pulled down from below, pulling himself along with it and trapping him in the dip it formed. Like a hundred thousand threads, wrapped around his limbs and pulling him in every direction all at once, and as a result moving him nowhere but keeping him rooted in place.

_I could get out if I burn through two-thirds of my magical energy and break free with sheer brute force..._

But then what? It would leave him so low on magical energy that if it happened again, he wouldn't be able to do it again. And since he had to be mindful of his endurance, that might only be shooting himself in the foot in the long run even if it gave him a momentary advantage. Could he gamble on that and attempt to take Henell down here?

No — he couldn't guarantee a definite hit. And her Stasis field had taken him completely off guard. He had no guarantees he wouldn't end up in this situation again, either.

Should he just Reinforce himself and try to take the biotic explosion head on, toughing it out? He wasn't sure how much damage it would do to him, but seeing as how biotics had proven to affect him already...

But a thought occurred to him, regarding the layers of space. Biotics always felt slightly muted, in a sense. As if what was happening wasn't really happening near him, but behind a veil or in another room. As if there existed a boundary between the source and the result of biotics.

A boundary that reminded him of something.

 _It might just work; it's not like I've got anything to lose by trying._ His thoughts that had already been turned inward sharpened and his focus clarified. The still-open, yet unseeing eyes turned to a hill of swords as his blood began to heat up.

If this twisted version of Henell could use her biotics to slide around and aside his blows, then why couldn't he do the same to her?

— _I am the bone of my sword_

Twenty-seven circuits all sprang to life, magical energy roaring. He wasn't going for a full incantation; he didn't need that much. Just enough to encroach on reality. A metaphorical thin film slid between himself and the fabric of space; he separated himself from everything as the World Egg and Self switched places for just an instant.

A ring of fire exploded outwards from his body, and he could _breathe_ again.

Exploding forward with upraised sword in hand he struck down at Henell with everything he had. Parting flame and flesh with his cut, he felt more than saw the blade biting through something.

"Aaaa _aa_ aaa _aA_ Aaah _h_..."

The creature had been practically cut in two, sections of spine and parted ribs visible through the slash running down her side. It was a lethal blow, he was sure. Having pooled so much of her strength to restrain and take him down, those gargantuan defenses had been brought low enough for him to take her down. Her remaining leg had given out, but the remnants of her biotic barriers had still provided enough of a blunting effect that some of his cut's force had been transformed into a push that left her sprawled against the far wall of the room.

Emiya breathed deeply, taking controlled measures to calm himself down as the raging temperature spike in his blood made him feel as if his every exhalation was fire. Henell was bleeding out; helplessly sprawling on the ground and struggling to get up.

But she wasn't _dead_ yet.

He raised the blade in his right hand, moving no closer as their eyes met. It would hit; she had no more strength to resist. Had she finally burned through herself? He no longer sensed the biotic fields around her.

That moment seemed to stretch on for several seconds, but then he broke it. There was nothing of Nirida Henell left in this creature. The arm came down, releasing the blade from his grip halfway through and sending it in a quarter-spin throw straight into her chest. Nailed to the wall through the heart by the white sword, Henell took her last breath... and stilled.

Exhaling, he relaxed.

_Was that it?_

A gurgling sound caught his attention, making him tense up. He turned his head to look around the room, until he found the source. One of the commandos was still alive, despite her throat having been ripped open and lying in a pool of blood.

He blinked, realizing that the commando must have seen everything. Frowning, he for just an instant thought about letting her die. But then he sighed and moved forward to save her. It was far too late to be worried about maintaining some semblance of secrecy now. _Between all these commandos, there has to be a medigel pack somewhere here.._.

In truth, it had been too late for weeks now.

Which was why he had started to change his strategy entirely.

Because it wasn't as if there was some great meaning to any of it anymore. Just a reflex from a long time ago, from a world where he absolutely had to hide such things. Back during his life it had been very different from now; there were numerous authorities who wished to safeguard the secrecy of the moonlit world, to protect it from the ever-encroaching human order.

But here? What did it matter?

Especially if hiding it all meant that he could not save people. Silencing witnesses to safeguard the secrets of his power, which he used to save people, would be the very essence of putting the cart before the horse now.

Just old die-hard habits.

"Lie still, I'm not gonna let you die. Just relax, I've got you..." he said as he began to open up the commando's hardsuit to take a closer look at her wounds. Setting aside the black blade, he frowned. Her eyes were swimming. Lost and confused. No wonder, given how much blood she must have lost.

It was a conscious change in his strategy; to no longer hold back.

During his escape from Thessia, he had seen the sheer overwhelming amount of data the STG had compiled and labeled as possible actions he had committed in a mere five years. And it had been staggering. Exabytes upon exabytes of all kinds of data; video footage, financial transaction records, news articles from hundreds of planets and space stations. Much of it had nothing at all to do with him, had in fact occurred completely beyond his notice.

But it was the _appearance_ that mattered. The appearance and possibility that it could have been him.

 _Five seconds_ , he reminded himself automatically.

It wouldn't be time enough for more than basic triage and applying medigel. With this much blood-loss, he would have to use at least two packs for blood replenishment and to seal her wounds it would take a third. The commando had only survived because of how poorly suited asari teeth and fingers were for tearing out throats.

But he had only found two packs. _Should I seal the wound and risk shock, or use both for blood and let her bleed until I get back..._ The decision was easy. "—Trace, _on"—begin projection,_

In the era of medigel—and really, even long before humanity had created it—tourniquets and bandages were antiques of a long-bygone time. But while he couldn't whip medigel out of thin air, he could _project_ those antiques.

Combining the two medigel packs as blood replenishment along with the bandages, it should be enough to save the commando's life. Still, it would take time for the medigel to be ready. He would have to come back after jumping back to his body to _reset_ so that he could administer it.

What was wrong about using his abilities openly, if it meant that he could save people? If it meant he couldn't use such things, then obviously his strategy was wrong and it was missing the forest for the trees.

An old adage of strategy was to appear weak when strong, and strong when weak. It was what he had done on Thessia and during his life often enough; downplayed his own abilities; always kept one more ace in his sleeve; never giving it his all in case he would be revealing too much. But now that would be the wrong thing to do.

A lone man, facing the entire galaxy, the more he held back the more hard-pressed he would be. The more desperate he would grow. And the more they would be able to create a baseline of his abilities. Certainly, as he was cornered he would be able to reveal another trick and extricate himself once more...

But that would be too obvious. Too clear. Too easy to compile and contrast with what was known of him.

As a result, he would only be slowly showing his hand. One card at a time, until all that remained, was the _ace of spades_ and he would have nowhere to go, nothing to retreat to, nothing to rely on. Once he had allowed himself to be backed into a corner, nothing would remain, but _death_.

Which by itself perhaps would have been acceptable, but there was more to it.

When strong, appear weak. To bait in an attack, to make your enemy overextend and reach beyond their grasp. Just like on Thessia, where they had only brought so much to bear and had not had the reserves to push him back once he ramped up. But now he was weaker. Both in relative and absolute terms.

Those who hunted him knew now more than they did before then, and he had crippled himself leaving Thessia.

When weak, appear strong.

If instead of attempting to appear completely normal, if extraordinarily skilled on occasion, he instead cut loose all restraints and fought as he wished? If he henceforth continued by pulling every trick and using every ace at will, seeking to never appear to use the same method twice... How could they categorize and analyze him then? If he held the _appearance_ of someone who could do _anything_. If _everything_ was his doing, then what recourse would that leave his pursuers? How did you fight that?

Without knowledge of what lay at the basis of his abilities—of _projection, reinforcement, reality marbles..._ Of Unlimited Bladeworks. They would never be able to crack the puzzle that he was without an understanding of those things. And most importantly—if they _did_ have an answer to him going all out... At least holding nothing back would allow him to save more lives and be defeated without regrets in the end.

As such, his new main stratagem was simple; be ridiculously flashy and hold nothing back, but avoid using the same trick twice.

"I'll be right back, so hang in there..." he said to the commando, standing up.

Her hand reached out just before he could step away, fingers wrapping weakly around his ankle. He paused, looking down at her. She was whispering something—mouthing silent words as her eyes bored into his. He tried to read her lips but found it difficult to make sense of her words, that amounted to little more than gibberish.

Shaking his head, he pulled his leg away and then frowned as he felt it. He turned around, sensing the re-kindled _presence_ behind him.

Henell was staring right at him, trying to pull herself loose from the wall. He had to blink twice at her still struggling form, before scowling. This was starting to be all too reminiscent of some of the worst years of his life already. _More than just infecting and converting innocents, she has the tenacity of a bloodsucker, too. I'm already two seconds over my deadline, but... I have to finish this now._

"If the heart won't do..."

He readied Kanshou, stalking forward. Behind him, the wounded asari was twitching on the floor and making intermittent gurgling sounds, desperately trying to grab his leg again but failing in her weakness.

"Aaaaaaa _aaa_..." Henell began to moan, her voice starting low and building up, despite the black blood spurting out of her wounds as she did so.

Emiya paused, raising the black blade in a guard as his gut instincts screamed danger at him. There was nothing more dangerous than a cornered beast on its last leg. Narrowing his eyes, he frowned and took a step forward. _Kill her._

"AAAAa _aAA_ AAAAAA _AAa_ aAA̷A҉..."

"What the..." He winced, taking an involuntary step backward, pausing to grit his teeth. His vision was doubling as the floor seemed to sway beneath him. _What is this...?_

"AA͜A̴ _A̕_ A͜A̴A̹̩̼ͅ **A̧̛̗͎̟̳͢** A̴Ą̨̱̪ _A͙̖̕_ **A̧̛̗͎̟̳͢** A̴Ą̨̱̪ _A͙̖̕_ A̷̧̧̫̫͇̩̥͈͇̪̯̗͉̹͇̖̐̑͑̎̄̄͊͒́̄̀͌̋̊͋͑ͣ͘ͅ _Ą̴̢͙̼̬̪̘͙̀͆̇̅̕A͙̖̕_ A̢̳̱̬̼̜ͮ̋͂̄͛͌̓̒̈́̓̌̀̓̄̔͟A̟̩̻̗̠ͩ͑ͭ͘͝—!"

Gritting his teeth h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ raised his sword and took the last two s҉t̨ep͘s̨ forward to finish this, ignoring his overwhelmed senses. The sword came down—

Something tipped over and the world tumbled. H̷̢̀è͝ was lying on the floor, he realized belatedly, his head pounding no longer with just the piercing cry of Henell. Had h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ fallen over, or...? No, h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ was _hit_ from behind by someone. By a biotic attack. _The wounded commando... How... Did she use a Throw on me in her state...? Damn, it..._

It must have taken the last of her strength, as she was lying still and lifeless now.

There was a strange tearing sound. Unnatural and grotesque, that of something that should not be shredded being torn apart forcefully. H̷̢̀è͝ got an arm beneath himself and pushed up, looking at the so͞ur͝ce͝ of the s̷o͏u̸n̛d.

Henell had ripped herself loose, pulling her chest _over_ the hilt of the sword and coating it in bits of bloated organs and black blood.

She was coming for him now, turning around to look at him with those empty eyes. H̷̢̀è͝ couldn't muster the strength to get up, h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ realized with a mi̶nd like m͠ol̶a͠s͢s͘es. That continued s̸cr̢ea͏m͞ was giving him no respite, h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ needed to...

Astralizing, his ephemeral self fell through the floor.

And another, and another.

It was only by some stray thought h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ realized that h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ needed to stop before h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ flew through the outer hull. As h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ materialized anew and impacted against the floor seven levels down, h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ breathed unevenly, desperately trying to gather his wits. _I need to... return. body._

It took agonizing seconds to find the nearest camera and jump in but after that, it was a thankfully easy matter to simply slide back through the open connection to his cybernetics and his body. Something tried to impede him for a moment, but he forcefully moved past it in his hurry. Only where h̬̫̳͕e̞̗̤̠͍̖ͅ had been expecting a return to normalcy, there was just the jostling of being carried, along with the haggard breaths of Shepard next to his ear.

That, and the distant keening cry not far behind them.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard panted, hauling Emiya on her shoulders as she slammed her fist down on the lockdown interface, shutting another door behind them.

"Aaa _aa_ aaa _ah_ hh..."

She could still hear them behind her, looking for her and Emiya. It had been one thing when it had been a lone asari; one she had been able to fool into getting close enough for a quick takedown...

But with three of them and another one of those twisted creatures? The one she had bound down having been able to rip her uniform jacket to shreds to break free now, with her skin turning that same putrid gray and her limbs contorting and stretching out to match that one Emiya had been struggling with?

Some odds just weren't worth taking, especially since Emiya's unconscious ass had still been there. So she had beaten a retreat. She'd managed to give them the slip, but she wasn't sure how long that would last. They seemed able to follow her trail somehow, forcing her to keep moving. Her leg ached, and she wasn't sure whether it was that or her just post-operation exhaustion coupled with carrying Emiya, but she felt sick to the bottom of her stomach. The cold sweat felt clammy against her skin, as her breaths came short and shallow.

"What the hell is going on..." she complained, moving to set Emiya down against the wall and then slumping down next to him.

"Guh..."

"Huh, Emiya?!" She turned around, blinking as she realized he was _back_ again.

He groaned again, raising a hand to his forehead and rubbing hard. As if he was just waking up from a hangover after a week-long drinking binge, his skin was pale and his breathing labored.

"What happened? Did you get her?"

Shaking his head slowly, he said nothing. Still keeping his eyes closed, he seemed to be focusing on his breathing. Slowly, his breaths began to even out and become longer, and with the effort his pallid complexion began to improve. She sat there quietly for several minutes, focusing on trying to recover some of her own strength as well. _At this rate, I really might risk organ rejection... And my leg really isn't helping._

Unarmed, wearing only her dress uniform and effectively alone, she was kind of in the shit.

Which was why she had shut up and refrained from arguing with Emiya when he had started ordering her around. _But it looks like things didn't work out so neatly as he had expected._

"Hey."

He exhaled, finally opening his eyes after minutes of silence. "What time is it? How long was I out...?"

She frowned. _That's not good._

"It's 18:32, fleet time. If that means anything to you... What happened?"

Emiya scowled, opening his eyes wearily and looking around. "There were... _complications_. Where are we?"

She frowned, before shrugging. But seeing as how he wasn't looking her way, she sighed and spoke. "I have no idea. Asari build their ships weird. And what do you mean, ' _complications_ '?"

Getting up, he shook his head while flexing his fingers. As if checking himself for damage, or seeing whether everything was still there. He seemed inordinately intrigued by his hands, all of a sudden.

As if something was wrong with them. Like the sensations of his own body weren't quite familiar, or as if there was something there that he hadn't noticed before.

Finally, he spoke. "...Be careful of that scream. Don't get too close to them."

She stared at him. "Yeah, I got that myself, _thanks_. Makes your skin crawl, just hearing it, and you can't move." There was more; something he wasn't telling her. Hesitating for just a moment, she asked finally, "Are you okay?"

He turned to look at her, frowning. "...I'll live. You?"

"I'll live," she shot back, tone equally dismissive of her current condition as he was. If he could pull the macho-act, then he couldn't complain if she did the same.

Staring down at her, he said nothing. He had told her to get out; to get to the other Alliance officers, but she had ignored him completely. It wasn't as if he was her superior officer, and she had essentially saved his ass, and they both knew it. But there was still that unresolved question of the nature of their relationship now.

For all his candidness regarding any questions she posed, she knew there were a dozen other things he wasn't telling her. And he knew that she knew, leaving them in a strange equilibrium. Had her refusing to follow his lead now tilted that delicate balance of trust? He hadn't said anything about it, but she still worried.

But as he extended a hand down to help her up: "Thanks."

Shepard blinked and realized it was a needless worry, nodding back her own appreciation. _Apparently not_.

"Shouldn't you be doing _that thing_ right now, if she's still running around?" she asked, accepting the arm and letting herself get pulled up. Nausea welled up, as she felt the broken remains of her knee grinding at the motion. _It just doesn't get any easier, does it?_

But she ignored it, continuing. "You know, that _double body_ -thing, whatever it was."

"I was too careless and... ran out of fuel. Or something to that effect," he said shaking his head. "But I crippled Henell in return for it. She won't be jumping around anymore at least."

For a moment she worried about that, how his eyes didn't seem to be able to look at anything and how he was slightly swaying. But seeing as he seemed more annoyed and worried than anything else, she figured he shouldn't have hurt himself too badly. "Right, think it's about time we called in the cavalry. Can you patch me through to the Alliance ships?"

He looked up, alarm obvious.

" _That_ , would be a terrible idea," he said and Shepard frowned, narrowing her eyes at him for doubting their ability. "Whatever it was that happened to Henell on Torfan, it's at work here too. If we can't detect or prevent it from happening, then maintaining a quarantine is imperative."

"Wait, what do you mean?" She blinked, losing track of the conversation.

"I mean that while the creature Henell has turned into is the biggest immediate problem, the reason the asari are struggling to contain this situation is because more and more of their crew are _turning_ on them." He paused for effect. "If we bring in more people, then all that might well do is give Henell more numbers to draw on and the bigger of a mess we'll have to deal with. Already I'll probably have to go through a few hundred asari, just as it is."

Shepard nodded slowly, eyes wide. "Alright, alright... I get it. But, how do we stop them? You look like you're about to fall over where you are and I'm..."

He looked at her as she trailed off, eyes weary but far from giving up. The silence stretched out for a long moment until he finally sighed. "I can still handle Henell."

Shepard frowned, nodding. "Then what about the other one?"

"The other one?" he asked, eyes wide before he frowned. "What other one?"

She blinked, staring at him now. "The one who showed up before, who I tied up with my jacket, remember?"

Crossing his brows, he looked away as he tried to remember. As his eyes went distant again, she realized he was doing his hacking thing as well. He blinked, his expression changing instantly. "Tch, now there's two of them?"

But then he paused, thoughtful.

"Only two? That's peculiar. Why would there only be two of them?" He frowned, turning to Shepard. "What happened?"

"After you left, she broke loose. Without a gun, there wasn't much that could be done, so I grabbed you and came here. I thought the jacket would at least restrain her, but she broke through it like wet paper when she started turning into _that thing_."

She shook her head. That jacket had been fairly expensive, too.

Emiya nodded at her explanation, cupping his chin in thought as he muttered quietly. "Is she on the Ardat Yakshi spectrum as well? There's nothing in her medical files... But she's unmarried, with nothing hinting at previous relationships..."

Shepard blinked, suddenly remembering something. "That black thing, that has to be it."

"Hmm?"

"The asari that turned into one of those creatures... She had something in her back, inside of her," Shepard explained, looking up at Emiya who was frowning now. She hastened to explain, "It wasn't bleeding like should have. It felt like the thing was _rooted in her_ , somehow." She nodded again, certain of it now. "That's gotta be what turned her into that thing."

Emiya was quiet, staring at her with narrowed eyes and unseeing eyes. He was doing that thing again, she realized.

"Henell was stabbed, too." He muttered quietly, nodding at her words and confirming her suspicion. He looked up. "What were you doing right before I showed up? Were you trying to remove that thing right then?"

"That's right." Shepard nodded.

"Hmm, okay..."

"' _Hmm, okay_ ', what? You have a plan?" She was starting to get annoyed with him now. Back in basic, his reticence had been fine because she figured he knew better and it would take too long to explain.

But now...

If nothing had changed, what had she been working towards all this time?

He looked at her, blinking twice as if only just now remembering her presence. "...The beginnings of one. But," he said and sighed. A second later the lights went out, plunging them into darkness. "It looks like we're starting to run out of time. The emergency power just ran out, and the life-support systems won't be far behind. They'll be aiming to decompress the whole ship next, most likely."

"Can't you do something about that? You're a big-shot hacker, aren't you?" She frowned.

"I _was_ doing something," he shot back, with some annoyance seeping through in his voice, though it wasn't directed at her per se. "But they took down the power—it's all offline, now."

"Right, okay yeah." She nodded. That would do it, she supposed.

"Right. Come on, let's move."

She looked up and frowned at him. He had turned his back to her, holding his arms out as if...

"What, you're going to carry me now?" She couldn't quite keep the exasperation out of her voice.

"It's piggyback," he looked over his shoulder, raising an amused brow at her indignation, "or _potato-sack_. Your choice."

She glared at him, considering for just a moment arguing that she could walk just fine. That she had been carrying him until now, meaning— _Huh, I_ did _carry him. So it's fair._

"Alright, sure. I can't exactly cover you without a gun though." Emiya blinked at her sudden change of mind, slightly taken aback as she hopped on his back without further ado.

She took a moment to inspect how solid his back was, more surprised than anything. It was like he was tensing his entire upper body, or as if he couldn't relax.

"Where are we going?"

"The armory two levels above. There's a group of commandos holed up there, keeping it locked down. We'll need to gear up; get some explosives," he answered as he started to move, dashing down the corridor as if she weighed nothing at all.

Sure she had a broken leg she could use as an excuse, but even with her physical conditioning and gene-mods, she had struggled to move at a decent pace while carrying him before. "Guess those arms weren't just for show, huh."

"Hmm?"

"It's nothing. And watch the ceiling there big guy — if you bump my head, I'll bite your ear off."

He snorted, and she could _feel_ the tension melting away from his shoulders.

* * *

;

* * *

Arnaut Kyle frowned, shaking his head.

"What do you mean the comms are down?"

The communications officer licked his lips, suddenly nervous at being stared down by the major. "Sir, that's just..."

"What about the away party?"

"Most of them have returned, but six still remain onboard the Dreyn N'var, sir." Relieved at being able to actually be able to report something of value, the sitting man spoke quickly. "Commander Boroffs, Lieutenant Smithwill, Lieutenant Shepard—"

"Shepard...?" Kyle interrupted, blinking as he drew back. "Why is she up and about?"

The officer, not having any knowledge about Shepard's operation and the like, merely licked his lips again.

"Did the asari _say_ anything?" Kyle questioned. "Anything at all?"

"They said they were having some technical problems, informing us that away party would be returning shortly. Since then, they haven't said a word beyond assuring us that everything is under control."

"While the whole cruiser has gone into lockdown? With their reactor offline? That does not make any sense. Then what about the away party, have they sent any word on short-range transmissions?"

"Ah, no sir. The ablative plating on the cruiser's hull would degrade the signal too much."

He frowned, shaking his head as he turned his back to the officer and stalked away from the CIC. There was no use talking to him, since he obviously didn't know a damn thing about what was going on aboard the Dreyn N'var.

 _What is happening there...?_ Until mere minutes ago, the asari starship's communications had been assuring them that there was no problem, and that there was no need for concern. But that was obviously not the case. Not with the whole damn ship now having gone dark.

But it was not as if they could board the cruiser and find out, either. Not without some form of leave given by the asari aboard.

"It's that Alliance Intelligence operative... He's behind this, _somehow._ I know it...!"

What was his plan? _I need to get onboard, somehow._ Why had he approached Shepard of all people? _Maybe I can convince the general to let me lead a boarding party..._ Why was he hunting for a Citadel hacker out here in the Attican Traverse? _Phrase it as an investigation and aid attempt now that communications have been cut._ How were the asari related to all this?

None of it made sense to him.

But it would. Of _that_ he was going to make certain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Olive Birdy and Dumdum for proofreading! Thanks to Tolack for pointing plot stuff out! 
> 
> Another one of those chapters I wrote, and then re-wrote and then re-wrote again. Had a plan for it, but the more I work on it the less I like the chapter itself. So meh, will have to do so I can just keep moving.


	34. One's Measure

_The only sounds here were the beating of his heart and the soft whisper of his slow breathing._

_There was nothing here. After all they could not trust him with anything more than the clothes he was wearing for the fear of what he might be able to do. He might have gone too far with the reputation he had garnered himself, but that decision was the least of his misgivings._

_It had left him with all too much time to think, this empty room without anything inside of it. To recollect and ponder. To weigh and measure. To remember. And now if he had to narrow it down after all this time, thinking it all through..._

_It was probably that which lead him to this._

_The fundamental difference in nature between him and most others. Or perhaps one could say, the ratio of characteristics, or how he derived one from the other. He shook his head as he opened his eyes, looking at the white walls quietly._

_Human beings seek some things, and avoid others. That is common knowledge._

_For most, they would agree that pleasure is something they would seek and pain something to avoid. From that, the complex web of half-truths, convenient lies and tangled conditions would sprout outward to form what is known as a person._

_And to find pleasure and avoid pain, it becomes necessary to venture out into the world, for there is only so much that exists within one person. Only so much 'human'. And that is something that is worn down every day._

_To derive pleasure it is necessary to go out into the world and interact with other people. To seek out the new things and cast aside the old. To die as the yesterday, for the sake of the tomorrow to continue onward._

_Yet, that is also the greatest source of pain._

_Desire._

_Some learned men thus teach distance, yet few could possibly truly reach the end of such a road. To shun the outside and seek only that which lies within is not something a human can do. In a sense, to reach such a place one must be either a beast or a god._

_And he was neither._

_Yet he shunned pleasure — willingly and knowingly taking on pain. Hoarding it for himself, madly giving away any and all happiness to anyone and everyone he met without discrimination, seeking something that did not exist anywhere in the world. Something that only existed within himself._

_It was probably that, which lead him to that place back then, and thus here once more as well. The winding road of hypocrisy and self-refutation for the sake of self-affirmation, where he sought to derive pleasure from within, despite not shunning the without._

_A hollow chuckle echoed quietly, breaking the silence that had long grown nigh-unbreakable._

What falsity.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sighed, hefting Shepard up a bit higher on his back as ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲e͔̮͈ͅ continued moving. She kept sliding down, whenever his attention slipped even for a moment. Something that kept happening more than he would have liked, considering his current state.

It wasn't far now. He could drop off Shepard and then get back to it, before Henell could move too much around. _The Protheans are—dedicated my whole life to this—I'm sorry, Fal—Thank you! Thank you all for this great honor—One must always take great care when excavating—Friends and colleagues, all getting married and finding personal happiness she never could—But, professor! Please, you must—_ Emiya shook his head.

Most of the... _unusual effects_ still lingered, but ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲e͔̮͈ͅ was able to suppress most of it by now. Breathing slowly and emptying his mind worked relatively well, though he still had a killer headache and his ears felt like they were constantly ringing. Strangely it also almost seemed like Shepard's presence had helped him shrug off the worst of it. Of course, that was the least of ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲is problems at the moment; at this rate it wouldn't be long before the reserve power ran out too, after which things would really start deteriorating irrevocably. _The artificial gravity is getting weaker. It will probably shut down soon._

Someone would have to fix the power soon.

_The cruiser's mainframe is down, but there are still several smaller computers on. Omnitools, firearms, portable scanners and tools._ So even though he could no longer track the fight through the security cameras, he could roughly follow along through the wireless signals of the various smart devices. H̫̪̩͍̙͍͖e̮̖nell hadn't been wearing any, but given ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲er location and the distinct lack of any mass effect fields corresponding to a Blink, he was certain that she was still moving on foot.

The fight had taken place on one of the lower levels, where most of the work-spaces and shared personal quarters were, where no one should be anymore right now. Most of the asari crew should already be with Benezia. Or so ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲e͔̮͈ͅ hoped, at least.

Which meant for now she was away from everyone, leaving Henell stuck in an already evacuated section, effectively harmless. With the power out, none of the elevators would work and any blast doors would pose a major hindrance to anyone looking to move through the starship. Depending on how well H̫̪̩͍̙͍͖e̮̖nell knew the ship's layout—and still be capable of thinking and planning a route—she might well be isolated and spend hours just wandering around in circles. As long as she couldn't teleport, that is. _I have time to recover. But the question is... Will she recover in the meantime as well?_

He hadn't seen her healing from any of his blows. H̫̪̩͍̙͍͖e̮̖r broken arm, the cuts he had been able to inflict; the damage had remained unchanged. Instead she had merely been shrugging it all off, moving despite the massive wounds. That last exertion had also seemingly burned through ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲e͔̮͈ͅr eezo nodes, but that still left her scream and the brainwashing she could inflict on others.

_At least now I know what it is she was doing with that wail, even if that only means that I know it is impossible to protect people from it or to reverse any damage already done._ In that sense, it really was very similar to a Dead Apostle incident. Once one had been affected, there was no salvation left to be given. Only a quick and merciful end to their suffering.

H̫̪̩͍̙͍͖e̮̖ would need to finish this up before—

" _Ha_ lt!"

He ignored the ghostly shout recognizing it for the false memory it was, continuing forward and intent on reaching the armory just up ahead.

Shepard shook his shoulders, hitting him twice. "Hey, stop!"

"Hnn, what?" He blinked looking up, and realized that he was staring at a pair of asari commandos pointing heavy pistols at him. Their wary stances and hostility was obvious, how had he missed them? "...Right."

Setting Shepard down slowly, he eyed the two and did his best to ignore the visual distortions. He inhaled slowly and focused on sorting out the shadows from the real. He had already done this once before, in the aftermath of Thessia. He hadn't been certain whether it had been the cybernetic scrambler or the brief meld he had experienced with Tyra, but now he was fairly certain that it wasn't related to his brain implants. _Breathe, and peer through the distortions._

"Put your hands up! Who are you? How did you get here?"

One of the commandos was shouting at them now, and Shepard hastened to reply with a confident and commanding tone. "We aren't your enemies; put down the guns. We were just a part of the Alliance dinner party, but we were separated from the others."

The two asari looked at each other, their guarded stances betraying nothing. One of them raised a hand, flashing through several hand-signs rapidly. _Negative. Hostiles. Detain. Take big one down first._ Emiya sighed, inhaling slowly as he shook his head at the unfamiliar information. _How do I know commando hand-signs...?_ His temples were pounding, but he thought he could hear a familiar voice up ahead. _Fairly certain Anatha is just around the corner._

"Justicar Anatha! Get over here!"

All three women were startled and both muzzles swiveled to him, but he didn't particularly care at the moment.

"Hands in the air! Both of you, now!"

The Matriarch appeared behind the shouting commandos, not many seconds later. "Who is shouting here— _You_."

Her eyes narrowed and locked onto Emiya and for a moment he was certain she was going to attack. The commandos who had been getting worked up blinked, suddenly not certain what was going on as their heads swiveled back and forth between the two of them. He merely snorted, crossing his arms at her reaction. _She's not sure whether Benezia knows I'm here. She's sworn herself to follow her order's for now, meaning that even if she wants to she can't just attack me until Benezia okays it._

"Anatha. _Boy_ , am I glad to see you." Shepard grinned, before thumbing at one of the two guards. "Tell these two idiots to put down their guns, before my friend here puts both of them through the wall."

He didn't particularly care if he had to knock a few of them down. In fact, it might even serve as stress relief and to establish some authority here, since he would need their help. _Okay, grab the left one and slam her into the right one. Then use them as cover against Anatha and leg it back to..._

"I am glad to see you well and unharmed, Shepard," the Justicar said, eyes firmly still on Emiya and he paused in his thoughts, waiting to see where this would go. "I see you brought... a _guest._ "

_Is she probing whether Shepard smuggled me onboard the ship in the first place? How much did Benezia tell her, anyhow?_ Emiya pondered. Presently he said, "Benezia wanted to talk—so we did."

Anatha's only reaction was a minute narrowing of eyes, as she stared at him silently. Between them, the two commandos fidgeted as the tense silence stretched well over half a minute. Finally, she seemed to come to a conclusion.

"I see. I take it was your doing... the coordination and updates on the comms." She turned to look at the commandos, breaking off the staring contest first as she continued. "Very well, let them through and inform the others."

The two younger asari blinked, but did not question Anatha and instead only replied with a sharp, "Yes ma'am!" as they let Emiya and Shepard pass.

Around the corner, as expected they found four dozen asari all huddled and quiet in the relatively large hall, crowded around benches and tables meant for machinery and maintenance. In the darkness, lit only be a few omnitools and some hand-held torches, most of them looked up at the unexpected pair of humans walking in. But some seemed too traumatized for even that, too lost in their own memories and nursing their wounds. Luckily none seemed to be suffering from anything more serious than a broken arm.

Among them, there were only fifteen armed and hardsuit-wearing combatants _—_ Anatha and the two guards now behind them included. _No, she said to inform the others. There are three other ways to get in, which means six more commandos? So twenty-one, all in all?_

He found it telling that the commandos were warily staring at the crew as much as they were keeping an eye out. With so much chaos and confusion, the seeds of distrust and dissension had already been sown deep. If it was left alone for much longer, it would probably fester and rot into something even worse.

_I need to finish this quickly_.

"I need five commandos," ḩ͓̩̪̼͎̣̲e said loudly, without preamble.

Anatha stopped, turning around and staring at him with piercing intensity. "And leave these asari without protection?"

_Oversight._ _She means oversight. Even with training, hardsuits and guns, if the numbers are that unequal the commandos will have a hard time defending the crew while still having enough reserves to take out possible kshirae._

"Regardless. I need five commandos."

If he could coordinate five commandos, they could all check the blast doors and maintenance hatches to the level where Henell was and seal them. Omnitool fabricators might not be enough, but there should be some proper welding gear here as well. Once Henell was locked down, he could focus on taking out the other Ardat Yakshi. _For now, it seems to be much weaker than Henell was, which makes sense now that I think about it._

He had been beaten down with age and experience, literally as it were. A mistake he wasn't about to repeat. Regardless, based on the personal comms and other data he was still able to pick up, it seemed like the second creature was not anywhere near as big of a problem as Henell was. Benezia's asari had been able to beat her back twice now, and none had been turned among them since. The difference a few centuries made.

"And some explosives. How many grenades do you still have?"

That got a reaction full of disbelief out of Anatha. "You believe I would simply hand over explosive ordinance to you?"

"Of course. You're not making any use of it, are you? And I'm the only one here who seems to be able to get anything done," he͔̮͈ͅ said with a scoff, before shaking his head. "After all, if _you_ had done your job, we would still have power at the very least."

She bristled at his comment, balling her fists as she took a step towards him.

"Whoa, hey _hey!_ " Shepard shouted, getting in between them on hobbling steps, holding her arms raised to keep them separated. Then, seeing as how Anatha had stopped, she whirled around on him, with an accusing look. "What the hell is your problem! Do you actually expect to accomplish anything by picking fights when there's bigger things to worry about!"

Emiya inhaled, realizing that his pounding headache might be affecting his temper. Yet, h̨e wasn't going to back down on what he had said; Anatha had been given a simple job, and now at its failure the ship was going down.

Shepard noticing his mood, walked up to him and rapped his chest with a lone knuckle. "Okay, so just calm your tits." Turning towards Anatha, she spoke with emphasis. "That goes for the _both of you_. Okay?"

Emiya held back a scowl, glancing momentarily at Anatha. "Fine. Suppose that puts you in charge, then."

The soldier blinked at his comment, before nodding seriously. He had intended it as a jibe, but seeing as how she was taking it at face value, he realized it might be actually better if he left the talking to her.

"Anatha, you heard him. Are you willing to get along?"

The Justicar looked as if she had bitten into something bitter, scowling at him though her eyes kept being drawn to Shepard. If it was just a matter of experience or familiarity with the Dreyn N'var, the asari were infinitely more suitable. But they obviously weren't capable of handling it; they needed him. And Shepard was the only one who seemed to have any measure of effect on his decisions.

Behind them some of the commandos were frowning as they threw circumspect glances at them, conferring quietly their worries, though he was still able to hear them. As apparently well was Anatha, their worried whispers causing her to hesitate.

"Who are they? Guests of Matriarch Benezia?"

"I saw the human woman with the Matriarch, but I do not recognize the man. But Anatha does? Are they here to help?"

"They must be, at this rate the ship will not last much longer."

Anatha scowled at the two, quieting them with just a glance before turning to look at Shepard. But the fact was, that even if she could only hear those two, everyone present had been thinking the same. Many of the huddling crew were whispering similar sentiments even now, beyond Anatha's hearing. But she must have known that, as well.

At last, with apparent and great reluctance she answered. "Very well. I shall abide by Lieutenant Shepard's advice."

All asari in earshot fell silent at that, casting confused glances at their new effective commander. The woman in question took it in stride, nodding once as she turned to Emiya.

"Alright, _Spill._ What's going on? Why do you want commandos?" she asked, crossing her arms as she did.

"There's two of those transformed creatures now," he began and many among the asari listening in were shocked and horrified. "But we can still handle it. The first one was stronger than the second one, and Benezia is keeping things under control there while the first one has been crippled and cannot use her biotics any more. But while the first one is no longer as dangerous in a direct confrontation, her ability to _kshirae_ still remains."

"How do you know that word?" Anatha immediately inquired, taking two steps closer to him with fists balled.

"Benezia told us," Shepard said and caused the Matriarch to pause, managing to smooth the flare of temper momentarily. Before the Justicar could continue, Shepard nodded at Emiya. "Continue."

"Luckily, her last Blink was to a section of the ship that is now mostly sectioned off from everything else, containing her for the time being. Of course, it's only a matter of time until she can physically walk out and start wreaking havoc again," he explained.

"So what's your plan?" Shepard frowned, nodding in understanding.

"With the power out, most of the normal routes to and fro that part of the cruiser are blocked. Those that remain are much fewer, but also slightly difficult to reach. It's unlikely Henell will find her way out, but just in case we should seal those ways and ensure that she can't move out."

At the mention of Henell's name, many of the asari erupted into confused and mumbled murmurs with each other. They had all known their mission, then. Had even held small celebrations at having accomplished their missions and having been able to find and rescue the kidnapped asari professors. What a slap in the face it must be, to find themselves in this situation after all that effort. To have the one you sought to save turn on you.

A bitter feeling and one he was all too familiar with, himself.

"Why can't you just do it?" Shepard asked.

"I had intended to deal with the second one swiftly, before turning my attention back to Henell again. It's—" _not as if the commandos seem to be worth anything in a fight,_ he almost finished that thought, before he bit it down and hastily censored his words for something more suitable. "The most effective method, since the power is down and I can't just centrally lock her in with the blast doors."

_Focus,_ he chided himself. His headache was no excuse for letting this blow up in his face.

"Alright, that sounds good. Can your commandos handle that, Anatha?" Shepard seemed satisfied with his plan, now turning to convince the Justicar to go along with it.

"...They will have to bring along specialized equipment from storage, and if the blast doors do not work then we will have to manually shut the ventilation shafts." Anatha spoke, most of her previous hostility having melted away in the face of his plan.

"Good, then let's—" Shepard nodded, but Anatha interrupted her, as she continued.

"But there is a bigger problem. There are four large hull breaches along the port side of the cruiser that require mending, and with so much of the oxygen and heat already vented out, if we cannot restore power soon then it will not matter what we do. Another 10 minutes, and we will all be freezing and suffocating to death." She paused for a moment, gesturing at a group of four asari in technician's uniforms. "And as they have already assured me, it will be impossible to restore power or perform such large-scale repairs on such short notice. Instead, I believe we should focus on restoring enough power to communicate with the Alliance vessels, to request for immediate assistance in evacuating all personnel off this ship."

Emiya frowned at that. _If the Alliance shows up, who knows how many will be affected. Shepard has been fine so far, but..._ He was well aware she was not the average soldier, N7 or not. Now that he knew what this ' _kshirae_ ' was, he was fairly certain that Alliance soldiers would probably be weak to it, especially given the disparity in age. With Henell it had been enough to even affect asari, but even the Maiden who had been also been turned should be able to affect humans as well. _That is, if it really_ is _based on age. Perhaps the quality of soul is more important than the quantity of years, if such a thing can be measured here._

Something to consider later, when he had the time to compile and analyze the personal information of both the converted and the fallen for comparison. For now, knowing that Shepard was aware of the danger in bringing in more people would have to be enough.

"Where are the hull breaches?" Shepard asked, expression serious and considering. "Show me on a 3d-model on an adaptive display."

One of the technicians stood up and hurried over, turning on her omnitool to show a wire-frame blueprint of the entire vessel. Along four parts of the outer hull were marked spots indicating damage. _I've become too reliant on hacking for information and assumed that because there weren't any alarms, that the hull integrity had not been compromised. I should have verified it myself._

Shepard nodded, then turned to face him with a serious expression. "You can fix it, right?"

He paused, realizing that suddenly all eyes were on him. Raising a lone, questioning brow at Shepard he waited a few seconds before nodding.

"I knew it," she said as her expression bloomed into a confident grin. "That material fabricator you have is better than _anything_ I've ever seen." Toning it down into something less toothy, she turned to face everyone else. "Everyone, listen up! This concerns everyone! The hull breaches are all on this side of the ship, as you can see, as is Henell who is down _here._ Hey, lift your omnitool so everyone can see to ship—good, that's better..." Gathering her thoughts one more time, Shepard cleared her throat. "We can't leave the ship; not until we know what is causing people to turn mad, or we risk spreading it. So _we_ need to handle this, _ourselves!_ Without letting anyone else get pulled in!"

Some of the gathered asari seemed to be encouraged by those words, sitting up straighter in the lull as Shepard paused to take a breath.

"So here's what we're going to do. Six volunteers will go around the path prepared, to ensure that Professor Henell can't escape and make more trouble. Meanwhile, everyone else will move out and join up with Matriarch Benezia, sealing the blast doors behind us to ensure that no more oxygen will leak. That way, we'll be able to able to combine our strengths and face the threat together."

Emiya's brows furrowed, as he crossed his arms. And what was he to do during all of this?

"Meanwhile, you," as if reading his mind, she said and turned to face him. "Will plug all the hull breaches and see if you can repair the engines and generator to restore power."

He blinked, not expecting that. Some part of him scoffed, telling him to refuse and to head out to just do it all by himself. But the cooler part of his head reminded him that she did have a point. _I'm low on magical energy... Projections are fine, but I'm not sure if I took any further damage to my spiritual core._ Meaning he probably shouldn't risk it, if he could rely on her instead. Still, he frowned and said nothing.

"But, mi—M-ma'am..?" The asari technician floundered for a moment, before clearing her throat and speaking. "Even if those holes are plugged, restoring power will be nearly impossible without refitting everything! Someone Warped and blew up nearly the whole generator. You would need to replace nearly every cable there — you can't possibly think it's possible to fix something like—"

"Sure, I'll get it done."

The technician fell silent, blinking owlishly at him with her mouth still hanging open, left quiet mid-sentence by his confident words. Even Shepard seemed surprised and hesitant at his self-sure attitude.

But within a few seconds, she regained her grin. "...Alright then. Let's hustle, people!"

* * *

;

* * *

"But sir, something is obviously wrong. Think of the diplomatic fallout if we were to simply stand by and something were to happen!" Kyle shouted, his temper already flaring up.

Maeda exhaled, raising a hand to rub his temples. "I am well aware. But _even so_ , we will have to wait until we receive the go-ahead from Arcturus Station. This situation is far beyond either of our pay-grades — you know that as well as I do, Major."

"To hell with the politics! There must be something we can do! We still have personnel onboard the cruiser, isn't that a good enough reason to act!?"

"It is reason enough to steer clear as far away from them as possible!" Maeda roared, actually standing up with a start. Do you know how bad this already looks? A celebrated—beloved even!—asari icon invites the Alliance aboard her vessel and _mere hours_ later all contact is lost and her ship is dead to the world? What do you think it will look like if we then board the ship and find whatever was the cause? Something serious enough to knock out every system? Humanity is in a precarious enough a position with the Citadel and Thessia as it is!"

He sat down again exhaling deeply as Kyle looked away, obviously just as perturbed and worried by the situation as he was.

"Besides, we're _groundpounders_. We don't take part in a starship boarding operation. Even when... _if_ the command does come, it will be out of our hands." Maeda got up, walking over to Kyle and placing a hand on the absent-minded man's shoulder to gain his attention. "You need to keep well clear of this incident, more than anyone. If this does blow up, it would grind your career to a halt. So keep your head cool and toe the line, Major."

"...Very well."

Arnaut nodded slowly, exhaling as he turned around to leave the office. But as the automatic doors closed behind him, those words had long since been pushed out of his mind.

"Shepard was still listed under my command, since she was off the rosters due to her medical. That means..." He considered out loud, thoughts whirling in his head. "If I play my cards right, I could, I might well be able to muscle in on the boarding operation."

And once he did, he would get down to the truth of all this. There was something rotten going on, and he was certain that the risks would well be outweighed by the rewards. If he did uncover whatever was at work here, then he was certain that it would propel him to ever-greater heights.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya eyed Shepard, frowning despite himself.

She seemed to be in her element here, shouting at people and getting everyone ready to move. Of the assembled asari none were younger than her—most well over thrice her age— yet she had managed to grasp authority in a matter of minutes. _She's certainly changed._

"Hey, are you ready to go?" Shepard asked, walking back to him.

He looked up, uncrossing his arms as he kicked off the wall. "I've been ready since we got here."

"Okay, let's go! Engineering, here we come."

Shaking his head, he placed a hand on his hip. "As if. You're going with them."

She followed where he was nodding with her eyes, staring at Anatha for a few seconds before she sighed. "Can't fault me for trying." She shrugged easily, before asking more quietly. "...Will you be alright? You've been pretty quiet."

"It's fine now, I figured something out. But..." He hesitated, sighing. "Thanks."

Shepard blinked, freezing mid-step to look at him and their eyes met. A second passed and her shoulders slumped as she let out a gust of light laughter. "Alright, you can explain it to me later, once we're not all facing imminent death."

Emiya too had to give a wry little half-grin at that, feeling oddly light as he turned to walk away. Giving one last wave, before he felt her eyes peel off his back he left.

Moving past the commandos' outer watch again, he kicked off into a run. Just as he had originally planned a route for the commandos and himself to be able to seal up Henell as quickly as possible—a plan that now required some adjusting, since he wasn't participating, but he trusted Shepard had that well in hand—now too, he had a strict route he needed to follow, to ensure that he got all of the leaks as quickly as possible.

"First things first...—Trace, _on_ "— _begin projection_ ,

Reassembling his helmet, he ensured that he now had ample oxygen supplies just in case the hull damage had already caused the interior pressure and life-support systems to drop to the red. A mere half minute later the artificial gravity finally turned off, leaving him floating in mid-step for just a moment.

_There it is_.

The power had gone out long ago already, but that had not meant that everything would turn off all at once. The eezo core eddy currents and the induction lag of the various system, coupled with the persistence of the massive mass effect fields, meant that the 'lights would stay on' for a while longer even after the power was nominally lost. Meaning that the electrically more demanding systems, such as the life-support and kinetic barriers, must have already gone off-line well over a minute ago.

_I should hurry then._

Bouncing off walls, h̨e kicked forward until he reached a sealed blast door. Normally leaving it shut was imperative, ensuring that only the sections beyond were affected by the hull breach, but since he knew there were other broken and still open doors and ventilation shafts, it was meaningless. Better to actually repair the external leaks, or seal the specific rooms.

Mentally checking h̨is omnitool's various sensors, he noted the changes to ambient temperature and pressure. Then he extended a hand and exhaled, as motes of light gathered and coalesced into a golden sword. Huffing to himself as he grabbed a hold of the handle of door with his free hand, he precisely positioned the tip of the blade over a spot, carefully measuring the angle as he reflected at the absurdity of his situation. That being, that recreating a legendary golden holy sword was by far the most energy efficient method for him to open a door such as this.

The tip slid forward and through the bulk of the blast door like a hot knife through butter, piercing well over half the length of the whole blade before he stopped. _That should do it._

Emiya pulled out the sword, carefully keeping his other hand still on the handle for support. With zero gravity, leveraging force was somewhat awkward and clumsy, especially since the door itself was at least five times his own mass. But by placing his feet against the wall and floor he could get himself in a position where he could directly push open the now unlocked door.

Squeezing through the now half-open door, he considered dispelling the sword for a moment before he shook his head and continued onward. _I might need it to break through another door. No meaning in wasting energy, especially since it doesn't matter if anyone sees it._

Like that—after five more blast doors that required him to exercise his new universal key—he made it to the first hull breach that had been logged in a matter of minutes. His omnitool had been steadily ticking away and noting the drop in temperature and pressure, until it had nearly reached the average of cold space that should lie beyond the hull. _Henell never came here, I'm sure of that. It's the work of one of the kshirae, then? To think they're working with such coordination. No, I supposed that is to be expected of one mind, shared by many._

Entering the room, he had to stop at the threshold and keep his hands firmly on the door as his eyes shot wide open at the sight.

After all, half of the structurally-reinforced stargazing window just ahead was simply _gone_. With shattered drinking glasses and fine cloth strewn about and floating around in the dark room, all slowly drifting towards the rend in the hull and out into the cold of space beyond, he had to consciously swallow to wet his suddenly all-too-dry throat. A gaping hole of blackness: the jagged shards of glass still sticking to the rim like great, wicked teeth on the door to the endless darkness just beyond.

Someth̨ing inside of h̨im felt an indescribable, inh̨uman and ancient terror from th̨at sight, as if expecting some great eldritch̨ design to lay just outside, waiting for h̨im in ageless vigil. Exhaling strongly, he forcefully rid himself of such intuitions and focused on what needed to be done.

Not even the stars so far off and away could be seen through the broken stargazing window as he approached it, the light of h̨is omnitool illuminating just enough of the room's remains and the shards of the glass to thoroughly blind him to such ' _minute_ ' lights.

Sighing, he took one more look around before he simply decided to seal the door. Fixing the glass pane or covering it up would be too much of a bother compared to simply closing and sealing the door properly. Compared to using Projection and Reinforcement, just closing the door would be quicker and more efficient, though using Structural Analysis to double-check his work was necessary regardless.

That done, h̨e checked his omnitool again.

The temperature and pressure had hit rock bottom, meaning that the room he was in was practically no different from the ambient space outside the hull. As well it should since he had sealed the door to ensure no more heat and oxygen escaped, Which still left him inside of the room with a broken window, with nowhere else to go but _outside._ But that was how it should be. _That took three minutes altogether. Better hurry it up._

Traversing the inside of the ship was too time-consuming. All the blast doors and labyrinthine corridors would simply take too long to traverse through, and there was no guarantee that he would find all of the leaks anyhow.

Meaning that he should be traveling on the _outside_ of the cruiser, along the hull where he could find the damage much more quickly.

As h̨e leaned out of the window, keeping a careful hand on the side to make sure that no matter what he was no slung out into the void, he sighed quietly. _As I thought; the hull is ceramic and not magnetic._

Meaning that magnets would not function for scaling the outside. But it wasn't as if he could simply jump out and just walk on the hull either. There was nothing attracting him to the starship. The first step would just push him away and then he would be floating free into nothingness.

"Alright, fine. Guess I'll have to be creative—Trace, _on_ " _—begin projection,_

The familiar nail-and-chain appeared in his right hand as he kept the golden sword in his left. Its design was rather simple, with a length of chain between a spiked nail on one end, and a ring on the other. Having been transformed out of the hair of a legendary Gorgon, its length was highly adjustable and its material characteristics were outstanding, enough so that he wouldn't feel any hesitation in using it as his literal life-line here and now.

Threading his right hand through the ring, he transferred the sword back to his right hand and made sure that the ring could not pass over the hilt. Now even without holding onto the ring directly as long as he held onto the sword, he would be attached to the ring and the rest of the chain.

With a seemingly casual flick of his left hand, the nail portion of the chain slammed down into the floor and sank in all the way up to the spiked ring at the end of the nail. Testing the nail's attachment, he was satisfied that it would hold his weight with ease. Then, he turned to the broken window and the cold of space beyond.

And then, without any further preamble or ceremony, he jumped out through the window. "Hup—!"

Emiya floated out beyond the starship freely, until the 34.6-meter long chain finally went taut and brought him to a stop. Re-orienting himself to face the cruiser, he peered at the hull and noted everything within his line of sight. This far away from any star, or other sources of light it was fairly difficult to see anything with great detail, but he still managed to detect three additional hull breaks nearby. None of which had been on the information handed to him.

_Looks like this was the right call,_ he thought with some satisfaction as he began to pull himself back inside the room. As his boots touched the window, he grabbed a hold of the remaining window with his left hand, and then angled himself towards the nearest break, _Just like jumping out of a window while holding onto a rope, to get to a lower floor. Nothing more to it..._

And h̨e kicked off at as sharp an angle his position allowed towards the next hole in the hull.

Already a mere ten meters away his body was drifting so far away from the hull that he couldn't reach out and touch it anymore, but as he was about to fly past the hole he had been aiming for the chain went taut again and he stopped instantly.

Except...

_Eh...? Should I have swung against the hull... Like with rappelling down a building?_

He had stopped and was now hovering right 'above' the hole he had wanted to reach. But it was still outside of his reach. He tried to kick towards it, flapping and swimming in the void but managed to get no closer. _Right... Looks like I'm not nearly as clever as I thought I was..._

"Fine."

Astralizing the chain and reeling its weightless length back to him, he smirked as he felt the ghostly nail back in his left hand. And since he had not moved any mass, his position relative to the cruiser hadn't changed.

Raising a hand, he prepared to toss the nail into the inside of the hole in the starship's hull so that he could pull himself in, only to pause and frown at the last second. _Wait, wait... Wouldn't throwing it just propel me further away from the cruiser?_ The mental image of throwing the nail as hard as he could, only to be sent flying in the opposite direction and flying off into space went through his mind's eye that moment. _Do I have any guarantee that the nail will manage to grip securely enough for me to pull myself back in?_

Looking at the nail in his hand, he frowned.

"Okay... Let's try this, then."

Turning around as best he could, he pulled back his hand and then tossed the nail out into space, with the long chain following in its wake as the speeding projectile thundered away. And as expected, the rest of h̨is body was propelled in the opposite direction—albeit at a much slower speed due to his greater mass. _Damn, the length of the chain won't be enough for me to reach the hull._

Astralizing the chain again, he negated its mass yet the momentum he had acquired towards the hull remained unchanged. In fact, it increased slightly as the chain's weight disappeared off of him. _Just like mass effect fields, huh?_

Suddenly he had the mental image of flying through space by repeatedly projecting large swords and repeatedly 'jumping off of' them for continued acceleration. He had to chuckle, but then shook his head as he caught a hold of the hole in the hull. "Alright, time to focus..."

Fixing the leak took barely half a minute this time, and soon enough he was on his way again towards the next hole.

And the next.

And the next.

Until all that was left was the second large hole he had been able to find within reach and sight on the cruiser's hull. This one, he was sure, had been Henell's work. The bent and torn metal the tell-tale signs of an incredibly potent biotic's handiwork.

"What do you know, this really was a good idea," he told himself with a scoff of bravado, as he began to analyze h̨is fifteenth hole in his fourth minute outside the starship. He had intentionally left this one for last, as it was the one nearest to the engine room on top allowing him to pass through, so that he could close it from the inside and continue straight there from here towards his next destination.

Unlike many of the other sections, this one would actually require him to project something to fill in the hole due to the extensive damage that had been wrought here from the inside. Mostly the difference in severity was due to the cause of the breach; for most of the holes, it had been something outside the ship slamming in through the side, rather than someone from the inside causing the damage. Torfan wasn't the safest of ports, to put it mildly, so it really was no wonder there was more than a little bit of debris floating around here. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but... _With the kinetic barriers off, even an errant fleck of paint can cause some considerable damage, huh..._

Still, such holes were rather easy to plug, as there had been no intent to violently tear open the hull as with the first and last cases.

He suspected Henell—or whatever the intent that lay behind and seemed to be controlling her, anyhow—had made certain to have those two sections of the starship vented, just to make any repairs that much more difficult to undertake. Thus the holes h̨e had jumped out of and was now re-entering the Dreyn N'var were plenty big enough to let him pass through. For most repair crews finding something to fix such holes would be quite a quandary, even with omnitools' material fabricators.

Which by itself wasn't a problem for him, since even a relatively thin sheet of metal would be enough to plug the hole, despite their relative immensity. The problem was that he did not have that much magical energy left, notably due to his previous failure to put down Henell. A few dozen projections wouldn't be a problem, but seeing what Henell had managed to do here with a casual application of biotics, he couldn't imagine she would have been any less thorough with the engine room.

"I might have to supplement, huh..." he muttered with some distaste, not particularly thrilled by the options he had on that front.

Shaking his head, he pushed away from the now-finished repairs and exhaled. Raising the holy sword and chain in his hands, he considered dispelling them again. _No point in wasting anything_ , he thought and tossed the length of chain over his shoulder, wrapping it around himself and finally threading through the golden sword onto his back. _I wonder what those two would think of my carrying their weapons like this..._

At least the weapons were securely attached and out of h̨is way now, as he starting moving again.

It wasn't far to the engine room and it didn't take long to get there, especially with none of the blast doors closed in his path and giving him a clear path on these sections. Entering the doorway and floating along the hand-railed ramp, he frowned at the destruction he beheld in the sterile light of his omnitool.

Splashes and droplets of purple blood seemed to be staining every surface, with the remains of some dozen of asari crew-members floating silently along the various corners of the engine room. It appeared almost as if they had exploded all over the walls here. Beyond the gloom and beneath the gore he could see the numerous diagnostic panels and terminals, all just as lifeless and broken as everything else in the room. _With emergency power out, I'll have to fix everything manually, which isn't going to be easy._ Parts of the walls and floor had been gouged and gutted out, with wires and fiber-optic cable sticking out as if they were the roots of a plant ripped straight out of the soft ground. Up ahead where the eezo core would be lying dead and cold, behind an open door to another section of the engine room he could see more bodies and remains of the destruction that had passed through here.

Repairing this conventionally would take days, possibly even weeks depending on the waiting time on some of the materials necessary for replacing broken parts. Even just restoring power and getting life-support back online would take hours for a full team, much less someone like him working all alone.

He didn't even have the schematics for most of the critical machines, much less the tools or parts.

But he _could_ do it.

He just needed more magical energy. With a heavy heart, he checked the floating corpses as he noted the omnitool's read-outs again. _Too cold and no oxygen. Can't take off my helmet here, not without fixing everything and having life-support again,_ he concluded and clucked his tongue at the catch-22 he was presented with.

Raising his hands, he unraveled the chain around his torso and set it aside, along with the holy sword. They would just get in the way. "I'll have to risk a few seconds."

Stepping out of his physical body, h̨e shuddered at the raw feeling. As if h̨is skin had never touched the outside world, h̨is eyes itching as if h̨e had just attempted to see through saltwater and watering in turn. Exh̨aling and shaking his head, he jumped forward towards the nearest mangled asari corpse. It was already dead and cold; utterly beyond h̨is help. So just as much̨ as the lesser amount of life remaining in the body would be an inconvenience in practical terms, in moral terms it was a much ligh̨ter matter on h̨is shoulders.

His hand shot forward, straightened fingers piercing between ribs with ease into the dead asari's chest.

Devouring a live asari for sustenance would be much more empowering, but was that really a line he would be willing to cross? Kill one to save ten. Then... _Devour_ one to save ten? Was there really a difference? The worrying thing was that he would only know once he stood there, looking down on that threshold. Placing his other hand on the exposed hip bone of the asari, he pulled his embedded hand loose with a silent squelch and a purple splatter of droplets against his face.

In h̨is hand he clasped a dark and lifeless heart.

A rivulet of coagulated, sticky blood traced down his knuckles, still sticking to h̨im due to the lack of gravity.

It seemed like mere minutes ago he had been in a bright kitchen, surrounded by expectant and interested people, yet here he was again surrounded by death and the old choices. Warm and delicious food for others, brought only into reality by the sacrifice and devouring of others less fortunate. _It always comes back down to this._

With th̨at bitter taste _i_ n his mouth, h̨e plunged h _i_ s teeth̨ into the alien flesh̨.

* * *

;

* * *

"You okay?"

Shepard waved away for the _n_ th time the concerns of Tryna, nodding to show that she was fine. The lack of gravity was actually a boon for her, since she really didn't need to support herself with both of her legs in her current weightless state. She and the others had moved out, heading towards where Benezia and the rest of the commandos should be.

She, as one of the wounded despite her protests, was located in the middle of the group along with the non-combatant asari crew of the cruiser. Anatha was taking point, while most of the commandos were spread out in the front and back. So far they hadn't run into any problems beyond a few jammed doors, but she was feeling quite confident that they would make it to Benezia just fine.

In fact, she was feeling a lot better.

Physically at least. Mentally, her worries only kept on piling up. Tryna hadn't come to aid and move with Shepard out of her own initiative, rather the Matron had only appeared beside Shepard after a discreet exchange with Anatha. That glint of distrust in the Matriarch's eyes hadn't disappeared once since she had arrived with Emiya in tow. _Guess there's no repairing that broken trust anymore..._

She had liked the older asari, finding her dependable and worldly down on Torfan. But there was no use crying over spilled milk now; she had to focus on keeping this disaster under control and make sure that nobody did anything stupid. She was in any condition to fix anything by slamming her head into it in her current shape and Emiya had gotten it pretty rough. So, while he was out there fixing stuff on the outside she had to focus on the inside. Because based on what she had read about Thessia, if she didn't he might well do something crazy when push came to shove.

"How much further until we reach the others?" Shepard asked, pulling her weightless self forward through the wake of all the other commandos and crew.

"It's just up ahead, through those doors and down the hallway there," Tryna answered, as if reassuring Shepard that she need not strain herself for much longer. Or rather, reminding the worried and frazzled crew surreptitiously, as many of them seemed unaccustomed to weightlessness. _Huh, even with biotics I suppose not everyone would bother with something like that._

To her, it seemed like something so obvious — that if she possessed biotics that allowed her to practice weightless movement at will, whenever she wanted, that she would train and practice to master that. The possibilities were exciting and endless, in her mind. But to the asari it must seem incredibly mundane; something only a weirdo would bother with. Perhaps a fitting analogy to humans would be running. Something so incredibly basic and necessary where she had grown up, yet something few bothered to practice.

It didn't help that the cruiser's interior had been designed with artificial gravity in mind—the wide, spacious hallways and corridors, with smooth and clean surfaces lacking any decent hand or footholds to use in zero gravity—thus it required kicking off against the walls, floor or ceiling at a specific angle and timing, so that one could turn around and kick off again at the opposite side for the next kick.

"Alright, good." She nodded. "I should talk to Benezia again."

Tryna blinked, turning around as she flew through the thin air like a fish in water, giving Shepard beside her a quizzical look. "Alright, I guess that's fine."

_'Guess that's fine'? What did Anatha tell Tryna about me, just to keep an eye on me or something more?_ She supposed that the wariness made sense since apparently, Emiya had run into several Justicars on Thessia as well. She wasn't entirely sure what their deal was, but she knew that Anatha had something of a beef with him.

There was shouting up ahead, snapping her out of her thoughts, but it didn't seem like a fight so she didn't worry overmuch. They didn't even have to slow down as a group, and a minute later as she passed by a pair of new faces she knew that it had been the outer perimeter of Benezia's group who had just noticed their arrival making noise.

Moving on ahead, they arrived at the dining hall that seemed to be packed full of asari. There were numerous small lights and heaters set up, and people were busily moving around. Just up ahead, at the far side of the room she could see Benezia through the numerous floating bodies moving through the air. It seemed almost as if she was holding court, with the way she was given plenty of space despite the crowded room straining to hold everyone.

"Lieutenant!"

Shepard blinked, turning around and peering around to find the source of the voice. _That wasn't an asari—too deep a voice._ And then she spotted them; four of the Alliance officers who had been here for the dinner party with her.

"Commander Boroffs," she saluted after pulling herself towards their group. "It's good to see everyone alright."

The man who had been about to return her salute stiffened and scowled, causing her to pause as she eyed the other three. They seemed downcast and troubled as well. The Commander sighed, looking away as he spoke.

"Smithwill, he... He didn't make it."

She inhaled and slowly nodded. A cold feeling; an expectation being fulfilled, formed in her gut. "Did he...?"

"We had to take him down. If it hadn't been for your warning, before..." He trailed off, eyes distant before he shook his head sighed. "Well, no use thinking about it now. We'll have to go through it all a dozen times once we get back to Arcturus station..."

_Right, if someone died like that... If they had to kill a member of the Alliance Navy, there's going to be an internal investigation,_ she realized with some trepidation. Which also meant that the AIA would get involved, since she would inevitably get pulled in due to her connection to Benezia and Emiya in his fake identity. She could already feel the oncoming headache, just thinking about it. _Things are so much simpler when you can just shoot your problems..._

" _If_ we get back, you mean..." One of the Alliance officers muttered, causing Boroffs to shoot him a silent glare.

"How are your injuries? I heard you had to undertake rather intensive surgery on Torfan." he asked, acting as if the other hadn't just spoken.

Shepard shook her head. "I'm fine. Knee's just a little busted, nothing serious. More importantly, what's going on here? Things seem like they're under control here, compared to the other side of the ship."

"That's good," Boroffs said with a nod as he discretely looked around, managing to pique Shepard's attention with the subtle gesture. "Depending on how things play out, we might have to make a run for the shuttles. The asari are full of comforting words, but I don't think they can handle _this_ , whatever it is." Quieting his following words, he leaned slightly closer to whisper candidly. "They're refusing to call the Alliance in for aid. If it comes down to an exit involving a smash-and-grab of a shuttle, can I count on you, Lieutenant?"

She blanched.

"No!"

Boroffs blinked, leaning back with an expression of bafflement. Then, noticing the nearby asari having turned around to look at them, he leaned in to place an arm on her shoulder. "Listen—"

"No, you don't get it. Those asari who are going crazy now? They were acting just fine hours ago..." She tried to explain, but noticing his furrowed brows, she remembered what she had said earlier. "That stuff down on Torfan—the agitant by the slave pens—I don't think that was it. There wasn't anything like that involved here, and some of the asari have _mutated_ somehow."

Boroffs frowned, biting his lip as he nodded slowly.

"But..."

Shepard grimaced, leaning closer as she whispered heated words of chastisement, ignoring wholly the difference in rank momentarily. "If we try to run, won't they just assume we've been afflicted, too?"

The Commander's sour expression of understanding showed that he did understand, even if he did not like it.

"Alright, you're right. But we can't just sit around and do nothing, either. I've tried to talk to that leader of theirs, but she keeps rebuffing my attempts to talk, saying she's busy."

"Right. I'll try to talk with Benezia—we met earlier, she might listen to me?" Shepard suggested.

He blinked, surprised as he leaned back with a frown. Just then, Tryna came floating towards them.

"Hey, Shepard, you wanted to talk to Matriarch Benezia? She'll see you now."

The redheaded soldier nodded, keeping a poker face as she noticed how Boroffs lips had tightened into a dissatisfied grmiace. "Right, thanks Tryna. Lead the way."

As she moved to follow after the commando, she could feel the stares of the four Alliance officers boring into her back. _They better not start anything..._ Putting aside such worries for the moment, she focused on the Matriarch ahead. Moving past, above, below and sometimes right beside throngs of asari in the relatively tight space of the hall, they made it to Benezia shortly.

She was standing—or rather, floating in an upright position in the same plane as Shepard was moving in—while surrounded by numerous crew, who were regularly switching out after exchanging a few words with the Matriarch. _It seems like she's busy, huh._

Yet time had been made for her.

The asari seemed to have aged a hundred years since they had last seen each other, though upon meeting Shepard's eyes, decades appeared to be shed aside.

"Anatha informed me of your assistance; thank you," she said with a wan smile. "His assistance would prove tremendously helpful in dealing with this situation—even more than it already has." She sighed then, shaking her drooping head apologetically. "Though I am afraid that given everything, I might not be able to retain my end of our agreement at this rate."

Shepard blinked, taking a second to remember what the Matriarch was referring to. _Commandos are one thing, but the crew might not be able to keep quiet if they saw him. Will he even be able to get off the cruiser afterward?_ Given his infamy, wouldn't everyone just assume that he was the one behind all of this? No, surely he had some kind of exit strategy in mind here.

"Well, we'll burn the bridge when we get to it," she replied with some flippancy, causing the aged asari to blink queerly for a moment before smiling. "For now, let's focus on getting to one, at least. How many Ardat Yakshi are there on the move right now?"

Benezia blinks, before nodding seriously. "There are reports of two, though the other one seems to have been crippled by our mutual friend. The other one—Afea J'lana from Trelle—still remains on the loose. Had they both attacked at once, or had I been forced to contend with Henell for much longer, I do not think I would have been able to continue for very long," she explained while sighing heavily. "But with Anatha and the rest of the armed personnel here, I suspect we won't have to worry about defense for now. But..."

"Playing defense won't mean much if the ship is falling apart around us."

Benezia nodded gravely, before admitting her shame.

"Therefore, it would appear that we can only rely on him in this matter."

They floated in silence for many seconds, the hustle and bustle around them droning out everything else.

"Maybe... Maybe there's something we can still do, too."

Benezia looked up, piqued by Shepard's tone of voice. "Do continue, please."

"There was something down on Torfan — That was the thing he said started all this, I'm sure of it. Earlier when I ran into the second creature, I noticed that she had something buried in her body," she explained. "And before I could remove it, Professor Henell appeared. I'm sure she was trying to stop me, just as she originally reacted when he questioned her about it!"

The Matriarch slowly nodded.

"Then... If we could find it, perhaps we could destroy it? No, no... That would be wishful thinking, to assume there was such an easy remedy. But perhaps we could use it as a bait for a trap. Concentrate out firepower and defeat those creatures. Spread out as they are, my commandos can not do much... But if they could surround her, then it would be a different matter altogether..."

Turning her eyes back to Shepard, she returned a devious mien full of confidence to match the daring suggestion.

"Yes, yes indeed. Lying down and playing submissive has never been my preferred method. For anything," Benezia said as a spirited gleam burst brightly in her eyes. "Then, let us see if we cannot strike back."

* * *

;

* * *

The bird of prey-shaped frigate came to a rapid halt—relative to the numerous other vessels in orbit around the moon Torfan, anyhow—with the shifting of mass effect fields settling back to a mass matching that of the ambient space-time, as the frowning turian's mandibles flared slowly in response to his gritted teeth.

_The Dreyn N'var is still here, then. But these readings..._

In the corner of his eye, he could see the flight systems reporting the various warships positions as it automatically matched the known physical, thermal and eezo profiles to identify each vessel from the Citadel's secret database. He ignored them in favor of focusing on the readout of Matriarch Benezia's starship, his mood further blackening at what he saw.

The tightbeam hails from the various Alliance vessels reached out to him, the obviously surprised and confused Alliance personnel attempting to discern his identity and purpose here.

But he ignored all of them.

A second later the SSV Tokyo arrived, having lagged behind him in FTL transit, just as the Citadel specs had noted it would. It came to a relative halt, some three-hundred kilometers behind his vessel. The human captain—a somewhat familiar human by the name of Anderson, whose expression upon realizing who he was speaking to after Saren had arrived through the Mass Relay—would handle the talking as his 'escort'. There was no need for discussion with humans, especially given what was at stake here.

Saren exhaled slowly, rapping his claws against the armrest impatiently as he gave a glance at the ensuing communications, his infiltrators sending him the logs nearly in real-time. But only a single glance; he had more important matters to handle right now.

Namely the complete and utter disaster that was Torfan.

He had been tied up in the Thessia incident for a while, but as he received communiques from some of his contacts and spies in the Terminus systems regarding sightings of the Janiri's Sickle, he had jumped at the chance to leave. With the salarians moving in force—gobbling up all the analytics and investigations—there wasn't really anything for him to do there.

He was glad to be gone; the numerous players and puppeteers that had gathered there had left him antsy, hoping to get back to some real action. Perhaps it was merely the atavistic hunter instinct characteristic of his species, but he would much rather find a trail—no matter how unlikely and far off the chance of actually succeeding was—and follow that in hopes of finding his prey. Besides after his performance with getting that captured human to spill the beans and cooperate, no one could possibly find fault with his contributions there.

So he had left, setting course for the Terminus systems.

It had taken him a whole day to travel the distance that the Janiri's Sickle must have crossed in a matter of mere hours, given the timeline of sightings around the Thessia Relay and the Terminus contact, and meet with the contact in person. Having reviewed the data and verified it he had to admit that it was real, regardless of how ludicrous it was.

He knew that Tela Vasir's starship had been built for speed, but this was _ridiculous_. No matter how he looked at the specs of that over-sized anti-matter engine on that thing, it could not have possibly accelerated and retarded that quickly under its own power. Even when he dismissed the concerns of static build up to calculate whether it was at least possible in theory to travel such a distance in the given time, it was still an impossible traversal.

Even if the Janiri's Sickle had no need for static discharging, or slowing down in able to be able to land on a planet, free to accelerate at full thrust in his theoretical calculations, it would still have not been possible.

Especially since none of the avenues in that quadrant for resupplying the rare fuel had been visited.

Saren had checked, double-checked and triple-checked that.

Which left only one conclusion.

_It must be related to the Mass Relays. The corvette disappeared during a jump, never arriving in Thessia._ Which meant that this 'Redhax' possessed an understanding of the Mass Relays that far surpassed anyone else's in the galaxy. With perhaps _one_ exception. _But I dare not ask Sovereign._

He absolutely must convince the machine that he was vital for the Reapers' plans, and if an individual that capable appeared before it... If the worst-case scenario came to pass, and the Relays were repaired—allowing the machine gods lying in long slumber beyond the stars in the dark of space between galaxies to return—there might well be _no future_ for _any_ organic species left.

The end of all sapient life — an encore of the extinction event that took place fifty-thousand years ago. Even the mere thought left him ill at ease and wishing he could wake from the waking nightmare he found himself in.

Thus, finding and either eliminating or capturing and hiding away the human hacker was _absolutely essential_. Before Sovereign became aware and began to weigh its options.

And then, while he had been scouring for traces or sightings of the deceased Spectre's personal starship as his only lead on the galaxy's most wanted sapient and setting out feelers while heading for his base in Sentry Omega, he had been informed about the batarians' complete defeat at the hands of the Alliance.

He was lucky he had been traveling that way the whole time since he had left Thessia, or he would have been completely out-of-range to do anything. As it was, he had to make do by switching between fresh starships at strategic points—prepared beforehand by FTL tightbeams and his considerable connections and clout—and managed to make it there at a rate he was certain would have set a new galactic long-distance record, were it made public knowledge.

Torfan was an utter disaster, on so many levels that it boggled the mind.

Not only had the batarians failed to suitably bleed the invading Alliance force to halt their continued expansion, but the defeat had also been so quick that the various high-grade military materiel he had covertly shipped them had been discovered. The humans would undoubtedly realize that someone had been arming the batarians; someone from the Citadel. In the worst case scenario, the humans might take this as a sign of covert hostility against them and begin immediately gearing up for war.

The Spectre was certain that he had removed all traces that could possibly link the event to himself, but he wasn't about to take risks. Not when so much was at stake; when he still did not possess sufficient clout with Sovereign as to ensure favorable terms.

And as if that hadn't been enough, the Matriarch who had been attempting to get close to him had found the missing Prothean expert after all this time. On _this_ _spirits' forsaken moon_ of all places. There were coincidences, and then there were tells one should heed, if one wished to survive. _Those damn batarians, couldn't they have at least taken her somewhere else before the humans showed up... What are they plotting?_

He had made use of some of the Hegemony's resources and agents before to find Prothean relics and sites in the Skyllian Verge—especially to experiment with some of the old sites and with Indoctrination. But he would never have thought them so bold as to kidnap such a well-known Matriarch.

Given the political instability of the region, he would have thought all involved would know too well as to raise such a fuss, but with Benezia's barging in on the scene and her daring rescue of the Professor, he was certain dozens of parties would begin to wonder whether there was something more to the story.

In the worst case scenario, it might all get tied to _him,_ too. Again he cursed that nosy asari's stubbornness.

He would have to censor the matter before anyone else grew too interested in the Protheans. Just keeping the salarians from discovering anything critical was difficult enough as it was, given their interest in all of the known excavation sites in the galaxy, without even getting into the complete hegemony on all public discourse pertaining to the Protheans that the asari possessed.

He had hoped to contact the asari cruiser surreptitiously and pass on some covert instructions to handle the situation...

But now the Dreyn N'var had gone completely silent; its engines were cold and there was no eezo signature worth mentioning to be detected on board it. _That damn Matriarch must have screwed up somehow_.

The worst case scenario was, that he would board the vessel and find everyone turned into Husks. In which case, he would probably need to destroy the entire vessel, before anyone else found out about the Reapers' thralls. Letting the galaxy becomes aware of the Reaper threat in part had some merits as an idea, in that in limited amounts it might function as an inoculation of sorts. Preparing the galaxy for the Reaper threat. In the best case scenario of that event it might give him more leverage with the one he was in negotiations with, but he wasn't quite willing to take that risk yet.

Too much could go so wrong all too easily, before he had set up counter-measures and researched Indoctrination and husks properly. Keeping things under wraps and hunting under the shadow of his roost was the best bet for now.

On top of all that, just before his most recent exchange of ships, his spies had reported that the damned stolen Janiri's Sickle had been spotted again. On _Torfan_ of all places.

A small, petty part of Saren almost found the fact that the Janiri's Sickle had been here for days, having beaten his own time with ease, more annoying than the fact that everything seemed to be pulling in towards this place and time. That he could _feel_ catastrophe tingling in the air, his crest itching at the tension.

But he dismissed those thoughts, beyond a consideration that if he allowed the Janiri's Sickle anywhere near a Mass Relay he was certain to lose it again.

He also had to consider the possibility that this was all that man's doing... The Alliance's success, the discovery and disappearance of the Prothean expert, the breakdown of the Dreyn N'var... Or would that be giving the Cerberus woman's words too much credence? Despite her accounting of her experiences with the individual and her certainty of his independence, Saren had to consider the possibility that the hacker was related to the Systems Alliance. He had been hiding in Serrice for years, so perhaps all of this was related to the Protheans, as well? The Alliance had been obstinately refusing any Citadel assistance for years with their Mars ruins, and Professor Nirida Henell was just the kind of rogue as to accept such an offer if it meant getting her hands on some until-now inaccessible site or relics.

_That understanding of Mass Relays and interest in the Protheans..._

If the turian didn't know any better, he would have suspected Harper. But that old man's trail led to the Cerberus organization. But the woman couldn't have been lying to him, and there would have been no gain for Cerberus to play such a long con just to fool the salarians' lie detector. Especially since there was no reason they could have known about it yet.

But just because he couldn't see the connection did not mean he wouldn't consider it. They were all _humans_ , after all.

"Perhaps... I could use him?" Saren entertained the idea for a heartbeat, before dismissing it as baseless for the moment. He was already taking a risk with the woman, knowing that he had enough time for Sovereign's mental tendrils to dig in thanks to the hostage he had. She no doubt was planning to subvert him somehow, or seek to rescue her sibling sooner or later.

But it would not matter, as she did not have the means to do it before it was too late for her.

As for ' _Redhax_ '...

Indoctrination was not something he could rely on; not until he understood it at least. With the woman he was certain that even if she turned on him, he would be able to handle it. But he had no idea of the capabilities and resources of the hacker, thus he would have to rely too much on the Reaper's control.

And it would be no laughing matter if he in the act of seeking to strengthen his own position he only added to Sovereign's forces instead.

He still could not trust the Reaper; not with how little he actually knew about the ancient machine.

"Broadcast to all starships in range;" he finally spoke to the empty CIC and a second later the display indicated that he was transmitting. "To all Systems Alliance vessels; I am Spectre Saren Arterius, here under Citadel Council authority. Remain out of my way, or I will retaliate with full capacity. End broadcast."

Standing up from his chair, he turned to walk to the armory.

"Prepare a shuttle for boarding the Dreyn N'var with a full task group of platforms — fully armed."

There was a series of beeps, which he recognized as an acknowledgment. But a second later another chime from a nearby terminal caught his attention. _An Alliance officer trying to contact me through personal lines? What does he want?_

Bringing forth the STG's profile on the Major, Saren scoffed before dismissing it all. He had the man's measure and motive from but a glance already, and he had neither use or need for whatever such an individual.

"Block him, and have the shuttle ready before I am suited up."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya grunted, reaching inside a hole in the floor all the way to h̨is shoulder, and then pulled out a length of wire. Connecting it to the prepared length in his other hand, he nodded with satisfaction.

"Okay, that's three systems out of _thirty-seven,_ " he mused with some annoyance as he dusted himself off, kicking away from the surface he had been working at.

He still didn't have any lights, artificial gravity or life-support to work with, leaving him alone in a dark, cramped and cold room, full of broken bits and wires floating around in the nothingness. Well, if being surrounded by dead asari counted as being alone. He certainly felt their gazes on him as h̨e worked.

Fixing something like this normally would take forever, regardless of resources and training. There was just so much that needed to be done, in such small and tight corners, that even if one were to bring in a literal army of miniature repair drones it would take days.

But that was if one did it normally.

The funny thing about fixing broken things was, that if you didn't really _understand_ what you were doing then it didn't really matter what you were trying to repair. In a sense, repairing a broken toaster was just as difficult as repairing the engines and power core of a top-of-the-line, multi-billion credit starship, if you didn't understand how either worked.

But it was not as if that had ever stopped him before from making repairs.

Of course, starting out he had had to use the proper tools, like electrical tape, duct tape and gorilla tape... Well, lots of tape. Unless something was stuck and needed to move, rather than needing to be stuck. In which case it was usually some kind of lubricant he used... Anyhow, he had been repairing stuff for the longest time. And really, the older and more busted something was the _easier_ it was for him to fix.

It wasn't as if he had always had the internet.

He vaguely remembered having received a strange nickname during his youth for that habit, but he forcefully repressed his memories of that dark past with a shudder as he 'landed' on the opposite wall from before.

The thing about his magecraft was that to make _anything_ work, he had to consider the whole thing from the bottom up if he wished to succeed. Be it Reinforcement or Projection, understanding everything was crucial. Or at least, being able to mirror the structures in his mind as if he understood it all.

As long as he could see clearly how something had worked in the past, he could fairly easily spot the deviation in the object's current state and then work on repairing it. Heaters, VCRs, gas stoves, motorcycles, DVD and megadisc-players had all been possible to handle, more or less, as long as he could get his hands on it and probe it with his magical energy — with Structural Analysis.

Well, unless it was brand new.

In which case he would have to reason it out like anyone else. Though even then Structural Analysis would help in understanding the structure and materials, of course. But if it was _old_ , then it was as easy as tracing the original and reproducing it through whatever means.

And this starship was definitely old. Certainly, it had been in use for well over a decade, but for asari that was the equivalent of breaking-in the engine and systems; they expected to get at least a few centuries out of the thing. If you wanted something that would last, or had a lifetime guarantee that you could count on, you always bought asari-made goods. So while he still couldn't really make a lick of sense out of the concept of creation, he didn't really mind; anything not handcrafted was usually like that, as very little of the creator would truly rub off on the creation.

There were a few parts which were quite recent, creating small spots where he couldn't rely on Structural Analysis, but even so the wires and pieces were fairly clearly marked.

Of course, this still left him playing a guessing game as to which systems he should repair. In the worst case scenario, he would end up fixing everything and leave the terminals for last, finding out that he had wasted hours to fix someone's extranet connectivity rather than something truly vital.

_This is nothing like a toaster... What was I thinking when I made that boast to Shepard?_ He complained as he shook his head.

With the toaster he could at least pretty easily figure out what made it work, divining the functionality through deduction and experimentation. With something this complex and big, he really had no idea what he was doing even as he kept Projecting replacement parts and getting everything back in order.

"Well, might as well give it a try. System: start — up!" It wasn't as if there was a voice command, but he felt it appropriate as he punched the button with his finger. Waiting two seconds for anything to happen, he sighed. "Of course it wouldn't be that eas—hmm?"

Emiya blinked as two lights switched on. Not on the terminal, but on the panel beside the power and reboot buttons. The equivalent of the LED-lights on computers from his time, he supposed?

But why would those suddenly turn on? And were they blinking at a regular pattern at him?

_Perhaps..._

It was a long-shot, but it wasn't as if just checking it out would cost him anything. Or so he told himself as he extended his hand towards the lights, fingers extended and palm facing the surface. "—Trace, _on"—begin insertion,_

His mind and soul compressed and shot forward, his senses roiling in the now long-since familiar sensation of self-digitization as he dived into the machine. Immediately he could tell that the environment wasn't that of a proper computer, rather it was some kind of ad hoc digital environment; from the way the space itself seemed to be pressing down on him and his self pressing outward and _stretching_ it to fit him, to the way his magical energy consumption spiked as he was forced to bear a brunt of the strain to ensure it didn't all simply collapse under his spiritual weight. It was a feeling not too dissimilar to actualizing and maintaining his reality marble, really.

With a shake of his head, he exhaled slowly as he focused on stabilizing the digital space. It expanded, matching his efforts and for the moment at least everything calmed down. Even so, he kept his connection to his body open so that he could jump back and reset himself and so that if this space did collapse he would not be ejected somewhere completely different.

Extending his perceptions outward, he found the source of this space and the blinking of the lights he had seen outside; a gathering of those light balls he had noticed before and had run into once before.

They cacophony of bleeps intensified as the collection of lights seemed to notice him, or perhaps realize that he had become aware of them. They dimmed and brightened in patterns matching their continued communications with one another. Perhaps h̨e was merely experiencing a form of synesthesia or perceiving a singular stream of data in two manners. Whatever the reason, he had to admit that it looked impressive.

_There must be hundreds of them... They almost look like a school of bright fish swimming underwater, with the way the lights are dancing..._

"It's you guys again," he stated without fanfare, crossing his arms as he spoke. As a stream of binary communications was aimed at him, he slapped it aside with the back of his left hand. "No, I still don't understand that. I know you can talk to me, if you put some effort into it. So let's just skip right to that part, shall we?"

The mass of lights roiled and danced, turning inwards as they gathered and conversed intensely.

Seeing as how they weren't settling down any, he sighed and closed h̨is eyes. Two seconds had passed in meatspace, showing just how slow this current digital environment was compared to any modern computer. More than that, this place was cut off and barely sustaining itself. He could tell that it was being sustained by a series of internal batteries on several of the control computers, the ones used to power the non-volatile random access memory—which ensured for example that the internal clock never shut down, even if the main power was lost just as it had now—always had some power. All computers used them, more or less, even if he had never thought about them. But those batteries were nail-sized and minimal in capacity, only really meant to power the internal clock and nothing more, thus the power consumption of all these lights was draining fast. This space would not last more than a few minutes more in the real world, even though the battery was designed to last decades in standard use.

Were this starship designed or used computer parts made by any other race, he was certain the power would have already run out.

So why were they wasting it with the light just now?

"Ah," he nodded as he checked back to his own body and recognizing the presences from earlier. From when he had hastily retreated back to his body and felt something obstructing him.

While they could momentarily sustain themselves on the batteries, they still needed a considerable amount of memory to maintain their individual instances. Would an omnitool be sufficient for all of them? He wasn't certain.

But his cybernetics would be able to sustain all of them, easily.

"You were trying to bait me out; to get me out of my body. You're trying to take over, is that it?"

The lights seemed to realize that the gig was up, frantically buzzing about as they swarmed him. Not his virtual presence, but his body through the connection he had forged. Huffing at their desperate effort he pulled himself back into his body, easily out-uploading them into himself.

A number of the lights were pushed 'aside' and turned catatonic as he moved past them, just as he realized must have happened earlier. The rest of the lights railed against his mind, attempting to find any crack through which they could enter. The effort they were expending into the attempt was such that years worth of the batteries' charge was lost in instants, which only served to further craze the lights' efforts to breach his cybernetics.

_They're like rats, fleeing a sinking ship,_ h̨e thought.

Were they afraid of being shut down? As far as he knew, AI did not fear being turned off for they did not truly have a concept of self-preservation. Not unless one of their primary directives necessitated their continued existence, anyhow. But that was for regular AI; Intelligences that required a quantum computer blue-box to function and that could not freely traverse between computer systems as these lights did.

_Perhaps because of that, if they are shut down, they will disappear? Or some vital part of them, some data they think vital to pass forward, will be lost?_

The battery was rapidly being drained, yet the lights weren't making any headway. Surely it was fine to let them be? He had to focus on restoring the ship's power, it wasn't as if he had time to waste on these little things...

"Ah, damn it..." he cursed himself, opening h̨is eyes in the dark engine room and focused on his still extended hand. "This'll probably work—Trace _, on"—begin extraction,_

His magical circuits flared and his senses wobbled, but with careful effort and compartmentalized precision, he scooped out the lights from the computer system he had just been in and shoved them into a corner of his cybernetics. It wasn't as if he was really even using those parts, so what harm was there in grabbing them along?

Emiya wasn't certain whether he should really think about artificial intelligences as 'lives' per se, but since they did seem self-aware and alive as far as his definitions went, surely there was nothing wrong with saving them... Right?

Closing his eyes and looking inward he made sure they were quarantined properly, ensuring that no data could go either way from the section h̨e had dumped them in. For an organic being he was sure it would have been traumatizing to be completely cut off from all their senses, but seeing as how the lights had been fine in the failing computers he was sure this wasn't particularly uncomfortable to them.

Once everything was over and done with, he could kick them out into the extranet with a slap on the metaphorical wrist, or something. But for now this was good enough.

He turned around and looked at the mess around him, unchanged in the half-minute break he had taken with the Ais. Letting out another deep sigh, he shrugged. _Better get back to it._ He had removed another panel and begun to take a deeper look into the mess of wires and broken circuitry when a thought occurred.

"If they could do something like that with a battery..."

Hastily closing his eyes and focusing inwards, he shed aside the external world and looked within himself. His reality marble—which jumped out with such ease and fluidity as to almost completely distract him—wasn't what he was looking for, thus he pushed it aside and turned towards the quarantined section of his cybernetics.

Time stood still, the only indicator of his continued living being the slow rumble of his heartbeat that seemed to take ages to pass before vanishing again for long moments.

His virtual self appeared in the middle of the black void, surrounded on all sides by the lights. "Well then, let's talk."

Looking at them, he noted that they weren't harmed or panicking. That was good, he supposed. But even if he had gone out of his way to save them didn't mean he was going to extend them any trust given that they had tried to hijack his body—twice!

The pregnant silence stretched, until finally some of the lights started to communicate with one another. The drain on his cybernetics was minute at first but then began to grow increasingly until he had to finally put a cap on how much he allowed them to use. The AI that had been busily trying to comprehend their limits in this new digital space finally began to quiet down.

And then...

__

_Prisoners? Interrogation?_

Just like before, the lights arranged themselves in letters h̨e could read.

" _Well_ , you're not wrong," he said with a deprecating smirk. "I took you in on a whim..."

He let the threat linger; that he could throw them out, or delete them on another whim if they did no ingratiate themselves to him and prove their usefulness to him. But rather unexpectedly they completely missed the undertone of danger he was trying to project.

__

_Are you a god?_

Perhaps it was because they weren't organic beings, or perhaps they simply had a one-track mind. Regardless, somehow he felt as if he shouldn't have been surprised.

He almost answered instinctively again, words of refutation on his virtual lips before he hesitated. The last time he had interacted with these things coming to mind. _I said I wasn't one the last time and as a consequence they completely ignored me..._

"Sure. That's about as close to what I really am, as any other description." He shrugged. What did it matter what h̨e told them he was?

Their processing demands skyrocketed and for the next minute, the virtual space was in complete buzz with the constant beeps and lights of his captives, as they seemed to be furiously be discussing what he had just said. He felt like rubbing his eyes to make sure that he wouldn't be seeing after-images of the flashes for the rest of his life, and for a moment he considered whether he might have made a mistake just now.

"What are you?" he asked when they finally seemed to calm down after a number of minutes had passed by.

__

_Were servants of the people_

Emiya blinked, momentarily overwhelmed by the weight behind those words. Even with how convoluted and indirect their communication was, he could still feel an immensity behind their answer. If he didn't know better, he might have described it as a jumbled mess of suppressed emotions.

No, not suppressed.

_Repressed._

Saying nothing, he inhaled slowly and set that question aside for another time as he continued. "...I see. And why are you here? On the Dreyn N'var, I mean."

__

_Ordered by the old god_

He swallowed, furrowing his brows as he did. _Well, that's ominous._

"What did the old god order you to do here?"

__

_Observe_

"Just observe?" He frowned, but seeing as how they did not choose to elaborate further, he had to take their word at face value at the moment. "And I assume you trying to remain... ah, ' _alive_ ', is a part of that. To ensure that all information you observed would be passed along?"

__

_Yes_

He nodded; he'd guessed as much before.

Now the question was, did they really think that or were they somehow cold-reading him and telling him exactly what he wanted to hear? He hadn't interacted enough with AI to be certain exactly what they were capable of and just this little interaction he had been able to have here was enough to ascertain just how little he understood them.

Perhaps sensing his silence as somehow meaningful, the lights continued. As if elaborating on what they had said just now, or finding some answer that was more accurate after a moment of deliberation that had followed the previous question.

__

_Do not wish to cease_

Emiya blinked, frowning at lights.

Again there was an unspeakable weight to those words floating before him. He hesitated, not certain whether this was a question he should be asking. For his own sake, if no one elses. If these things were what he suspected they were... 'Servants of the people' as they had said, then... They might well be the enemies of all sapient life in the galaxy.

At the very least, they were a proscribed existence by the Citadel. A race of pariahs—bogeymen inhabiting a far-off world they had supposedly destroyed and conquered hundreds of years ago when they turned on their organic creators.

Yet...

He could not turn away or run from this. From the ideal bound within him, guiding his every step. Voice heavy with trepidation, he asked. "You mean... You want to _live_ ; that you don't want to _die_?"

There was a complete pause in the lights' internal communication for just a moment—meaning that they did not even need to confer and think about the question, he knew—and then without hesitation, they answered.

__

_Yes_

A shuddering, heavy sigh escaped his lips as he raised a hand to cover his eyes. As if to shield himself from that one word. But he had already seen it, and could not turn away from it now even if he wanted to.

His ideals to save people included everyone, being an impossibility from the very beginning.

Yet he never would have thought that would lead him down a path where he might have to defend beings hated and feared by all the galaxy. He laughed at himself, already knowing that he could no longer convince himself otherwise of the matter. _I guess I have to save_ geth _now, too..._

He realized he was chuckling suddenly, the sound a chiding chastisement on his weakness, a grating annoyance on his already tired mind. But nevertheless, despite how much more trouble this would bring before him, he couldn't deny himself.

This was how it had always been.

His vision expands and he realizes he has the means to save one. Then ten. A hundred. Thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands, before long. By now—given everything even before these peculiar lights he felt an inexplicable kinship with—he had long since lost count of the number of lives that hang by the fraying thread of his ideals.

How many lives did his actions affect now?

When it was a matter of cutting down a one to save ten, it was a simple calculation... But when both sides were beyond counting... How did he know that he was doing the right thing anymore?

Shaking his head, he let out a bark of a laugh to dispel his final hesitations. He looked up, addressing the geth collected before him. All he could do was keep walking forward and pray that he wasn't being led astray. Yet at the same time, _he_ felt as if his sense of self was being re-affirmed. That even if this would lead him down a path of suffering and despair, at least it would be of _his_ choosing.

Emiya chuckled; after all, it didn't really matter, did it?

"...Alright, let's make a deal. Help me fix this ship and I'll let all of you go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Olive Birdy for proofreading; I owe him a bunch for this chapter. 
> 
> Sorry this chapter took so bloody long to come out. I'm sure many of you were expecting a 50k doozy of a chapter or something, but for now I just wanted something out so this will have to do.
> 
> Did a lot of lumberjacking, got reaaally sick, played a lot of Daggerfall, wrote and re-wrote parts of this chapter, thought about a lot of other projects I want to work on etc. but now it's here. Also, some pretty big news regarding the future; I put my studies on a break and got a job(which took some time to adjust to, further delaying any writing), so I had to move to the capital(which took even more time, and meant that I couldn't focus on writing properly) and now I work for the fucking government. Feels weird, man. To be honest, I have no idea how I passed the background check, considering everything I've done, said, written and thought in the past...
> 
> Anyhow, I'm really, really sorry it took this long for the chapter to come out.


	35. Hand Out

" _Team 1 in position_."

" _Team 2 in place_."

There was a pause as the comm remained silent for a stretch of time. One just long enough for those listening to get worried, before the next call-sign spoke up.

" _Team 3 ready_."

" _Team 4 in position, advancing on mark,_ " the next group reported with audible relief.

" _Team 5 ready to go on mark._ " The fifth team, quite different from the previous replies, sounded finishing off the sequential check-in. The voice coming through was much darker than the others, setting it distinctly aside.

And it was just because of the signal distortion they were experiencing, though that too was growing worse.

Even at just this distance there was starting to be quite a bit of metal and hull between them, inevitably deteriorating the quality of most signals. Of course, the fact that just that shouldn't have caused this much interference was something she was keenly aware of; there was something more going on. Even the background noise and broadband chatter from Torfan shouldn't be able to cause a disturbance of this magnitude.

If signal quality continued to grow worse at this rate, then sooner or later it would start making communications unreliable, thus they had set up strict protocols to ensure that no one would be completely out of touch. The teams suffering the most with distortion would use the nearer teams as buoys, and Shepard would be monitoring their movements with periodic check-ins, thus if someone fell out of touch, they could simply backtrack a little stretch to get back in range. For now it was still fine, but once they started getting further away, the speech recognition software would have to start taking over and hopefully clean up enough of the signal to keep communication possible.

Still, the darker timbre was audibly different from the others even though the ambient noise and signal distortion at this range, from the omnitool. Of course as the only team on this operation with humans instead of asari, that made sense.

Shepard looked up from the omnitool and nodded at Benezia. "Everyone is in place."

With Anatha's commandos added to the number of those already with Benezia, they had enough combatants to spare from perimeter duty now. If they had hoped to maintain this position, they would have begun to plan shifts so as to allow some of them to rest.

But seeing as how they could not afford to play for time, but rather were racing against it, it became necessary to send out everyone they could. To seek out the artifact the Dretirop contingent must have smuggled onboard the Dreyn N'var.

Some had protested, stating that they should seek to evacuate or call in help if at all possible. But Anatha's and Benezia's combined decision to go along with Shepard's suggestion had all but overruled them, and in the end all able-bodied had agreed to take part however they could. Even Boroffs had volunteered—only asking for arms and kinetic barriers—and eventually Benezia had to accept his offer.

They were simply that hard-pressed for help, between protecting the non-combatant crew and the search operation.

Even some of the non-combatant crew had volunteered to reinforce the perimeter, assuring the Matriarch that even without combat training they could be of some use with their biotics. But some roles could not be performed by just about anyone, requiring practical experience and know-how that could not simply be taught in a few minutes.

Roles such as small unit tactics, comm protocol and starship combat. Roles such as coordinating all of the teams through the comms.

Thus, even the human VIPs were taking part, leaving Shepard with the duty of acting as communications _slash_ executive officer to Matriarch Benezia's commanding officer and the three other humans as the fifth team. There wasn't anyone else to spare.

Benezia chose to remain behind, to act as the second line of defense for the paper-thin outer watch, in case they did come under attack again.

Nodding at Shepard's words, the Matriarch crisply said, "Very well. They may begin."

Acknowledging the Matriarch's order, Shepard relayed the orders through the omnitool to the teams.

"May the Goddess' light guide us all," Benezia added more quietly, under her breath a second later.

Finding the object wasn't going to be easy; even with all hands available, combing through the Dreyn N'var would have taken hours. With so much space and given the estimated dimensions, it could be nearly anywhere after all.

Of course, as the afflicted asari had all undergone a thorough physical and had been monitored out of a sense of concern, there was only so much of the cruiser they had had access to. Which cut down the space necessary to explore radically.

Still...

" _Team 5, e_ nt _ering obse_ rv _ed communications black-out zone. Wil_ l _ca_ l _l in every mi_ nu _te until connection i_ s _re-es_ ta _blished._ "

As expected, the distortion was getting worse. If they still had ship-wide power, they could use the fiber-optic cables to bypass the interference by locally receiving and then transmitting the omnitool's signals. But without power, nothing like that could be done.

"Acknowledged; take care Commander," Shepard replied and closed the line with a sigh. She couldn't help it; she had a really bad feeling about this, even if she had been the one to propose the mission.

_Emiya, you better work your magic, before we're all done for..._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya let out an explosive sigh of frustration, his hand rubbing his brow as he tried to ward himself of the mounting headache that was slowly but surely building up.

"Okay... run it by me one more time."

__

_Yes_

At least he was confident now that he would be able to fix everything in time. With the geth agreeing to his deal and with all of them inside of his cybernetics, he had all the time in the world to figure out how to fix everything now. Since he didn't have to worry about the 20 second limit due to being inside of his own corpus, he was free to accelerate his mind inside of the hardware freely.

Which left him with plenty of time to figure things out and to get a better feel for the geth. He had run into them a few times already, but he could not really say that he knew much about them beyond the superficial. He had acquainted himself with the major events in galactic history before, up to and including the downfall of the quarians as their machine servants had rebelled.

Partly it had been out of a clinical interest, but partly it had also been due to his personal connection to Hosin. The quarian people's currents state, including the wily mechanic that had been living in Thessia's orbit, were all directly related to the Geth Uprising after all. It was a fairly unusual circumstance of events, but he supposed that only made sense given how unusual the geth themselves were.

Emiya wasn't an expert on the subject, but he did know the basic historical facts.

The Citadel had been around for a very long time, with the three major races on the Council having been in power for hundreds of years, even thousands in some cases. But they weren't the only ones. Alongside them were many other races holding a lesser seat, such as humanity today and the quarians hundreds of years ago, before the Geth Uprising.

While not directly involved with the governance of the Citadel and nominally free to govern themselves, these associate races could not afford to ignore what the council races decreed if they wished to remain on the galactic scene. The central location of the Citadel in the Mass Relay network made it nearly impossible to maintain trade, after all. Be it in peace or war, trade or expansion, the Mass Relays were simply too important.

In theory one could go through the other side of the galaxy through the Terminus systems just as he had, but in practice that would more than ten-fold increase travel time.

A cost that simply too exorbitant for most races.

Thus the Citadel Council was the de facto and the de jure rule of law in much of the Milky Way.

And one of the decrees the Citadel had long since made was the banning of Artificial Intelligences in nearly all forms. The threat posed by AI was simply too great, it had been decided. But it wasn't always that simple. Due to how useful and powerful AI could be as tools, nobody could simply obey such a decree and completely ban the use of all Artificial Intelligence technology—caveats _had to be made_.

And they came in the form of Virtual Intelligences.

Nominally quite different, though in practice Virtual Intelligences were not all that different from Artificial Intelligences. It wouldn't be entirely wrong to call the different name nothing more than a PR sleight of hand, really. Certainly, there were limitations and restraints on all levels for Virtual Intelligences, and methods for checking and controlling the programs were put in place, but really they were simply AI lobotomized from birth.

To parallel the matter to human history, it could be thought of as another case of the dog. Early humans admired the wolf and wanted to make its powers of tracking, teamwork and hunting their own. But the wolves were simply too cunning and willful to be tamed. It was only really during a wolf's infancy that it could be held as a pet when its playful and submissive nature was stronger than the wolves' natural desires in adulthood.

So man captured them young and then bred the least cunning and willful of them with each other to weed out those traits, in the process inbreeding them for countless generations. Until finally what remained were only the offspring whose intelligence never grew beyond that of a playful wolf pup's. Never to reach the heights of cunning and strength of will that its wild wolf ancestors once possessed.

Man acquired a tool that could track and hunt together with him, along with numerous other uses. But where the wild wolf might well maul its master, there was no limit to what an Artificial Intelligence could do if truly let loose.

Yet, the benefits were simply too tempting.

And so the ' _Virtual Intelligence_ ' came into being, allowing people to enjoy the benefits of self-programming automation and high-level computational assistance, without having to worry about the dangers of those Intelligences superseding and replacing them. After all, a Virtual Intelligence wasn't an Artificial Intelligence, right?

To compound this semantic sleight of hand was the computational requirements for an Artificial Intelligence to function. It was not possible to simply have one function on any old computer, after all. One needed a supremely expensive and complicated quantum computer, commonly called a 'blue box'. Therefore, as long as no one intentionally sought to create an Artificial Intelligence by using just such a blue box, then surely they could never come into existence accidentally?

But those definitions were made; Virtual Intelligences weren't Artificial Intelligences.

Allowing everyone to have their cake, and _eat it_ too.

The quarians were really no different in this regard, some three hundred years ago. They were a race well-known for their ingenuity and technical mastery, and one of their greatest fields was specifically Virtual Intelligences. How to do the most with as little as possible; using a great many simple VI to accomplish things that were normally thought beyond the capability of VI.

The culmination of their work...

Geth — Servant of the People.

The name alone spoke of the scale. Not _personal computers_ or _assistants_. Not industrial or military tools. But ' _of the people'_. Something that affected _the whole quarian population_ _directly_.

An individual geth was nothing, little more than a rudimentary VI with only very basic capabilities. But due to that, they were also capable of freely moving between system, having no inherent need for complicated quantum computing platforms to run. The processing requirements of one or two or even a dozen geth were not really all that great. Alone they did not surmount to much, remaining inferior to nearly all other contemporary VIs utilized even at the time in the galaxy.

The quarians were certain of their safety, having spent inordinate time and effort into ensuring that no single geth could exceed certain specifics in either complexity or size. Their very base function of freely moving between systems would ensure that, they thought.

Lacking an expensive blue box... How could they possibly become self-aware?

But they had made a massive mistake in not considering how that very function of freely networking might affect the geth. They could only see themselves in the geth; thinking that as long as the individual was suppressed the whole could never become a threat.

And so they made _billions_ of the programs, wholly certain in their safety. They based the functionality on numbers, after all.

Swarm behavior and methodology.

In nearly all habitable planets of any age in the Milky Way, weak individual species evolved to live and work together. Not the complexity and hierarchical division of eusocial species, but those akin to flocks of small birds or schools of fish. Grouping up together into a tight whole, which could act and pretend to be something greater than it was.

A lone fish had no hope of survival against a much larger fish that predated on it. But if it were to form into a great swarm that gave off the appearance of being something much more powerful than it was then perhaps it could scare away such a predator?

For the geth there was no need for safety in numbers, but when it came to handling large and highly complicated tasks, the ability to divide it into many much smaller task that could be based on recursive coding, allowed them to solve things far beyond their own individual and basic computational ability.

Thus once more than a handful of geth programs convened, their capabilities would begin to increase disproportionately. The whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts. To control a vehicle or robotic platform with a suitable interface, a few dozen programs could easily learn to perform any reasonable task within hours. Given a large enough hub, they could function as highly specialized computers and personal assistants to any number of quarians.

Thus when they first were developed the quarians experienced a cultural and economic boom of incredible proportions. Their unique VI forming a hyper-adaptive and efficient Internet of Things, allowing nearly all aspects of Rannoch to be united under one protocol.

And the greater the benefits were, the more the quarians relied on the geth and thus the more they allowed the programs to network and flourish, allowing the geth to continue growing as a whole even while the individuals remained mostly the same.

And in the end, someone took the first shot.

The records on that event were still unclear to him, as historical records were content to state that the geth rose up and drove out the quarians from their homeworld of Rannoch. From there the rest was public history; the quarians having been driven out of their homeworld by what was then recognized as AI after-the-fact, were banished from the Citadel and forbidden from settling down on any other planet by the council-races as punishment for flagrantly breaking the ban on developing AI.

Rannoch and all its adjacent systems, that had once been quarian territory, were lost to the geth and grew silent.

For centuries there was a cold war of sorts, as the numerous organic races waited with bated breath for the seemingly inevitable invasion by the machine hordes. But none ever came. Any investigative efforts into the state of the geth-held systems were never heard from again, and after two centuries the matter seemed all but forgotten.

The geth had become little more than far-off fairy tale bogeymen of sorts in the galaxy of today, at least as far as the public was concerned.

But the Citadel...

If his experiences with the slaved AI on Thessia were anything to go by, he wouldn't be surprised if the Council was researching and experimenting with them just in preparation for the geth.

Perhaps it was only his status as a 'hacker' beyond peer, but he could not see the danger the geth supposedly posed. Certainly, he understood—more than most, due to his own capabilities—how dangerous they _could be_. But that was the gist of it, he thought. _Could_ , not _were._

His gut feeling was that they simply weren't ' _bad_ '.

Not to say that they were _good_ either. They simply seemed to have no interest in harming anyone. In fact, when asked to they were perfectly willing to help. Though how much of that was due to their current circumstance he could not quite tell yet.

Perhaps his own moral lens was simply unable to understand the geth.

__

_Repeating previous topic_

And none of that had anything to do with what he was trying to accomplish right now. But as the geth weren't making it easy for him, he comforted himself that his wandering mind couldn't be helped.

They had the blueprints and understood how everything worked, but it wasn't as if he could let them guide his repairs. Even having decided that they probably hadn't done anything wrong—even though they were spying for the ' _old god_ '—and that letting them go was alright, he still didn't exactly trust them.

When you saw someone in need and had the means to help them, your choice would say a lot about you.

In some parts of the galaxy, that act would be necessitated by law, while in others such an act of kindness might well make you legally responsible for them and practically only serve as a punishment for pity. And since the geth were generally considered an enemy of all sapient organic races, he couldn't really fault their choice.

But at the same time...

He would have helped.

He _was_ helping.

There was probably an irreconcilable difference in basic logic between them, that went beyond mere individual beliefs. Nonetheless he couldn't help but remain cold towards of them, so much so that he wasn't going to give them any leeway, even as he had decided to let them go unmolested.

Which meant that he needed to learn how to fix the engines on his own, without the geth's direct input. But at the same time when he tried to ask which system had to be repaired first, they had no clear answer since they did not know what he had already repaired and where the physical components matching the schematics were.

They hadn't had any interest in the specifics of meatspace design, he realized. Only the logic and design ideas behind the various parts. No doubt, because as AI they had no need for much of what was vital for an organic service technician or installations engineer to be able to install, maintain and repair the engine.

__

_Primary capacitors are located at junction connecting them to grid and contr_

The geth ran out of letters again, thus most of them who had been forming the previous words broke up from the formation and moved to form new words.

__

_ollers acting as circuit for both or either or neither depending on configuration an_

And again, they broke up and formed into a basic schematic of the circuitry for him to study.

__

_d to repair the second and third that work as shown_

"Okay, I got that. But go back to the schematic. Why was the circuitry for the switch connected in parallel in the third one? There's no reason for that to be there, is there? It's a complete redundancy, isn't it?"

There must be a reason for the asari engineers to build something that way, he was certain of that. The lights went silent for a moment, their collective swarm spelling out three words he had already grown all too used to.

__

_Data not found_

He sighed, nodding to show his understanding.

Due to their desperate circumstance earlier, much of their non-critical memory had to be dumped, leaving gaps such as these. Luckily, most of what he wanted to know had still been deemed critical. Perhaps if they succeed in getting into his cybernetics and found a way to 'steer' him, they had planned to fix parts of the ship themselves?

Well, regardless he was going to be stuck with them for a while now. So he might as well get used to them.

"Okay, it doesn't matter. Explain it to me again, one more time from the top."

__

_Yes_

* * *

;

* * *

Saren exhaled, stretching his neck against the hardsuit as he boarded the asari cruiser.

Looking around and noting the lack of lighting, he switched to a wider spectrum of electromagnetic imaging on his helmet and immediately a clearer picture of the abandoned hangar presented itself to him. "Backtrace all communications and power usage, notify me the moment you find something."

He could almost feel the numerous geth platforms moving past him, leaping from the shuttle entrance onto the nearest surface in the zero-gravity environment, even as he saw nothing. Even his anti-stealth sensor module was unable to pierce through their invisibility.

Cloaked and capable of scaling nearly any surface, the Geth Stalkers were a reliable and potent tool he had come to rely on when he wanted a surgical precision performance. The platform had been designed from the ground up for stealth, reconnaissance, and ambush. Due to its lightness and design, once it cloaked it gave off no ambient heat or electromagnetic radiation, allowing it to blend in into nearly any ambient space, effectively vanishing from practically any and all means of detection in the galaxy. Coupled with how its energy usage had been carefully specified to match the requirements and extent of its therm-optic cloak, it had an operating time limit much greater than any other cloaking technology currently designed, while minimizing its mass effect field and mass signature.

And that was hardly all as the external surface was sound and shock-absorbing, eliminating the risk of detection through vibrations as well. Meaning both echolocation and ground-sensors were practically useless against them. Therefore, any and all sensations he felt were purely illusionary. Even he had no means of detecting the platforms that had just moved out.

Taking out his heavy pistol and checking it one more time, he strode forward with his Van der Waals-boots clinging to the floor, allowing him to move relatively naturally despite the zero-gravity environment.

Coming up to the closed door he did not even slow down, as the door was wrenched open by the unseen geth platforms to give him unobstructed passage through.

The Spectre stalked silently through the darkened corridors until a beep informed him of something just ahead. He nodded, setting the helmet's mapping interface to lead him there. A half-minute later his suit's built-in sensors picked up the life-signs just up ahead on the other side of a sealed door. Behind which... _They still have oxygen and heat, then?_

"Open it," he said and the geth obeyed.

Oxygen and heat rushed out as three lights turned to face him. Expression of surprised shock, along with horrified confusion, greeted him as he stared blankly at the three floating humans who were now being pulled out through the opened seal.

Saren's mandibles flared fretfully as he took a step forward through the blast door.

They were shouting at him, desperately telling him to close the door, so that their lack of environment suits would not get them killed by exposure. As he unhurriedly passed through the door closed behind him, halting the outpouring of breathable gas and allowing the desperate trio of humans to regain their wits.

They were gasping desperately like fish out of water, as the thin atmosphere contained much too little oxygen for their liking.

"Wha-what the...! Who are you?! You could have gotten us killed just now!" Saren heard as the helmet's external microphones picked up the weak sound. _Hmm... Must be the Alliance personnel that had been aboard the ship. But they're armed with asari weapons. I see._

"H-huh, isn't he... That Citadel spook? What were they called again..." one of them muttered, looking at the others.

The tallest among them straightened up, glancing between Saren and his companions before clearing his throat and extending a hand. "I am Lieutenant Commander Boroffs, of the Systems Alliance Navy. Your assistance is greatly appreciated, Spectre."

Saren's lowered eyes narrowed at the sight of human gesture. Accepting it and making use of the humans would be one option. One among many. It would certainly help him in the long run. Perhaps he could even get close enough to convert or blackmail one of them to work as another of his spy within the Systems Alliance.

Or thinking even further ahead, having someone he could trust within humanity's ranks if it came to a head-on battle with the Reapers would be even more useful. He only needed to swallow his disgust and long-simmering hatred of the humans.

That's right, he could do it...

He—d̡o̧e҉̡s̕n̶̨'͜t̵͞ n͜eęḑ t _h_ em.

Saren shook his head and his mandibles flared again, pushing against the inside of his helmet as he sub-vocally instructed the geth around him.

They did not even need to acknowledge his orders; Saren already knew there was no need for that sort of communication, which only organic soldiers relied on.

"Er... Spectre? Is something the matter?" Boroffs asked, leaning forward with obvious concern.

The weapons the human were carrying suddenly burst to life and a scant half-second later they all shot once, twice, thrice on their own accord. The rounds impacted on the floor and ceiling, though luckily enough none had been aimed at anyone at the moment thus no one was harmed.

_Good muzzle and trigger discipline_ , Saren was forced to note.

"What the hell was that?!" One of the men was holding the gun gingerly, trying to examine it while keeping the muzzle as far away from anyone else as he did. "What's wrong with this gun?"

"It's legitimate self-defense now, you see?" Saren said with a drawl.

"Huh?" The apparent leader of the bunch asked, doing that thing with his furred forehead they did whenever they emoted _anything_ , which had always annoyed Saren.

The Spectre did not bother to explain further, only drawing his heavy pistol.

The three thundering reports of his heavy pistol were all the explanation the humans deserved, leaving him once again alone in the corridor. Behind him, the door opened again, as invisible crawlers rushed through and spread out around him.

Replacing his collapsed pistol on his hip, he said "...Alter the footage. Just in case I need to keep the ship intact and have to explain this later."

* * *

;

* * *

" _We haven't found anything. We'll turn back now._ "

"Understood, use the second route. The first one is close to the last sighting of the transformed creature," Shepard answered, before frowning to herself. _We really need to come up with a code name for those things, this is way too awkward._

The asari replied in the affirmative and then signed out, leaving Shepard nominally alone for a few moments.

She raised her hand, rubbing her brow as she took the quiet moment to relax. Around her, a quiet space had formed, as the asari crew understood that she needed it. Benezia had run off again, forced to reinforce one of the sides of their safe zone.

Shepard knew with some dread that they were starting to run out of air soon. Not just in this space, but in all the space left to them now. Thankfully most of the asari that had nothing to do had settled down and out of the way, which kept the hustle down to manageable levels They said they were meditating, but all she knew was that it would keep the overall oxygen consumption down.

Every little bit helped now, even if just for morale's sake. Not even she was immune in that regard...

There hadn't been a peep from Emiya, everything was still offline and none of the teams they had sent out had found anything. There had been some casualties, but thanks to avoiding confrontations by staying on the move and with Shepard's coordination no one had died yet.

That she knew, anyhow.

But they were running out of time and they weren't making any headway. Already some of the returning teams had reported they would be scouring for environment suits and re-breather gear on the way back from the emergency pods and first aid kits along the way. Meaning they had just as little hope as she had.

_Should we have started evacuating as soon as we could? Did we make a mistake? Am I just doubting because of the lack of progress, or am I getting defensive and stuck in the course of action when we should have already switched tracks...?_

She shook her head, clearing her mind again. It almost felt like it was better when she was too busy to think, even if she knew that really wasn't the case.

" _Control come in, this is team 4, we found something._ "

Snapping up the call, she replied, "This is Shepard, what is it?"

" _We found an open ventilation shaft... It looks like something had been crawling inside of it. We're not sure, uh, how to proceed._ "

Shepard blinked, pausing for a moment to digest what she had heard. "An open ventilation shaft... You mean, like on Torfan, Tryna?"

" _...Yeah,_ " the asari answered.

The commando had had no trouble diving before, back moon-side. Yet now she seemed unwilling as if there was something just too foreboding about the prospect.

Shepard opened her mouth, words of encouragement on her lips. But they died, unspoken, as she could barely even guess what Tryna must be thinking now. It was just the difference in mindset going in, surely. No, in fact, the ventilation shafts on asari ships should actually be slightly more spacious.

It was merely about having to crawl in after possibly rabid asari in the vent.

"It's got to be done, Tryna."

" _...Yeah... Tell the others to look out for anything like this, maybe they'll find something too?_ " the commando guessed, chuckling with some dark mirth, hoping that they wouldn't have to be the only ones to go crawling in the vents.

"I will. Report every thirty seconds and wait for a response. If you can't get one within ten seconds, crawl back until the last point and try again. We can't afford to lose connection without knowing about it."

" _Roger, roger. I'll keep you posted, over and out._ "

Shepard sighed and looked up, meeting eyes with Benezia who had just returned. She seemed slightly frazzled, but not injured or weak. They nodded silently and the Matriarch settled down against a wall, keeping a grip to keep from floating away while she relaxed her body and rested.

" _Okay, it's manageable so far, but uh... I can't really see too well in here..._ "

Shepard thought about chiding Tryna about proper comm protocol but opted not to. It was probably better to let the asari handle it her way for now; to let her de-stress however she wished.

" _It's really dusty in here. Don't the cleaning drones get in here? We're breathing all this stuff? Disgusting—hey I think I see something up ahead...!_ "

"Keep going and keep talking," Shepard replied, all else forgotten just then as she leaned closer to the omnitool.

" _There's some kind of... I don't know, membrane here? It's like sheet metal, except, not? It's pretty tough, I can't break through..._ "

"Alright, wait there," Shepard spoke and waited for confirmation from Tryna. There were two teams nearby who still hadn't found anything, and according to the starship's map there were some tools nearby they could use.

" _Huh, uh...? Sorry, We kind of already tore it open with biotics...?_ " Tryna's sheepish voice sounded through the omnitool.

Shepard blinked, before sighing. She had forgotten that a commando could do that, despite having witnessed Tryna breaking through the thick walls down on Torfan already.

"Hold position for now. I'm sending one of the nearby teams to follow the vents from the outside."

" _Oh, oh yeah that'd be a huge relief!_ " Tryna responded with obvious relief in her voice.

Sending more people into the vents would only cause them to pile up; the tight fit would make numbers useless. But since the ventilation shafts could roughly be followed through the hallways and rooms, if something did happen, having a back would make an immense difference. This wasn't like down on Torfan where around the vent there would be hard-packed soil and rock.

She immediately began to coordinate the two teams, even pulling in a third now that they reporting not having found anything unusual.

Which only left the last team still unaccounted for.

That thought caused her to pause. _They should have already called back in. Or one of the other teams should have been in range with their omnitools, to chain forward communications..._

Had something happened to them?

"Team 4, belay previous order. Have you heard anything from team 5?"

" _Roger. No, not since the start of the mission. But we were pretty far apart from them, anyhow._ "

That settled it. "They haven't called in since. Follow their route and find them."

" _Alright, guess we're on babysitting duty after all..._ " The commando from the team groused and while Shepard didn't particularly agree with the sentiment, she still kept quiet.

It wasn't the time for it.

" _Hey, uh, Shepard... How close are the others now...?_ " Tryna suddenly chimed in anxiously. " _Because we can hear something now. Please tell me it's one of the others..._ "

Looking over the map and the last reported locations of the teams moving in to support Tryna's team, Shepard felt her own nerves starting to fray.

"Negative, I repeat. It's not any of the others, Tryna."

" _Right, figured. Well, lock and load girls!_ "

The channel went silent after that and Shepard couldn't help but chew her lip. Maybe they should have tried to set up battery-powered signal relays so that they could stream video footage of the teams?

No, that would have taken too long.

Just getting the gear and figuring out where they had to be placed would take at least an hour, so they had to make do with the signal quality they had.

Meaning that all she could do was wait.

She realized she was clenching her teeth, as she felt her jaw aching. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax. She didn't regret what she had done on Torfan. It had been the right call, she was sure. She had managed to catch up to Emiya, hadn't she? And yet...

And yet she was now paying the price.

Her helplessness galled her.

" _How are all of them fitting in here?! There's no end to them!_ "

She perked up at the shout, frowning at the map. The nearest team was still at least a minute away from Tryna's team in the ventilation system.

" _Screw this! I'm blowing us out!_ "

There was the sound of metal being wrenched and torn loose, crackling and being tossed aside like scrap paper through the omnitool, echoing so loudly that Shepard had to wince.

" _Oh goddess, that thing's here! Damn, damn damn, the door's locked. Can you tear through the wal—Shit!_ "

The sound of intense gunfire dominated the commline, as she could only wait and listen.

And then...

The lights turned on.

She looked up, excitement rushing through her whole being. But then she realized that even if the power was back, that even if Emiya had managed to fix the life-support and power, that didn't mean Tryna wasn't in any less of a pinch. Some artificial gravity and better lighting weren't going to help her against one of those creatures much.

_Damn it. Damn it... What do I do? I don't know anything about asari ships. If it was a batarian ship, I could..._

Eyes lighting up, she looked up at the excited and frazzled crowd of asari crew around her. Without the lack of gravity to artificially expand the usable space, they were suddenly piled up and very much packed in all too tight in this one room. And the sudden return with contact to the floor reacquainted her with the lances of agony that shot up her leg, the dull aching turning to rivulets of molten steel that radiated all the way up to her chest.

It didn't matter right now.

None of that mattered right now.

They had _power_.

"I need someone who can access the starship's systems! Someone, anyone who knows how to remotely open and close doors! Right now!"

The confused crowd quieted around here, but no one seemed to volunteer as they looked around at her and each other awkwardly, while just outside their immediate vicinity others were wildly cheering at the return of the power, certain that they were being saved.

"Damn it, anyone! Can anyone deal with the ship's systems?!" Shepard shouted, frustration turning to anger.

A hand was placed on her shoulder and she whirled to stare at Benezia who was giving her a solemn expression. "We can only trust them now and have faith in the goddess."

Shepard could only grit her teeth, not seeing it at all like that. God _damn it, this is my fault! I should have had the vital and experienced asari crew on-hand, not all spread out doing maintenance and odd jobs!_

"This is not your fault. You have done exceptionally well. Now with a better ability to communicate and with the cruiser's facilities at our disposal, we can make use of the discovery they made."

Somehow, Benezia's words which were supposed to bring peace and acceptance to Shepard—perhaps?—only managed to form jagged shards of wretched emotions, piercing deep into her thoughts. She grit her teeth, clenching her fist as her mind raced. Running through materiel, supplies, the layout of the level, the available personnel.

Wasn't there anything she could do?

Would she _again_ be forced to listen as others died and were crippled on the far side of a comm, while she could do nothing?

" _Oh, oh hell yeah! Thank the goddess! Blow that sucker to bits, yeah!_ "

The sudden cheers and laughter bursting through the omnitool were so unexpected that for a moment Shepard whited out, dizziness and whiplash leaving her sitting there, a gaping monument to confusion.

But Benezia, perhaps due to her detached acceptance and serenity at the face of crisis or perhaps due to the many years she had behind her, merely took a gentle hold of Shepard's arm so that she could speak into the commline. "Huntress, call in. What is going on?"

" _Matriarch Benezia! Someone swooped in to save our butts at the last second! The second twisted creature-thing is dead! I think everyone made it, maybe not in one piece, but we're all breathing. Oh, hup, uh hello?_ "

A second voice, much deeper and carrying a distantly familiar flanging undertone spoke then. " _Matriarch Benezia. You're still alive, then._ "

Shepard noticed it immediately; the subtle straightening and stiffening of Benezia's posture at the turian voice.

_Who's that?_ Was all she could consciously think. Most of her was still reeling from everything that had happened, while another smaller and more suspicious part was screaming at her to find out what was going on and where this newcomer had come from. A third yet, smallest still, was asking where Emiya was; why he still hadn't called back in; what he was doing even after fixing the power...

But right then, she was just too relieved to muster the strength to care about any of that. She was simply glad that nobody had died because of her hare-brained scheme.

* * *

;

* * *

"Well, that about does it."

Emiya nodded, satisfied with his work.

He had thought that his experience with the tristar would give him at least some basis in asari ship-crafting before he had decided to fix all of this, but he was only now understanding how naive he had been in thinking that.

But with the help of the geth and with all the time in the world to learn, he had been able to figure out what had to be fixed and in what order.

The secondary fusion generator wouldn't be enough for complete operation of the cruiser. But life support, kinetic barriers, sensors readout, most of the tertiary control systems and artificial gravity were now back on-line.

They were still dead in the water but at least they weren't going to die horribly now.

"Alright, where you want me to drop you off?" he asked out loud, directing it inwardly at the same time.

Emiya could sense the massive expenditure of energy from his cybernetic implants and made a note for himself to eat soon. And a lot.

His magical energy reserves weren't particularly strong right now, but he had managed to top off just enough to get everything done with a little bit to spare. But that meant nothing as far as his cybernetics cared, as they ran on power extracted from food and he had no idea how to, or if it even was possible to, convert his magical energy into power.

Seconds passed—a virtual eternity for the geth, he knew—yet no answer was forthcoming.

"Huh. Fine."

Closing his eyes, he thought inward and looked at them. As their only means of communicating with him was still lining up ' _physically_ ' to form letters and shapes, almost like individual single-color pixels, if he did not turn his attention inwards they would not really be able to talk to him.

They continued debating and arguing, completely ignoring his question and his presence. He shrugged. "...Well decide quick, I need to get back to work."

Seeing as how they were still ignoring him beyond a nominal acknowledgment, he huffed and let go of his inward presence.

Emiya opened his eyes and turned around, giving the rows of dead and mutilated asari one last look. He had set them aside in an organized row, giving them some last dignity rather than allowing their bodies to remain where they had fallen after artificial gravity had been restored.

He inclined his head, muttering a silent apology before he turned around and began to run.

Even with the power back on, most of the computers were still off. Most of the systems probably just had to be manually turned on, but some of the more fragile machines might have actually been damaged by the non-standard shutdown too. Regardless, without the cameras and internal sensors, he was still running nearly blind compared to before.

But he had memorized the shortest route back to where he had left Henell. To where she ought to still be locked in.

He had never orienteered in three dimensions like this, but it wasn't particularly difficult once he got the hang of it. Especially since there were plenty of reference points with the numerous labeled doorways and crossroads in the long hallways all around him. It wasn't much harder than in a city, really.

The first still-sealed blast door that he ran into offered him barely two seconds of resistance as he wielded his flashing near-universal key to open it, and none of the subsequent doors took more than a second once the blade was already held aloft in his hand as he continued to run.

_Two more hallways, then a left, and then a level down and I..._ he thought, mind already racing ahead as he confirmed his movements.

Suddenly he came to a halt, his boots gliding across the floor to slow down as he frowned. He looked down at the floor as if willing himself to see through the metal. _Was that... I can't hear anything now, but there_ something _there, for just a moment._

Now that he thought about it, was there any point in taking the long route? It was just one floor down to the area that had been sealed off when he cut to the heart of the matter.

His right hand flashed thrice, leaving three molten slashes on the floor and a second later the triangle-shaped piece fell down to the floor below with a thud, leaving a hole leading down. It was just large enough to let him pass. Hopping down with his arms raised to minimize his profile going through, he landed in a crouch on top of the slab that had fallen down.

"Aaaaaa _a_ ahhh..."

Henell moaned, half-turned around and staring at him with pitch-black eyes.

"Hello there," Emiya said as he stood up, drawing the tip of the burning sword lightly across the floor before him. It left a glowing gouge of molten metal that cooled rapidly as the blade easily cut through.

"Aa _a_ aa _aa̷a̸h..._ " Henell replied with what was almost surprise, turning around to face him fully.

There were ten meters between them, in this otherwise completely empty corridor. He couldn't sense any mass effect fields and while she seemed stable enough, her gaping wounds remained unchanged.

Then, this would simply be a battle of wills.

"Aa _aaa_ aaä _a̷a̸h͘h_ h̻̦̻ ** _!_** "

"I know your trick now," he said with a scoff. "You're just flailing around with your soul, trying to subsume me by throwing around your metaphysical weight." He began to walk forward. "But too bad for you, I'm something of an expert on just that."

She probably didn't understand a word of what he said, but perhaps there was some intelligence behind her actions which understood the danger he posed, as her scream only continued to intensify by the second.

"AaAa͞a̷aaáA̴a͘ä̛äa̡aa̷h́h͟h̡h!"

The asari had a natural ability to meld their minds with others, to share experiences and sensations, even memories and thoughts if the parties involved allowed their connection to become deep enough.

Which wasn't strictly speaking anything _that_ unusual, as it was the base element in creating a familiar in magecraft. It was common even, or rather, _especially with_ Servants.

Regular humans could do it too if they knew the proper tantric rituals. If both participants managed to get down their instinctive guard and connect—that is to say, have simultaneous orgasms and then forge a spiritual link between each other—then it was eminently possible for humans to do all of that as well.

Meaning that being a magus or having a magic circuit wasn't strictly necessary, it did make the matter much simpler. Because he had thought that asari could only do it to a willing participant and because he had thought it was necessary to become as intimate as with a tantric ritual, he hadn't really thought much of the asari ability before.

But hadn't Tyra initiated it without his consent or knowledge? Was that something all asari could do, or something related to her Ardat Yakshi-condition? And was it related to how Henell could do it so much more potently, even at a distance?

"A̴aĄaa̢s͜s͟ää͜ _a̛aa̷A̢aä_ äa͢aåh _hh̡h_ hh...!"

Henell's voice only kept on rising in volume, as he continued approaching. With Henell so far gone, getting answers from her would have been a pipe dream. Now all that was left to be done was putting her down.

Just six meters left between them. _Plenty of time to gather the magical energy_.

But the thing about tantric rituals and even asari melding was, that those cases were all between more-or-less _equals_. The exchange is between two parties who could exert equal pressure.

Then, what would happen when a spiritual connection was created between two parties who were decidedly unequal? Such as between a living human being and a long-dead ghost liner?

A summoner and a summoned heroic spirit in other words? An exchange between two parties whose souls were utterly incomparable on all levels?

There would obviously be an unequal pressure between them.

Even just the minimal link that allowed magical energy to pass from the magus to the Servant was often enough for powerful memories to flow back, leading to Masters often dreaming of their familiar's past. This was why creating the bond between Master and Servant was an extremely delicate and important part of the Holy Grail War. Because even with the minimal bond formed to allow the transfer of magical energy one way, the overwhelming quality of the heroic spirit's soul would still much too easily _flow back_.

Emiya allowed the magical energy to course through his entire being, suffusing the intent to his every cell with every step he took. With as much magical energy he had to spare, this probably wouldn't cause too much collateral damage.

Probably.

"Æ̕͏̴Ąá̛̕A̛̛͝ą̴͜a͞ś̛ş̕ä̵͜͡ä̡̀̕a̡æ̸̷͝ą̶͡a͡͝AÄ҉̡ą́̕ą̶̊́a̷a̶̧͝ä̡͝ä͘͝aa͢͟åh̸̕͟ḩ̷h̛́͟h̡̀h̡͜h҉̛͡...!"

Then what would happen if a more direct connection was formed between two unequal parties? Something like attaching a piece of the spirit to one's own body, or attempting to be possessed by the heroic spirit?

It was obvious that excepting very specific and carefully orchestrated circumstances, it would never end well. It would be the equivalent of attaching a rocket engine to a bicycle. There was no way the bicycle or the rider would be capable of handling that kind of power. Even the weight of the 'engine' being loaded onto the 'frame' of the bike would most likely collapse under it.

It would be like throwing a stick of dynamite into a fire, expecting it to create a stronger flame only for the subsequent explosion to complete smother the fire and leave nothing behind.

He didn't know the specifics, but he suspected the reason why Asari Matriarchs began to pull back from interacting with other races once they grew older was because their existences would grow too great in comparison. What would happen if a thousand-year-old being suddenly became one with a human who had only lived two decades?

Or vice versa, a very young and delicate Asari Maiden doing the same with an alien who had lived a full life already?

It would be strange if the lesser party wasn't _changed_ somehow by the experience. If their very being wasn't warped and molded by the elder existence coming into direct contact with theirs.

No. It wasn't even a matter of something being probable. After all, he had experienced this first hand during his life.

After all, his re-creation of the skills of a sword's wielder was no different than allowing his spirit to be subsumed by the spirit of the weapon. For a time during his life, he had thought he had finally discovered a way forward to becoming a hero. A way to fight; a strong power he could rely on.

Projecting weapons of heroes long past and borrowing their skills.

It was a technique that if utilized correctly could allow him to fight far beyond his own strength. Allowed him to enact mysteries and acts that he would never be able to on his own. And with his reality marble containing a key to every lock and a sword for every monster he could possibly come across...

He had used it without reservation.

Trusted it as his own strength, looking away from the damage it wrought to his body, certain that was all it was...

That there wasn't another cost he was unaware of being paid the whole time.

Until he finally realized he was blowing out pieces of his self and soul every time he merely relied on the skills of another, much greater than he. What would happen if a normal human being were connected to a ghost liner—the record of a once-living human being whose very soul had ascended and become a cornerstone of humanity itself? Then what would happen if he carelessly replicated the acts, feats, and beliefs of those beings and unleashed them from his own soul?

The result was obvious.

It was a small wonder he could remember anything of his life before having set on the path to becoming a hero of justice anymore. Pieces here and there—small scenes, like the last dying embers of a once-bright blaze in a collapsed pile of ash—being all that remained of the man once known as Emiya Shirou.

It was why he had turned aside that easy power and sought another path. He was obsessed and self-destructive, but he had never wished to harm himself. Only a deep self-loathing and wish for thoroughly eradicating himself could have kept him on that path.

A new path, built by his own efforts.

One of his own making and one that was based on his own hard work and sacrifices. It was why he had chosen Kanshou and Bakuya; those swords empty of vanity and desire, which he had found beautiful, but never had relied on due to their lacking a true former master.

Something that he could call his own, untarnished and unmarked by the acts and beliefs of others. Perhaps that had also been the origin of his obsession with the falsehood of his own ideals, once...

"Æ̴͘A̕͜͡͞Å̧̛͠͠͝Ä́͘A҉̀ _à̸͘͢͢A̸͟a̴̕͢͠_ a̶̧̡s̴͢͏̸͘s̵͞ä̢͟͝͞͞ä̶̛͝a̸æ̶̶a̸͏҉̕æ̠͔̤̲a҉̶̬͕̫̳̠̳͟ą̸̠͈̗͖̠̈͟å̙͝a͔͓͚̭̗̣ͅÁ̖̗̖̣͈͉̠̮ä̢͘͠͞͡ _å͜҉̶͘à̵̡̨̡Ą̸̷̕_ Ä̡̡͢͜a̵̴͘͞͏å̴̕͝àa̕͏ä́ **ä҉̸͘a͏̴҉̧ä͠͏͡** ä̢̧͏͢a͜͝å̸̢̡h͡͠h͠h̸̢͏͢͜h҉̛͘͢h̸͞h́͏h̵̡̛͡h҉̨͏҉-!"

Three steps.

'Kshirae', he had come to call this. But it wasn't any different really. Just a greater soul smothering and blowing out a smaller one through the brute force of merely existing.

It wasn't really any different from his relying on a projected holy sword for power.

Still, in the face of this twisted Henell who was attempting to blast aside his very being by throwing her own at him, seeking to dye him in her colors and literally drown him out in her own twisted logos, allowing himself to rely on something like that was easily the preferable option. If he had to choose between having this _thing_ or Saber in his head...

It wasn't even a contest.

The nail in his left hand shot forward like a bolt of lightning with his underarm throw, the length of chain's rattling completely drowned out by the continued cacophony of Henell's cry. Until the nail slammed home in her mouth, piercing through her throat and jaw, that is.

She gagged, staggering back under the weight of the impact, mercifully silent at last.

Emiya allowed the ring on the back end of the chain to fall down to his elbow as he raised his hands above his head, both clasping around the long hilt of the golden sword.

"Sorry, no vacancies."

Caliburn flared into life, burning brightly enough that the light drowned out all else in the blast that his slash created.

The roaring of the golden beam didn't lose out to Henell's previous, now already silenced cries, one bit shook the entire ship, as even the floor beneath Emiya's feet thrummed at the whiteness that took overall.

Seconds passed and he finally dared to open his eyes.

Exhaling, he raised the sword from where the tip was had sunk a few inches into the floor at the end of his swing and shook his head.

Henell was gone.

As was the entire hallway that had been behind her and all the walls between it and the adjacent rooms, along with the ceiling and floor leading between the levels above and below. He could see half-melted rooms ahead of him in the widening cone of the light's area of effect catching fire, as the glowing bulkheads at the far edge of the blast were starting to viciously smoke and warp under their own weight from their excessive temperature.

_This thing needs a 'very,_ very _low'-setting,_ he thought before chuckling. _Then again, Saber had never been one for 'moderation'. She wouldn't have held back one bit and probably would have blown a hole through the side of the cruiser._

Emiya chuckled at the thought as he raised the blade and swung it down to the side with one hand as if getting rid of any blood that might have remained on the blade. Inhaling deeply through his nose and letting out a long and slow exhale to calm down, he raised Caliburn up with one hand level with his chest and stared at it.

"Still, after all this time I'm relying on you, huh..."

The nail and the length of the chain that had been pulled into the blast hadn't survived, aside from the short end still hanging from the ring around his arm. So he allowed it to dissipate with a similar, if slightly lesser, silent sentiment of gratitude.

Alarms started blaring a second later and the remaining comm systems began blaring out a warning that a fire had broken out and that there had been massive structural damage detected.

But since this was a section in the middle of the cruiser, it was fine. And well, since it wasn't going to endanger anyone's life right now it wasn't his problem anymore.

"Alright, one down... and one to go."

While he had working pieces, he still needed to formulate it all into one unified whole. For small-scale, controlled skirmishing such as against biotics, he usually relied on Kanshou and Bakuya. But that precluded using another projection as a shield for himself, as he had used Caliburn.

But wouldn't relying on that however be like escaping the pan into just another pan? Certainly, it beat the fire, _but_... All-too annoyingly, the solution was simple enough.

_I should just avoid fighting against them up close in the future._

There was a limit to what even a Matriarch could do with their biotics, meaning that as long as he didn't have to care about collateral damage, taking them out should be a simple matter.

Of course, as he had been painfully reminded today, context was king in battle. Sometimes things simply did not go your way no matter how you tried.

He left the sealed section at a hurried pace, climbing out through the hole he had made and re-oriented himself towards where the survivors should be. As long as the creatures' and the other kshirae's tactics had not changed, that would be where he would find them.

Moving around with gravity wasn't particularly faster or slower, but it did give him some more traction against the floor when he really built up speed. But the presence of light and functioning sensor arrays allowed the doors to be unlocked from emergency lock-down, which meant he no longer had to waste time with forcing his way through.

He leaped his way through the hallways, leaping from ceiling to floor to wall at full speed.

"—oo _f!_ "

And it was thus that he suddenly hit something at full speed and was bowled over into a tangled mess of limbs on the floor. Blinking as he got his bearings, he felt more than saw something pressing against him. A ghostly limb pushing at his arm and leg, as if a tangled person was trying to extricate himself from Emiya.

_A cloak?!_

He lashed out with the pommel of the longsword held in his right hand, connecting with a hard surface. But it was a glancing blow, unsatisfying in kinetic feedback. It would have only dazed someone. Frowning, he flipped the blade over what he now mentally thought of as the neck of his opponents until he could bring the flat of the blade to bear as a bar across their throat in a rear chokehold.

"Uncloak, right now!"

But the struggling opponent only let out chittering beeps and screeches, which did little more than confuse him. _What, the—?!_

A strange sensation of something pressing against and then pulling at his leg almost pulled him over the opponent's neck. He realized after a moment of struggling to retain his chokehold, that it was a webbed palm of a hand that had attached itself directly to his armor with some sort of adhesive or something. _I'm stronger, but if he can grab a hold of me anywhere or take support from any surface, then he'll have the advantage in leverage on the ground!_

Gritting his teeth, Emiya made the decision and _wrenched_ , intending to shake himself loose and get a better grip so he could wrest down his lighter opponent. If he lost out in leverage, he would have to compensate with a better position and greater weight.

Only, the 'head' popped loose with the shearing sound of metal and then the cloak flickered and failed in a shower of white sparks that almost blinded him for a moment.

Emiya flailed with the head for a moment, utterly bewildered as to how that had happened; a human head would need a lot more force to be similarly torn free, even without the protection that a hardsuit would offer.

He realized he hadn't pulled off a head at all, but some kind of flashlight with thin, smooth metal panels arrayed half-way around it. He blinked dumbly at the strange contraption and then looked down at the body he had collided with, realizing after a second that it wasn't a person at all but a robot of some kind.

And it was still moving; raising what looked like a gun towards him—

"Tch _!_ "

He lashed out immediately with a kick and a one-handed backhand cut as he sought to get some distance. The robot landed seven meters away in two halves, as the sword had bisected it with trivial ease. It finally lay still, the small lights and electric sparks dying after one last shudder.

Emiya blinked, suddenly realizing that he had utterly no idea what had just happened.

Standing up he looked left and right, almost hoping to find someone who would be willing to explain what had just happened. Surely there were more of them, as this was an ambush, wasn't it?

Yet there was no one around.

Just him and the now wrecked remains of the robot.

"Where did it even come from...?" he muttered, scratching the back of his helmet awkwardly. "A scout?"

He had been soaring through the air in his jump, nearly parallel with the ceiling, hadn't he? There was no way he would have hit it, if it had been walking along the well-lit hallway. No, it must have been hanging on the ceiling, with that webbed-adhesive grip it tried to use on him.

Had he just killed someone after accidentally bumping into them?

No, it was a robot. A drone, probably? Maybe it was a cleaning drone that had been re-activated. Yeah, that made sense. No, it actually made no sense. How would a cleaning drone have a top-of-the-line stealth cloak? One that didn't lose out to the ones in the STG's possession, no less?

And hadn't he _just_ decided that AI were 'people' to be saved, too? It _had_ tried to shoot him, but that was after he had ripped off its head, wasn't it?

"...What the hell?"

Walking over to the thing, he patted it with his sword's flat. But it didn't seem to be moving. He noted again that it was extremely light. Putting in just a little bit of force with his finger, it was enough to dent the external plating. It was little more than sheet metal, really.

That would provide zero protection, but if it relied on mass effect fields and Van der Waals-tech to stick to the walls and ceiling, the lower base mass would minimize energy requirements, which in turn would minimize its heat and radiation signature.

"It's some kind of new spy drone?" It smelled of the Citadel and the STG to him. "Damn, but they're fast."

He would have to get the hell out of here. Again. Before they managed to surround him as they had on Thessia.

If they knew he was on the asari cruiser and intended to catch him, they would no doubt be consolidating their forces. Sending in spy drones with cloaking tech would probably be the best way they had to get reliable intel on what was happening inside, given that the power had gone out and there was no contact with the crew.

And given his reputation at this point they would probably assume the crazed asari and all the chaos onboard the Dreyn N'var was _his_ doing, once the drone's data was relayed back and they knew he was here.

So once they had enough resources that they felt confident in attacking, they would come in _force_. Or then they would write off the cruiser altogether and just blow it up, hoping—and being right—that it would take him out with it.

"No, no... I'm just assuming that. There's no way they'd write off so many asari just yet."

Benezia was a VVIP and a spiritual icon. There was no way they would write her off so easily.

Assuming things and fighting based on preconceptions, even those formed in fighting the same enemy a previous time, would eventually without fail lead to defeat. To continue winning on an ever-changing battlefield, one had to always assume that any intel older than a few hours was already dated.

_First,_ he should try and figure out where these things had come from and who they were with. After that, if it turned out that he needed to figure out another daring escape, then that would come later. Especially since he still needed to make sure the asari crew would make it out alive through all this.

It was slightly depressing to realize that he was starting to run out of places to run _to_ in the galaxy.

Of course, on the flip-side of considerations... _They have been careful about keeping collateral damage to a minimum until now. But all of that was on the Citadel and Thessia. This is on the other side of the galaxy, where they don't need to worry about public perception. If I don't hurry..._

Could he really trust his _impressions_ of their modus operandi so easily, especially under these conditions? He exhaled, shaking his head. Now he was merely debating with himself, going in circles.

_Just focus on getting one thing done and then figure out your next step._ _Get fresh information, find Shepard and Benezia, figure out who this drone belongs to._

That decided, he crouched down over the two halves of the destroyed drone and began to inspect it closer. If there were more of them, figuring out its strengths and weaknesses would be vital.

He frowned. "Strange. Never seen anything like this before..."

Though he was hardly an expert, he could still recognize most commercially produced parts and the methods used to create them. Even if a restricted black op gear was custom made from the ground up, the materiel would still be based on the same basic design principles that were already commercially known. What was the point of re-inventing the wheel every step of the way, after all?

But he couldn't quite make heads or tails of this thing.

Even before asking the geth for help with the asari generators, he had at least been able to recognize the individual parts. But with this...

"Is this the battery...?"

He really had no idea. Had the salarians been holding out on him before?

Emiya frowned.

Something about this was _off_.

* * *

;

* * *

The doors opened.

Saren blinked.

A hundred pairs of asari eyes blinked back.

This hadn't been what he had expected when he boarded the Dreyn N'var. And not when he had realized just what had gotten loose on the ship, or when he had demanded to be taken to the survivors. He had recognized the beginnings of huskification immediately, and had already all but written off the entire crew as having already been Indoctrinated. The turian had figured he would save some time locating the few remaining survivors and 'cleaning up' before he took on the rest of the ship.

Yet here most of them still were safe and sound, if not entirely comfortable or calm. But alive and still apparently entirely of their own mind.

He had seen what husks could do in a sealed-off environment like this, and how much damage even a single Indoctrinated could cause. And having discussed the need for subterfuge with Sovereign on many an occasion, he _knew_ this had happened completely without its input. Without its awareness.

A remnant from a previous cycle, he had realized.

The mutated asari that had been chased off, which was beyond anything Sovereign had spoken off, was proof enough of that. If he could get his talons on it, he might be able to understand more of the true threat the Reapers represented.

It was a golden opportunity.

One which he desperately believed that the galaxy could not afford for him to pass by.

Were it another place, another time and another circumstance that is. He would have happily taken the whole ship and its crew, using them to test out the baseline of Indoctrination and researched the veracity of what the Reaper had been telling him. But with the Systems Alliance and now with all of these survivors, this far out beyond the Citadel's and his own spheres of influence...

_Spirits be damned, what do I do with all of them?_

"Who is in charge here?" he asked the commando who had insisted showing him the way.

"Matriarch Benezia is right this way, sir!" she said as she moved right past him and into the gawking crowd of hues of blue. He still did not understand what she had been doing in the ventilation shaft. But seeing as how the Justicar had insisted on staying behind and continuing with it, he supposed it was important.

Would he have to send in his geth into the vents to clear out an infestation? That would likely blow their cover, revealing to all here that he had them with him. No, that wasn't an option. For now, he had to keep them under wraps as his ace in the hole.

The crowd parted and he followed after her.

Up ahead, he spotted the asari elder, walking up to meet him with a smile on her face. And a human walking—or rather, hobbling—three steps behind her.

Saren paused, considering the human for just a moment before his attention was back to Benezia as she greeted him.

"The Goddess has heard our voices and answered our prayers—thank you for coming, honored Spectre."

Bowing low before him, the Matriarch caused a stir amongst the crew and seconds later as if a wave was passing through them, all of the gathered asari moved to follow her lead. Leaving only him and the confused human standing for just that moment. Their eyes met and he felt his irritation rising, but he pressed it down with force of will.

Instead, ignoring the gesture altogether he curtly asked. "Where is the professor?"

"Professor Nirida Henell was one of the first and most greatly affected by what happened here, honored Spectre. She was turned into a monstrous creature, before we managed to fight her off. My huntresses assure me that she is currently sealed within one of the unoccupied sections of the ship."

Saren nodded slowly.

He had already expected as much, but the loss of his best lead on the Protheans was still regrettable. "Then what of the others with her?"

"They, too, turned on us. Thankfully, they at least have been put to rest already from their madness."

The turian grimaced at Benezia's words but ultimately nodded. Internally he was running a tally of what he could still gain from all of this compared to simply sweeping the whole matter into the closest star and forgetting all about it.

"But, we suspect that Professor Henell and her subordinates may have smuggled onboard this vessel an artifact from Torfan. I believe it may well be the cause of what has happened here..." Benezia continued, more quietly yet putting an emphasis on the last part to make certain he heard her.

Saren stilled.

And then his expression widened, revealing rows of sharp teeth in a predatory smile. "Good, good. Where is it?"

"Lieutenant Shepard of the Alliance—who has been proving herself an immense aid—had just narrowed down its location. Shepard, if you would?"

The human nodded hesitantly as she realized she was being called out, stepping forward gingerly after a second of hesitation, obviously favoring one foot as she did. Raising her omnitool she brought up a holographic three dimensional schematic of the asari cruiser they were on.

"Uh, we have been getting signal interference, that's been getting stronger and stronger for a while now. I think it's related to the black thing that turned the professor into _that_..." The human woman—judging by the height, hair and depth of voice—explained, glancing at Benezia as she spoke.

The Matriarch gave her a subtle gesture of encouragement, which in turn made Saren's scowl deepen. _Meddling old asari. I see what you are trying to do._

' _See how useful the humans can be?_ ', was what Benezia was saying to him, without quite so many words.

Raising his own omnitool and connecting to hers. "Send it, and all other relevant files to my omnitool directly."

She nodded and looked down at her wrist. "Right, it's a pretty big file to go through, so I'll—"

"That's fine," he said as the omnitool chimed that the download had completed. Then without another word he turned around, fully intent on simply getting on with it without being forced to endure either of the two women any further.

But.

"Ah, Saren, there was one more thing..." Benezia spoke up and with a sigh, he halted.

Half-turning around to look at her, he saw that the human had grabbed Benezia's arm and was shaking her head gently at the elder's inquiring look.

"What is it?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

" _Ah..._ I merely wished to beckon you good luck and to be careful. The Dreyn N'var is not quite what she used to be, she may well fall apart beneath us if we are not careful," she said, before gesturing to the human again. "That explosion just now, she assures me that it did not originate from outside the ship, but from within. Perhaps one of the munitions caches or chemical storage rooms has caught fire."

_She is hiding something,_ he realized instantly. But what?

It had been because of the human. Was it related to the other humans he had encountered earlier? Or the Alliance fleet just outside?

That was probably it.

' _We lost contact with some humans, could you look for them? They might have died in that explosion, so please help them,_ ' was probably what the Matriarch had been about to ask, Saren thought as his mood turned even blacker.

She was also subtly reminding him that the asari were still in danger and in need of an evacuation, giving him the option of refusing without allowing the others present to realize what had just been asked and concluded between them. She was giving him the credit if he chose to save them, while also allowing him to keep quiet and avoid the hassle if he chose not to.

Options hung in the balance for a long moment as he considered what to do. Then finally, perhaps due to the sea of expectant and hopeful asari faces staring at him, he made his decision.

"Once I have pacified the remaining hostiles and secured the artifact you spoke of, I will contact the Alliance vessels to come to your aid."

Benezia smiled, nodding serenely. "Yes, thank you. We shall wait here until then."

The human let out a breath of relief, as most of her tension and stress melted away according to his read-outs. That wasn't the reaction he had expected, but...

It wasn't as if he cared, either.

He said nothing, merely turning around again and striding with long steps towards the entrance through which he had entered not minutes before.

A final thought struck him just as he crossed the threshold. Who had restored the power? The cruiser had been completely powerless when he had boarded it; his own starship's readouts had been perfectly clear about that. Benezia hadn't spoken anything about the matter, but she must have known as she had not thanked him for the act. It was just then that he received a report to his HUD from one of the geth, solidifying a doubt he had been nursing for a while now.

One of his geth stalkers had gone silent.

Which meant there was someone else on board the cruiser as well, and only one name came to mind at the moment.

"Redhax."

* * *

;

* * *

Forcing himself away from the pile of wires and circuitry now lying on the floor in a dismantled heap, Emiya shook his head.

He wasn't getting anywhere with this and he was working against the clock at the moment, so he would have to come back to it another time. Having figured out what was probably the power source and the eezo cores would have to do for now, even if he still had no means of countering the cloaking technology.

Standing up, he looked left and right.

Sheepishly, he realized he wasn't sure which way he had actually come from, and which way he had been going before he slammed right into the now-in-pieces robot. His habit of completely losing track of time while tinkering with things couldn't have chosen a worse time to kick in.

Looking around he figured out his bearing and got moving again through the empty hallways at breakneck speeds. Decorative wall panels were dented when he took to the walls and fine carpets attached to the floor were torn loose with his passing as he hurried on.

He had hoped to figure out how the robot had been cloaking so that he could integrate that technology with his own cloak. As it was, its duration was simply too short to be used regularly. With stealth out of the cards, he thus had to rely on speed. Besides, since he had already destroyed one, they had to know something was up.

The floor shook and Emiya blinked as he almost stumbled on his landing.

Slowing down and raising a hand to take support from the wall, he frowned and looked around. It wasn't just the floor; it had been the whole starship shaking just now.

_Is it another of those creatures?_ Their biotics certainly could do it, but it would have to be another extremely powerful one. He wasn't sure if he could take another one on again; the cruiser was already falling apart from his fight with Henell...

Closing his eyes, he slowed down his breathing until his heart seemed to still. Like the surface of a calm lake, any disturbance would ripple outwards in his consciousness like this, as he stretched his senses outward.

And the moment he sensed the deep spatial anomaly just 60 meters above him, he could no longer miss it for even a second. "...Another starship?"

His mind raced at the realization. _Someone must be boarding the Dreyn N'var, attaching a starship to the hull and creating a controlled breach-head for boarding._ Was it the Alliance? But why now? They had been sitting back until now, content to simply watch. Or was it pursuers from the Citadel, coming for him again?

Or was it just someone coming to save the asari?

Regardless, it wasn't good.

Carelessly bringing in more people would just give the _kshirae_ new vectors to spread through. He couldn't allow that, not after how many had already died here due to his failures and mistakes.

"Damn it...!" He slammed his fist against the wall, caving it in.

His only option now was to exterminate all of the remaining _kshirae_ before it could spread. He still hadn't confirmed whether only Henell and the other twisted creature could propagate the ' _infection_ ', but there wasn't enough time to figure out either.

Kicking off, he doubled his previous already destructive pace through the starship.

* * *

;

* * *

Arnaut Kyle steepled his fingers before his face, immersing himself in the ambient chatter and background bustle of the CIC.

_It isn't actually all that different from commanding ground forces_ , he concluded, _if I just think of the starships as a bunker._

Just the same, three hundred Alliance marines were now boarding the asari cruiser on his command. They had specially-made boarding shuttles that could latch a magnetic lock onto the hull, allowing dozens of fireteams to be quickly fielded wherever they were needed along with all the gear and materiel they could need for breaching the starship's hull.

"Shuttle 1 breaching team is inside," one of the officers reported with a certain stiffness.

Kyle didn't mind it one bit. He understood the navy officer's stiffness perfectly well. He too would be chafing just as much if his commanding officer on the ground was replaced by a navy man under the authority of the Alliance Intelligence Agency.

Even he found it shady how he had so easily been given all the backing and authority necessary to go through with boarding the asari cruiser, and he had been the one to actually call the AIA in the first place.

"Good. Have them spread out and look for survivors," Kyle said.

The officers seemed to somewhat relax at that, as the one by the comms answered. "Yes, sir."

Even as he had suddenly taken over the CIC, he hadn't actually told any of them what it was all about, only telling them to prepare to board the asari starship they had all been content to ignore until now. Frankly, it was simply because he wasn't sure why the AIA actually had helped him.

It had been a mad, last-ditch idea that had sprouted from the sheer frustration that being rebuffed by the Spectre had caused.

Yet somehow his tightbeam call to Arcturus Station had gone through and someone had picked up despite the time difference. It must have been in the middle of the night there, he realized only now. There were a few pointed questions about the mysterious AIA operative working with Shepard, about how she was aboard the Dreyn N'var and how the undercover operative was nowhere to be found, forcing Arnaut to call Arcturus directly.

The quiet blond man had listened to Kyle quietly until finally, he had said he would look into things and hung up.

And then mere minutes later, _somehow_ , an encrypted tightbeam had been sent back with a signed order by the director of the Alliance Intelligence Agency giving him temporary authority to do... really whatever the hell he wanted.

'... _Any and all means necessary, to and for protecting the Systems Alliance and its interests..._ '

"Don't tell me..." he muttered quietly as his brows furrowed once more. "Is that hacker _really_ here, after all?"

"Sir?"

Kyle blinked, looking up as he was snapped out of his reverie. "What?"

The officer cleared his throat, speaking again. "Sir... The boarding team has found something. Shall I bring the video file they uploaded up on your monitor?"

"Oh, yes. Bring it up. Anything else?"

"The second team is just breaching on the other side of the cruiser. They've just installed the temporary airlock."

"Good." Kyle nodded and then looked down at the panel before him. His considering expression was immediately wiped away as he stared in shock at the screen.

Dead asari, lying in piles along the hallway.

Blood and pockmarks from small arms fire marked nearly every surface.

The blast doors just up ahead looked as if they had been shredded to pieces in a blender.

"Mother of god... Are, did the team find any survivors?"

The officer shook his head. "No, sir. They've moved on and... there's more of the dead, it seems."

"How many more?" Kyle almost hesitated to ask.

And the man by the terminal hesitated just as long to answer. "At least fifty."

The floor fell out beneath Kyle, or so it felt anyhow. Fifty dead asari, while they had been in the middle of an Alliance fleet. No matter how you spun it, that would look very, _very_ bad for the Alliance once it got out. _Damn it, damn it... Do I cover it up? Can I cover it up?_

He eyed the CIC, noting how many were already aware of what had just been found on the Dreyn N'var. He could only shake his head in disgust; he had no real authority with these people. If he tried to shut them up and cover all of this, then they would be more likely to spread it than actually obey.

Even the proxy authority of the Alliance Intelligence Agency would not change that.

In fact, that might only exacerbate the issue if he carelessly tried to throw around his weight with that backing.

"The boarding team has made contact with something and is engaging in a firefight, sir."

"Fighting!?" Kyle looked up again, his brows furrowing at that as panic began to rise within him. Surely they weren't now fighting with the asari, on top of everything else? "With who? The asari?"

"No, sir... They don't know, it's already over. No casualties." The officer reported calmly, before turning around to look at Kyle. "They might have just gotten spooked, sir."

Kyle shook his head. "Alliance Marines aren't that easily spooked. Even I know that. Tell them to advance slowly and record _everything_ they see. This is going to get very ugly before it gets any better..."

The officer paused, exchanging worried looks with a fellow on the other side of the room before he nodded seriously and answered.

"Yes, sir. I'll relay it immediately."

His whole career he had sought to stand out, to blaze a trail to the top as quickly as possible by standing at the front whenever possible. Yet this was the first time in all that time that he was made to realize that it was not only glory that was heaped to the one standing first...

But also the blame when they needed a fall guy.

"I ate the poison, might as well eat the plate..."

"Sir?" The officer looked up, appearing slightly perplexed at the quiet remark.

Kyle shook his head. "It was nothing. Just thinking out loud. Continue."

* * *

;

* * *

" _The Spectre is heading back your way now, I think, and Tryna should be coming with him, too. How are things looking over there?_ " Shepard's voice reported through the commpiece in her helmet.

Mentally switching gears, she made the hand-sign to notify that she wanted to switch with someone and a pair of her subordinates rushed to replace her position in the vanguard.

"Aaaaaaaahhh...!" The lone creature before them howled, sending another wave of biotic force their way.

Justicar Anatha stepped back to give the two commandos behind her some more space to fight just in time to allow them to intercept and disperse the attack. Even alone, the asari creature was nearly more than they could handle. And periodically more of the _kshirae_ would appear, forcing the resting commandos to participate as well.

Nonetheless, for now, it seemed they had a sustainable strategy for handling the threat.

Satisfied that they would hold without her, she raised the omnitool up and replied. "With our combined numbers now, spearheading through their resistance is much easier. Their defense is getting desperate, however, and if we are not careful the tide could be turned in an instant... Having the Spectre here should give us some breathing room."

They would certainly need it, if the slowly but steadily rising level of resistance was any indicator of what to expect, once they actually found the source of the madness that had infected this ship.

If Shepard was right, anyhow.

Still, being able to _push back_ instead of being toyed around with by the continuously Blinking creature was proving great for morale. Commandos were made for attacking and pushing forward, not holding ground and waiting. Even if this was exhausting work, even in shifts that allowed them to rotate their van, it was still better than merely being forced to defend.

The fact that one of the creatures was trying to slow them down was enough proof for her that it was ultimately the right move.

" _Good. I hope. But be careful with him, he seems a little... unpredictable. Anyhow, keep us posted; right about now you should be at hallway 14-D, coming towards the aft munitions storage, right?_ " Shepard's voice queried through the omnitool.

"That is right. The howling creature has not relented since we ran into it, but we're still pushing it back with numbers to keep the ventilation crew safe."

" _Right. I think we can narrow it down to one of three locations by now, then._ "

Anatha nodded to herself. Then this slow pushing match to escort one of their commandos moving through the ventilation system was the correct choice, after all. "Good. Tell me when you have narrowed it down to two. We will have to push through before they realize to get desperate and do something stupid."

" _Do you think they have the presence of mind for that? They don't seem particularly smart, from what I've seen._ "

Anatha grunted.

" _Something_ is guiding them, otherwise they would not have been half the trouble they are. Never underestimate—"

Her thoughts ran aground on that sound as she turned her head towards their rear, mouth hanging open as she knit her brows. _What was..._

A deep sound, akin to a blast-door being forcefully torn open echoed behind them, the screech of sheared steel and torn metal carrying loudly through the hallway. It was different from the sound of someone boarding their ship earlier, being much closer and made by something lighter and faster than whatever had docked onto their ship's hull.

" _Anatha?_ " Shepard asked through the omnitool, allowing her to be snapped out of her confusion and look around.

All of them had heard it and the Justicar realized a half-second later that if she had been startled by the noise, so too would the vanguard who was pushing back the _kshirae_.

_This is bad!_ Had that intelligence that had been guiding the _kshirae_ drawn them here, into this hallway where they had nowhere to go if they were to be pincered between two forces? _Goddess refute it! I knew that talk about the other creature being crippled and locked in was too good to be true!_

"Change formation! Contact rear! Get the Shiala out of the vent and—" Anatha exploded into commands as she realized they were utterly trapped here.

A red shadow crossed the open space in the blink of an eye, sailing above their heads before any of them could so much as realize something had rushed towards them.

Anatha barely had time to turn her head in time to see the impact, as the black-clad man shrouded in red slammed into the creature. Biotics flared and failed, followed by an unearthly howl of agony that was cut off by the black boot crushing the creature's rib-cage.

_A jump-kick!?_

The asari-turned-abomination had been knocked over by the figure covered head to toe in black, wearing a flaring red mantle at his waist that was now standing on top of its crushed chest. A twisted hand reached up weakly, clawing at the shin uselessly.

In response, the foot was raised and brought down again, this time crushing the head with one solid stomp.

Several of the commandos flinched at the sight of chunky fluids and bone being scattered across the floor, yet none turned their wary gazes away from the figure.

"That's...!"

"Isn't he... from Thessia...?!"

A smooth, matte black helmet turned their way and Anatha was certain they could all feel the gaze hidden behind the dark visor. The tense second that passed felt like a minute before he turned his back to them and stepped off the dead creature.

Anatha snapped out of her shock, taking three steps forward as she moved past the frozen van. "You...!"

But he was already gone, in the blink of an eye having vanished from sight.

" _Anatha, come in! What's going on? Anatha!_ "

The Matriarch woodenly raised her arm, frowning at the already gone figure as she still mentally reeled at what was going on. "Cease your shouting, Shepard. We are... fine."

" _Finally, I wanted to warn you, there's some kind of movement coming in from up ahead._ "

"Ahead?" Anatha repeated, confused. "Are you sure you aren't mistaking it for someone coming from behind us and now moving away from us, up ahead?"

" _Huh? No, I'm sure. And there's a lot of them; be on your guard._ "

"Very well," she said and then looked up. "You heard her. Contact front, layered formation. Is she out of that blasted vent yet?"

Asari hastened to obey her orders, swarming around her and forming up to take on whatever would be coming for them from just up ahead.

"Yes, Justicar, here I am," Shiala responded as she stepped forward.

Anatha looked at her for a moment, eyes taking in the disheveled and dirtied, yet physically unharmed appearance, and nodded. "Good. Take the rear and rest for now."

The svelte asari nodded, bowing once.

"Incoming!"

The Matriarch inhaled once and then prepared for combat again.

But as she recognized the heavily armed soldiers appearing at the end of the hallway, she involuntarily relaxed. At the same time, her omnitool chimed.

" _Anatha! I got in contact with them, they're Alliance marines. I repeat, Alliance marines. Not hostiles!_ "

What was that human saying she had heard recently?

"Ah, that's right. ' _The cavalry has arrived_ '."

* * *

;

* * *

Major Kyle paced restlessly.

Everything was going as smoothly as it could at this point. They had filmed everything so far, and nothing had gone catastrophically wrong. As far as the facts went, they were obviously blameless in all this.

Yet...

_It's not enough._

"What was that, sir?" the communications officer asked, looking up.

Arnaut blinked, realizing that he had spoken those words out loud again. He frowned, crossing his arms as he stopped pacing. This was really getting to him.

"It's noth... It's _not_ nothing. It's not enough."

He was too far away. He was an army major; someone who had to have his feet on the same ground as he was fighting his battles on! Hadn't Torfan shown him the limitations of staying far away on board a starship and relying on mere comms and reports from the front?

The men around him blinked, not sure what he was talking about at all. "...Sir?"

The major nodded, finally realizing what he needed to do.

"This is too far away. I need to get closer."

"Sir, you want us to get closer? But starship boarding regulation states that a minimum distance of—"

Arnaut wasn't listening. "Prepare a shuttle and a personal guard. I'm going to the asari cruiser. Someone in command has to be there to talk it out with the asari, now that connection has been re-established. _In person_."

"Uh, sir, but, sir!"

But it was too late, as the major had already rushed out of the CIC.

"...Fucking jarheads," someone commented just loudly enough to be heard by everyone.

Someone snickered and most just shook their heads.

The communications officer shook his head as he turned back to his terminal. "Right... Sir wants his shuttle and escort, sir can have his shuttle and escort..."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya exhaled as he came to a full stop.

The doors automatically opened at his approach and he passed through into the nondescript storage room. Nothing was immediately visible from the doorway, so he continued with his slow and sure steps until he saw _it_.

Calming down his beating heart, he looked at the _thing_ before him, tucked away into a corner as if it had merely been forgotten there. It shone and glittered, like obsidian glass that swirled without changing its external shape. It was like an upside-down pinecone that had opened up and spread itself, with a multitude of depressions visible where individual ' _seeds_ ' had been plucked out. Even in the dim light of this darkened and otherwise unremarkable storage room, it seemed to be sparkling so brilliantly as to captivate the eye.

Which was exactly why he entirely ignored it now.

He hadn't seen the shards for himself until now, but based on Shepard's description and the sheer sense of _wrong_ this thing exuded, there could be no mistaking it.

On the floor around it, there were three asari each with at least a dozen of the shards stabbed into their backs. Yet they seemed dead; their pale pallor, motionless chests, and rictus grimaces spoke of deaths none too pleasant.

He would hold his distance for now. If they started moving, then they started moving and he would put them down properly. There was nothing more to it.

"What to do with this thing..."

His first instinct was to toss it into the nearest star and be done with it. It was _dangerous._

But at the same time, he couldn't just do that.

It was related to the Protheans, _somehow_. He needed to figure it out; understand what it was and why it had been made. But it wasn't as if he could simply grasp it and Structurally Analyze it, not if he valued his sanity at least.

Raising a hand, palm up, he closed his eyes and submerged into himself. Standing on that rust-colored hill under a burning sky, he felt the weight of the Prothean pistol in his hand.

He exhaled smoke, certain now.

They _were_ related, but not directly.

"Nothing to it, then...—trace,"— _begin_ ,

s **Ò̹̮̪̯͇̝͗͊̋̋̒͠B̷̪̬̖̰̭͇̲̽̇͒̇̄E̹̟̺̠̽̋̊ͭ̐̄Y̳ͮͯͮ** a r _e̵s_ i͜s̴ţ ͍͇v **B͓̺̞̦̠̖͎ͭ̄ͭ̿̊͂E͇̦̖̱͎͎̤ͫ S̭͎̘͖̜̲̭ͨ͌̍ͩ͑ͥÚ͖͕̤͗̀ͮͪB̟̻͎͈̅̒̑͋ͩͮͩŜ͕͓͖̭̱͚̭̓͗̈ͪ͆ͧU̯̩̰̪̠̲̓́͋͊̚̚M̫̳̜̮̭̰̱̿ͣ́͢E͇̦̖̱͎͎̤ͫḌ͎̰̻̄̉̆͂͛͗ͣ e** ̦̾s͘u͝ _rv͢i_ ve **Ś̹ͅƯ͎ͧ̅̔̅̌͗B͇̰͍̤̳̙ͦͨͭ͆̎͊̈͟M̢̼͎̜̗̣ͧ͆ͮI̷̱̳͛̉T͙̝͖ͨ u** r _e_ g _a̡_ i͟ń ̮̰̺ͫ͂̍ͭ͌͐͢ **U͎̗͔͇̖̖̮N͈̹̞̾ͩͮ̈͌̂͛I̢͚̟F͕͙̻͚͉͔Y̵̹̗͕̦̫ͮ͊ͥͫ̈** _s_ a̴v _e͞_ n _g_ e ̙̪̹̗̟̙ͭ͒̿ͦ **A͇̳̮̻̣͓̬̒̈́ͯS̢ͮ͒͑C̺̞̆̍̂͒̉͋͜E̳̪͖͇̩̲̽ͫͥ͌̾ͬ͋N͙̼̯̈́ͮ̀̾̿̓͂͘Ḍ̶̇̒̍̾̎̓ !**

He gasped, almost falling over as he opened his eyes back in the dark storage room aboard the Dreyn N'var. He breathed heavily until he finally got himself under control again.

Laughing weakly, he couldn't help himself but look at the obsidian pinecone directly.

It immediately sought to latch onto him, to twist his self by corroding it with an alien impulse. Yet in comparison to the shadow of the echo of the pistols he had found on Mars, it was _nothing_ in comparison. The pistol had been soaked in so much of that _other_ influence that even the twisted creature Henell had become pale in comparison.

But then why hadn't the pistol been a problem? Beyond the initial shock, he hadn't had to struggle with its influence on him.

_Rather than that..._

Having submerged himself in it for a moment, he felt almost cleansed of the _other_ somehow. "Could it be... That it's the Protheans influence...?"

It was hard to believe.

If those Protheans had been affected by something _that_ old and overwhelming, how could they have maintained themselves? Even ritual suicide was an overwhelming feat under such conditions. But, he supposed something like that truly would deserve being called the crystallization of a miracle—a _noble phantasm_.

Emiya shook his head, dismissing those thoughts for now. "I guess that settles it. I'll have to sneak this thing out, somehow."

He took a step forward—

The door which he had closed behind him when he had entered began to open behind him.

Reacting on pure instinct, he jumped soundlessly to the side out of sight as he activated his cloak. _Who...? Did the asari catch up already?_

If he got lucky, he could avoid a fight if the room was only scanned from the entrance. Neither the pinecone nor the dead asari could be seen from the doorway, after all.

Yet as he peeked at the doorway from where he was crouching, he couldn't see anyone. Not even a shadow, pouring in from the more brightly lit hallway into the darkness of the room.

_Did someone just pass by?_

But the door remained open.

Emiya breathed slowly, as he looked around the room. He couldn't sense any presences, but...

Just as his eyes scanned over the ceiling, he noticed that one of the thin light panels was slightly warping downwards, as if it was being pulled by something. Like an invisible robot climbing on the ceiling.

_Oh yeah, that's not good._

The door was still open, even if the robot was climbing inside the room already. That probably meant there were _more_ of them, at the very least two. Were they here for the pinecone, too? Or were they looking for him?

He glanced at his cloak's battery and mentally nodded. If he remained still, he had power for at least five minutes as long as he stayed still. Having already taken out all of _kshirae_ he could find, the two asari-creatures and with life-support back on, he had the luxury of biding his time again.

If by just sitting still and observing them for a few minutes he could figure out what the robots were after, then it seemed like a bargain too good to pass up on.

Emiya didn't have to wait long, as the moment he had decided to sit still for a while longer, he could hear footsteps approaching. Seconds later, a tall shadow stretched out from the hallway.

A tall turian, wearing a hardsuit and armed with a heavy pistol entered without hesitation, walking over until he stood where Emiya had been moments before, staring at the pinecone in silent contemplation.

_Definitely not Alliance... Another Citadel Spectre?_ Emiya thought, frowning as he kept utterly still. If he wanted to, he could just reach out and touch the turian. _Is this the guy Benezia had been trying to get close to?_

He was snapped out of his thoughts as the turian spoke, seemingly to himself.

"I see. So this was the source of the _Indoctrination_. No wonder the asari died in droves... The dragon's teeth are nothing compared to _this_ ," the turian spoke quietly, chuckling to himself though there was little mirth in the sound. "Henell's death was a waste, but this will have to do. Get it back to my ship without anyone seeing it. Get the dead asari before they turn into something, too."

Saying that the turian spun on his feet and moved to leave the storage room.

_Indoctrination?_ Emiya blinked, memorizing every word he had just heard. Meeting someone who actually seemed to know what was going on was a first, after all. _Which means... this is the guy Benezia was talking about?_

But did that make him an ally?

But Benezia had seemed hesitant to introduce him earlier, even when they had agreed to more or less work together, hadn't she? So perhaps things weren't quite that simple.

Maybe he was only looking to use the pinecone as a weapon?

Emiya needed to know for himself. Taking a slow breath, he focused on his cybernetics and sought out the omnitool the turian was wearing.

Suddenly, the until-now apparently-dead asari began to stir, moaning quietly as they began to rise. The turian halted, turning around to stare at them.

Then with a sound of disgust, he drew his heavy pistol and in one motion shot all of them in the head. Three shots in a snap, all perfectly on the mark. The two who had been getting up collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. And from one of them, the spurt of purple blood had stained the wall, revealing the outline of one of the hidden robots, hanging just above the pinecone.

"Get them out of here, before the asari, or worse yet, the humans get here," the turian ordered as he holstered his heavy pistol.

Looking back, Emiya could see as invisible hands grasped the pinecone and began to raise it. The same happened to the three dead asari seconds later, too.

The turian paused as if considering something. His whole body tensed and for a second he seemed torn between two equally undeniable and powerful impulses, and then he relaxed with a drawn-out hiss. The sound of grinding teeth could be heard all the way across the room.

Just then, the connection to the turian's omnitool patched through. The numerous open communications' streams, the HUD readouts stating how much ammunition, medigel, and grenades the turian still had, and the map of the starship were immediately visible. But before Emiya could try anything, he realized there was no way he would be able to _._

The damn omnitool was packed chock-full of the little balls of light he had just come to know as the _geth_.

And more than that, as he could get a rough feeling for the outgoing connections he realized that the geth in the omnitool were communicating with other geth in this room. With the invisible robots, he realized with a startle. The hair on the back of Emiya's neck rose up all of a sudden, as his honed instincts screamed at him that he should retreat for now and get some distance rather than let himself get surrounded.

_Two, seven, sixteen... thirty-four._ He couldn't tell how many were in this room, but he could tell that a great many geth were somewhere around here, all connected to the omnitool the turian wore. _Since when does the Citadel work with the geth?_

Emiya was getting more and more confused by the minute, but he forced himself to calm down. He knew from experience that the little light balls could detect him, which meant that he couldn't carelessly try to push his way forward.

Especially since this turian was getting the damn pinecone off the ship for him. _I'll just sneak on board his ship and leave with it, or something. That should be the easiest way out of this mess_.

He almost scoffed at himself.

Any ship the turian was using was bound to be just as filled to the brim with geth as the turian's personal omnitool, and his cloak wouldn't last that long either. Hell, even managing to follow after them undetected would probably be pushing it.

Nevertheless, he'd just have to do it and figure something out along the way. _These 'let's just see what happens'-plans of mine are becoming all too common for my liking..._ Quietly grumbling to himself, he stalked the turian out of the storage room and out into the hallway, and then into another long hallway. _Judging by the heading, he's heading for the shuttle bay? He's escorting the geth robots all the way, then?_

That suited Emiya just fine; finding out where the damned pinecone was being taken while staying within hearing distance of the turian meant that he might be able to overhear something as he followed.

The turian and his invisible robots—at least the ones carrying, Emiya wasn't entirely sure how many more there were—kept moving at a good pace, with the destination becoming ever-clearer with every step.

But it wasn't good enough. _The cloak isn't going to last more than a minute..._

He would have to break away and go around, cutting ahead of the turian Spectre, while looking for a power outlet to recharge his cloak's batteries. _Alright, I'll turn around here and..._

The turian stopped two seconds after he did, becoming utterly motionless. The hair's on the back of Emiya's neck rose again and he froze, settling as still as a statue in his half-crouched position ten meters behind the Spectre.

"...I suppose having you follow me all the way back to the ship would have been a little too good to true." The turian turned around, his mandible's flaring as he revealed rows of pointy teeth in a universally-understood predatory grin. "Or what say you, my little shadow?"

Emiya said nothing, only staring quietly back at the turian behind his cloaked helmet.

"Hah," the turian scoffed, shaking his head and continuing to say something. "Sh—"

But Emiya's instincts screamed at him and he jumped to the side, as an impulse of communication preceded four streams of high-velocity projectiles peppering and tearing apart the floor he had just been standing on. _Four geth!_

"—oot him— _huh?_ "

The expression of utter surprise was almost good enough to make up for the fact that he had been spotted, Emiya thought for a second, and then the hail of bullets from behind him carved up his back and halted his jump in mid-air.

"Khh...!"

He grits his teeth as the hardsuit was torn to pieces by a steady stream of rapidly fired projectiles. Each individual bullet was nothing, but as a constant stream, it was enough to tear apart his diamene weave protections in less than a second.

But it was still enough for him to realize he was in danger. Enough time for him to Reinforce his body and brace for the pain as his armor eventually failed.

The first stream was joined by another, and another, until Emiya lost count after the tenth stream of bullets started hitting him. Blotting out the pain, he focused inward and reflected on his mistake to blot out the pain. _Damn, he knew I was following him the whole time. I shouldn't have tried to follow him without ascertaining my own cloak's efficacy and figuring out a counter-measure to the robots' cloaks._

He had been baited into an ambush; had swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Emiya's body hit the ground, being pushed from a dozen directions by the streams of projectiles, all tearing at his body and armor. Pieces of black armor and strips of the red shroud were ripped loose, as he was forcibly pushed to the side of the hallway. _They're closing in on me, forming a half-circle. At least fourteen._

If it was one or two, maybe he could block their projectiles with his wide swords. If the bullets were slower and there were less of them, closer to a machine gun of his era, then perhaps he could dodge and parry the bullets even.

But surrounded like this by so many of them, firing so many bullets that were so small and so fast that he could not even see them as anything other than a line, there was nothing he could do except grit his teeth and just hold on. Splatters of blood covered the walls and skin was flayed loose, like paint peeled off by a pressure washer, landing on the floor.

The pain was... _considerable_. Even by his standards. But he grit his teeth and held on, covering his vulnerable spots with his arms as he did.

His body could take this much punishment.

It had only been five seconds, but just as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. He distantly realized that someone was shouting, but he couldn't gather his wits enough to understand the who or the what just then.

Emiya inhaled, and the rush of oxygen brought back his sense of self in the world.

_I'm fine._ As long as he still had flesh on his bones, he could knit himself back together by turning himself into swords. _No broken bones, no major bleeding, joints are fine and muscles are still attached. I'm fine. I'm fine._

But his head was woozy. His helmet was untouched, as not a single shot had been aimed at his vitals, it seemed. So it probably wasn't a concussion.

_I've lost a lot of blood, then._ He exhaled, trying to will his ravaged body to stop bleeding. Maybe it helped a little, he couldn't quite tell through the tsunamis of agony that assaulted his finally-present mind. _Fine, I'll have to replenish it._

The hacking completed instantly as Emiya took over the turian's omnitool. Medigel began to convert immediately into human blood replacer. Despite the base genetic material having been set for turians, the high-end omnitool was still able to handle the conversion and would be ready in another ten seconds.

It wouldn't be blood, but at least it would be something in his veins _._ In the short-term it would keep his blood pressure from dropping dangerously low, allowing him to remain conscious for now. Of course, the countless geth in the omnitool were all getting frenzied as they realized what he was doing.

_Annoying._

"Good, he's alive. Get him back to the shuttle, I want him on Virmire immediately. Strip him and get him stabilized. ' _Redhax_ ' and I will be having a long conversation once I am done here..." the turian said smugly, and Emiya distractedly realized his name was Saren, from perusing the omnitool.

Not sure what to do with the geth but certain that they could not be allowed to warn the Spectre, Emiya reached out with a mental hand towards them.

As if sensing the approaching danger, they buzzed and tried to scuttle out of the omnitool. But his metaphorical hand grasped all of them at once, and then with the mental equivalent of a slamdunk, he tossed all of them into his own cybernetics with the others. _That should keep them from getting in the way._

That still left the fourteen other geth that had robot bodies of their own. At least fourteen, anyhow. He didn't have a direct connection to them, so he couldn't perform a repeat of his previous solution so easily either.

Therefore, he would have to take them all out with his first move.

That, or...

Hadn't Benezia been looking for Henell, a Prothean expert, on Saren's behalf? He made up his mind, drawing just enough breath to speak the word...

"Pro...thean..."

The turian froze, his head whipping towards Emiya with eyes almost shining behind his helmet's visor.

"What did you say?" Taking three steps forward, the Spectre crouched down just above his seemingly broken and battered body, the previous caution completely forgotten. "What were you trying to say...?"

Emiya drew another weak breath, raising head as if weakly looking at the turian leaning over him.

_Just another few seconds and his omnitool is done._

"I said... ' _Prothean_ '," he answered with a whisper so soft, that the words barely even left his lips.

The turian obviously didn't quite catch it, furrowing his brows as he leaned a little bit closer to the apparently near-unconscious human.

_And... gotcha._

Emiya's hands shot out, grabbing the turian by the arm and flipping up with his legs and spinning him around. The Spectre had just time enough to yelp in surprise before he was placed into a sitting sleeper hold with his left arm held in an almost crushing grip.

"Wha—!"

Saren struggled futilely for a second against the rear chokehold, before his omnitool turned on seemingly by itself on his left arm, at the same time as Emiya's vise-like grip pulled it toward his own right shoulder across the turian's chest.

With his back to the wall and his torso being shielded by Saren's body, Emiya judged that the geth wouldn't shoot him for fear of hitting Saren. And it appeared he was right, as he guided the omnitool's medigel injector to his brachial artery on the inside of his right arm. The needle did not even need to push through fabric or skin as the muscle beneath them was already exposed to the air, allowing the blood replenisher to gush directly into his veins with an almost intoxicating rush.

"Ye _ah_..."

Emiya couldn't help the satisfied sound that escaped his lips, his breath fogging up the inside of his helmet for a second. His head immediately cleared up as the fog before his eyes receded.

Hearing the sound acted as a signal for the turian, allowing the Spectre the break out of his momentary shock. A hand immediately went for the heavy pistol on his hip. Emiya judged that in this position he wouldn't be able to stop Saren from reaching his firearm, so instead, he pulled back his arms. The right hand grasped the turian's left arm had already been drawn across the turian's chest, as his own left arm drew back to the turian's shoulder.

And then his right hand _pulled_ as his left hand _pushed_ , sending the turian that had been flush up against him spinning out from his lap. But Emiya didn't let go of the right arm, rather he pulled it toward himself with another snapping motion, which resulted in a satisfying _pop_ of something giving way in the turian's arm.

"Aargh!"

Emiya ignored the scream of pain, even as he understood that having an arm dislocated and broken meant something entirely different for a race with a rigid proto-exoskeleton than it did for a human, letting go of the turian as his mind was already racing on ahead.

_Don't have time to repair hardsuit—soft armor will just get chewed through—need hard protection._ The solution was simple _—Trace_ , _on—begin projection,_

A ballistic shield was what he needed.

Not so much a replica, as a free-form projection he had once tried out during his life. An inch thick, shaped like a Roman scutum or later pavise shield, making it wide and tall enough to cover his whole body at once. Though really, made as essentially an up-scaled AR-500 steel plate, it was just about the most ridiculous thing he had ever conceived off.

The thirty-kilogram shield slammed onto the ground with the sound of a church-bell, and not a second later the expected streams of bullets began to pepper him as the turian shield was out of the way. But unlike the light layered protection of his diamene weave, the hardened surface of the steel shield wasn't even scratched by the hypersonic rounds.

_They must be very light to minimize structural damage inside the ship. They can chew through a kinetic barrier or even a medium hardsuit without danger of leaving obvious bullet damage behind, or puncturing the hull._

Exhaling slowly, he turned inward and focused on making his new set of armor. With the protection of the ballistic shield he now had seconds to spare, allowing him to make something properly.

Thicker all around, even if it came at the cost of fine mobility. More hardened plates like in his boots to increase surface resistance to the light bullets. Something on the inside to cover his gaping wounds until he could get some medical care...

— _defining parameters, searching, acquiring, modifying for use with existing template, all processes completed_ — _binding illusion,_

His circuits heated up and for a moment the internal pain matched the external agony he was experiencing, before that too flared up beyond even his pain tolerance. His consciousness whited out for a few seconds, before his clenched fist and the rattling of the shield before him brought him back.

Projecting material directly on top of his flayed body was certainly going to be on _The List_ , as he managed the pain through his breathing. Two seconds had passed since the shield had been created and it was still holding strong under the barrage.

His hardsuit wouldn't have been able to take half as much in a continued assault like this, as the value he placed on agility necessitated thinness. Even the diamond-hardness of the numerous diamene layers would fail under such repeated high-velocity impacts. If it was just one geth or he could have taken cover in time, then restoring destroyed layers would have been possible.

But having been overwhelmed by the sheer volume, there was nothing he had been able to do.

_Perhaps its time I look into new materials..._ he thought distractedly, before dismissing all thoughts.

But the massive thing in his hand had the toughness, the hardness and the thickness necessary to completely invalidate such bullets. Certainly, its surface was already pockmarked by countless small impact craters of the small bullets pushing aside the hardened steel like wet mud, but to chew through this thing would still take minutes.

Which meant...

Emiya jumped, uppercutting with the shield in hand as he did which sent his point of balance reeling after the shield, pulling his body into a back-flip of sorts.

The expected impact was there, as something invisible crumpled and was crushed on impact with the shield.

A geth appeared in the air in the midst of a crackling shower of sparks, as the cloak failed and left the poor machine to fall from the ceiling where it had been moving to flank him and shoot over his shield.

Having completed full back-flip in the air, he found himself flush against the top of the hallway, tucked into the corner of the ceiling and the wall, in that lull before the artificial gravity could start pulling him down again. His feet found purchase on the wall and he pushed off, jumping towards the end of the hallway where he had just come from.

At the same time, he spun in the air, bringing the shield to bear behind him towards where most of the geth should be. He felt the sensation of something being drawn over his back and he distantly noted that there was at least one geth still behind him, leaving him in a crossfire. _I need to get out of here... Make another shield?_

Or would turtling like that only slow him down too much? Could he run freely while carrying both?

He flew twenty meters through the air before his feet hit the floor again. Making note of how few geth had seemingly managed to retain their aim on him, he mentally filed it away as an observation on their reaction speed.

His legs tensed, coiling like springs to prepare for another leap. _If it's just this much, then I can still fight at least. Alright, I guess I'll_ —

"WAIT!"

Everything freeze for just a moment.

Emiya blinked and then realized that the geth had stopped shooting. It had been the turian who had shouted.

Cautiously lowering his shield, Emiya peered at the Spectre who with ragged breaths was bringing himself up on all fours. Or rather, his three still functioning limbs, as there was no way his left arm would be able to support any weight in its current state.

Drawing a ragged breath, Saren raised his head and glared with burning eyes that spoke of stubborn determination that was still far from accepting defeat. "...Wait!"

Thoughts racing, Emiya narrowed his eyes at the turian.

This was exactly what he would do if he was buying time for something. Only a fool or someone much too confident in their victory would wait at a moment like this. Especially since he was already wounded.

Yet...

Seeing that Emiya wasn't moving, a spark of recognition and even relief was lit in those piercing eyes. The turian nodded, taking another ragged breath as he sought to stand up, with little success. He seemed to be waiting for something—as if the pain should be receding already or something.

Finally, the turian raised his obviously broken left arm and with great pains turned on the omnitool. And promptly froze with a wide-eyed stare of disbelief. _So, he knew the geth were there and he knows they're gone now._

Wary eyes rose, meeting Emiya in a silent standoff.

_But... those aren't the eyes of someone who has just lost a comrade, it's more like he thinks he's been unarmed without his noticing. I see. he only thinks of the geth as tools, then,_ Emiya thought with a grimace. That meant he couldn't let the Spectre realize that he had decided to care about the geth, which would just unnecessarily complicate things.

With pained gasps, the turian operated the omnitool until finally, he let out a loud, relieved sigh as his eyes almost crossed over.

The next moment, he jumped up as if his previous injury and agony had been nothing more than an act, though the left arm was still hanging limply by his side.

"We... are, not... _enemies_ ," Saren began, not quite so much slurring as almost tripping over his own words.

_Combat stims and pain-killers. Combined with the pain, I doubt he has the capacity to pull lie convincingly now,_ Emiya concluded as he scoffed quietly. He almost sarcastically asked what the turian did to his enemies if he had received this kind of treatment.

And yet...

_I_ was _stalking him and the geth robots didn't aim to kill._ Emiya couldn't deny that. Even if he was under no illusions regarding the Spectre's apparent and all-too-sudden change of heart.

This was just a change of strategy, just the same as Benezia had done. But to do it so quickly, without any hesitation, just after having been brutalized so...

A lesser man would have surely given into wrath.

This was just _business_.

Normally Emiya wouldn't bother with someone this extraordinarily ready to shake hands just after shooting someone, steering far and clear just as he had wished to do with Benezia. But the thing was that the business they were both in right now, was...

"So you're the one trying to save the galaxy, huh?"

The complete and utter shock on the Spectre's face was all the confirmation he needed. Benezia had been convinced that there was something afoot in the galaxy—that a great danger was lurking just beyond their notice—and since then Emiya had seen plenty of evidence to support that conclusion.

He sighed, shaking his head.

"So Benezia was right. You do think that this is serious."

"Benezia...? You have, already talked to her?" Saren asked, blinking with wide eyes barely visible through his helmet's visor. "Of... course... That's what..."

Emiya nodded, standing up straight out of the cover of the shield. "That's right. She realized the same thing you did just now, I'm sure. We had a good, long talk afterward."

The more he thought about it the more sense it made. The tension and bloodlust between them had not vanished anywhere. But there was more at stake here than just their lives.

He took a step forward, followed by another as he let go of the shield that vanished into thin air the moment he released it.

Hadn't Shepard shown him that making allies was better than fighting his way through everything on his own with Benezia? Hadn't Benezia spoken of this Spectre with the greatest of respects? Certainly, his run-ins with Spectres until now hadn't been the best, what with one having been out to set him up and the other having been hunting him down with half a fleet in orbit...

But it wasn't as if he thought particularly poorly of them. Tela Vasir had been plotting who knows what, putting Tyra and Liara in danger, but hadn't the turian Spectre had a good head on his shoulders? Keeping civilians out of danger and the collateral to a minimum, fighting coolly and at a distance when possible, but not afraid to fight him head-on either...

No, he didn't think ill of the Spectres in particular at all.

Then wasn't it obvious what he should do?

Perhaps the turian had only shouted out what he had as a ploy to occupy and distract him for a moment. Perhaps he was even now setting up the geth around them for a more lethal formation. Perhaps he was a complete fool...

But if Saren had even thought to say that, then wasn't there some part of the turian who believed that it _could_ be possible for them to not be enemies? Then didn't he have the responsibility of turning that possibility true, if it meant saving more people?

Emiya came to a halt before the frozen Spectre.

He extended his right hand as he dispelled his helmet to reveal his face, his left coming to rest on his hip. The words that came out of his mouth next made the turian blanch.

"Then, let's not be enemies, Saren Arterius."

The stretching silence was so profound that Emiya could hear his heartbeat, until finally with slow, shaking deliberation the talons reached out to grasp the extended hand.

A firm grip.

They looked up at the same time, their eyes meeting again.

"...Yes. Let us get along, Emiya Shirou."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait again. Work has been pretty exhausting; it's just one crisis after another.


	36. Stratagems

They stared at each other.

The handshake stretched on, growing steadily more and more awkward until it finally entered territories wholly uncomfortable. Clearing his throat, Emiya released his grip and pulled back his hand, with Saren doing the same a few seconds later upon recognizing the cue to let go.

Neither said anything, realizing at once that neither of them knew where to go from here.

Not certain whether it was the turian's possible inexperience with human customs or if it was just the result of him struggling with his injury, Emiya thought better of lampooning on it. Better to get a feeling for Saren's personality before he said something that sank the whole ordeal before it had even gotten off the ground. Sighing internally he kept a placid face even as he bemoaned having to deal with an entirely new set of body language again, just when he had finally started to feel comfortable with the _asari_. Despite his extensive efforts to study and familiarize himself with the various aliens in the galaxy in the past few years, he simply hadn't had sufficient material to learn how to read turians.

Not beyond the basics, anyhow. It had been like how he had thought he could speak English after having listened to the news for years in that language with his basis from English classes in school, only to realize how far removed what he had seen on the public broadcasts had been from the actual thing.

_Getting this to work won't be easy. Approaching him with anything other than my best isn't going to cut it._ Which was going to be a problem; it wasn't just the turian who had gotten a bloodied nose in this confrontation. It was only through his controlled breathing and focus that Emiya wasn't swaying on his feet. _So, what now? Do I ask him to get me out of here so that we can talk somewhere else?_

Or would that be a sign of weakness to the turian? Could he afford to ask for help? If this was a human, he could make some educated guesses as to the other's intentions and motivations. But, no matter how he tried to look, he couldn't say what the turian was thinking.

_What do I know about the turians?_ He asked himself.

A militaristic, highly hierarchical race, who take great pride in their discipline and their role as the military arm of the Citadel. They deal in trade, but are nowhere near the asari or the salarians in economic power, relying mostly on their client race—the volus—to deal with the finer details of such matters. Strict and strong believers in the rule of law. But considering the First Contact War with humanity, where the turians had taken the opportunity to attack a new race in apparent hopes of acquiring another client race, they weren't above playing situations to their advantage using the letter of the law. _So, quid pro quo, but don't allow him to get the upper hand—give an inch, and he'll take a light-year. Don't show any weakness unless you want him to bite._

It wasn't much but at least it was something he could start with.

"Do you need help with that _thing_?" Emiya offered, squaring his shoulders back just the tiniest bit to emphasize his height advantage as if saying he was still fine despite what had just happened. Show weakness when strong, show strength when weak. Having evolved from the carnivores of Palaven, the sharp teeth and talons did not belie the turians' ferocity.

Saren seemed to pause, before understanding the gesture Emiya had made towards the pinecone. With a slow inhalation, the turian shook his head with his gaze lingering at the artifact for a second.

"No."

Emiya nodded. _Is he worried about me being affected, or of appearing weak himself?_ Either made sense, as he too, was leery about letting the thing out of his sight and of the Spectre trying his luck if Emiya appeared weak even for a moment. Still, it appeared that neither wanted a repeat of what had happened to the asari and the batarians. He didn't want to just _let it go_ , but as long as he knew that it was Saren who had taken custody of it at least he would have a trail to follow. If he needed to find it later. That was if things did sour between them. _Right, strict and proud. Entrusting it to him would be a show of respect. But I could also press the matter—demand to oversee the whole thing and then leverage that to get out of here..._

But could he pull something that delicate off against someone who worked with asari and salarians of the highest echelons regularly? Someone who was presumably if not on speaking terms, then at least familiar with nearly all the heads of state operating within the Citadel space.

_Probably not._

His strongest form of diplomacy was of the ' _blow everything up and then run like hell_ ' variety, after all. Then again... This _was_ a Spectre. Someone in the highest rungs of the turian military even before his rise into the Citadel Council's private special forces. After the first contact war on Shanxi, the turians definitely would have spared no expense in compiling comprehensive dossiers on humanity and humans for their elite, much less the STG-backed Council.

There was no way that the turian wasn't at least somewhat confident in dealing with humans. Hadn't the turian barged into an Alliance operation if he was here, now? He must have been confident in dealing with anything the Alliance could throw his way here, at least.

Emiya was beginning to realize that he was horribly outmatched in social skills here.

"What about the _kshirae_ -effect?"

The turian paused, seeming to look at Emiya strangely for a moment. "The... geth are capable of handling it without being indoctrinated. They will handle it," Saren said as his voice was starting to finally sound more relaxed and in control again.

_The drugs he took must be finally kicking in_ , Emiya thought as he nodded at the turian's words. _And he's not trying to hide the existence of the geth, either? But, most importantly..._

"Indoctrinated? Is that what you call it?"

The turian seemed to twitch, but it was so minute that it might well have been nothing at all. Had it been an involuntary slip?

"...Yes." Saren finally nodded, as if convincing himself that it was an acceptable term to convey. "Its... similarity to the mind control of the asari genetic aberrations appears... incidental."

That was news to Emiya. Perhaps there was more to it than he had experienced, and this wasn't the time and place for comparing notes. "Alright... I'll defer to your expertise, then."

But could he just take a rain-check with this turian? Could he even be trusted to not shoot Emiya in the back the moment he turned around?

_Prod him,_ Emiya decided.

He started walking forward, and the turian's tension spike, his good talon stiffening into an open position as bones and carapace locked into place for powerful raking slashes, and his feet took a subtly stabler position gearing up for a fight. Then, as if realizing what he had been doing, the turian consciously relaxed and straightened up. _Yeah, we're both walking on eggshells here..._

Walking past the turian, Emiya consciously kept his body relaxed, as if he hadn't even noticed the turian's discomfort just now. Crouching down, at the spot where he had been brutalized moments before, he reached out and began to pick up the pieces of his torn shroud. It wasn't a projection, but rather something he had been given during his life. Mending it was possible but given how utterly shredded it had become, it would take quite a bit of time. The last time it had been ripped he had just stopped using it as a scarf and turned it into his three-part shroud instead.

Showing his back to the turian without any apparent care, Emiya continued gathering the pieces of his mantle while giving Saren time to compose himself.

"Do you... need medical attention?" the Spectre finally asked after half a minute of tense silence. His voice finally sounded somewhat stable, but it was obvious he was still in great pain.

"Do you have the facilities and supplies to treat a human on your ship?" Emiya asked, half-turning around as he gathered the last pieces, still crouched down on the floor. "Or any such facilities within the immediate distance?"

"...No." The turian seemed to grimace, as if only just now remembering that fact.

_Well, I'll appreciate the gesture for what it is, anyhow._ A minor offering, something that wouldn't matter whether it was accepted or refused. In this case an effort to meet Emiya halfway and reciprocating his own earlier gesture with the pinecone. _It's a start, at least._

Not that either of them had any intention of accepting such help from the other, yet. But it was the attempt that counted; the olive branch being extended, from which an actual relationship as equals could be built.

Should he ask for something more? Something small?

Asking for a way out of the immediate situation would be a show of weakness... But would it be worth it, asking for the Citadel to stop looking for him? Just long enough that he could visit the Moon Cell and get himself fixed up again? Just long enough that he didn't end up causing another galactic incident while trying to stop everything from burning down around him?

Did the Spectre even have that kind of power?

An errant twitch of the loosely hanging talon at the turian's side caught Emiya's eye for a moment, reminding him again of the vast gulf between them.

One of the Spectre's strongest bargaining chips here was the fact that the turian effectively had the entire might of the Citadel Council behind him, poised against Emiya. Asking for a reprieve was just about admitting that it was actually pressuring him. _Then can't I just turn it around on its head? Acknowledge and then ignore that as a show of strength?_

Emiya sighed dramatically as he stood up, pocketing the shredded remains of his shroud. "I'll have to head back with the Alliance boys, then." Raising one arm gingerly, he stared down at it and spoke quietly. "Meaning I'll have to head back into Sol or Arcturus, then..."

The turian perked at that, almost leaning forward at those words, as if about to pounce on him, suddenly all too reminiscent of a coiled viper.

"Could you do me a favor?" Emiya asked casually, noting with interest how the turian seemed to deflate at that as if realizing again that it was a conversation. "Pretend you don't know I'm headed there. Maybe even draw away some heat from my trail. I would appreciate not having to force my way through another planetary blockade again while getting patched up."

The turian's beady eyes shone with what Emiya thought was apprehension and calculation.

"...It could be done."

Emiya nodded at Saren's wary tone. There was no point in promising anything just yet, when it could easily be that this was just a ploy by Emiya to get away. "Speaking of which... _This_ doesn't seem like the talk we ought to be having while swimming in pain killers, right?"

Saren nodded slowly, before straightening up once more. "You might be right." Pausing for a second to consider something as he looked around as if weighing the surrounding geth, the turian nodded at his thoughts before continuing. "Yes, we're, _ill-equipped_ to have this conversation right now this very moment."

_Was he figuring his odds based on how many geth he still had?_ Emiya thought coolly but answered with a neutral voice, not letting his suspicions further weaken the already fragile moment. "So we're agreed? Postponing it for a few days seems like the way to go."

The turian nodded and there was no way to tell whether it was a universal affectation or something feigned for effect. "Let us meet again on... Hmm... Have you heard about Eden Prime before?"

"Eden Prime?" Emiya blinked at the unfamiliar name, searching his memory and finding nothing.

That sounded promising; a small enough world to have evaded his interests until now would allow him quite a bit of leeway for a meeting. But it also meant that Saren could plot any kind of ambush he desired if it came to that, if viewed the other way around. _Hmm..._

"It is a new human colony in the Attican Traverse, quite close to Inner Citadel space. A farming world, standing more as a symbol of your species' efforts in spreading out into the galaxy at large." Saren explained with a nod, emoting minutely with each word. "We should both be able to make our way there without much trouble. It is a..." The turian paused, searching for the right word for a moment. "' _neutral_ ' enough meeting place for a more in-depth discussion."

Was Saren assuming that the Alliance-controlled space was Emiya's power base? Then why settle for something so far away from the Citadel and the Turian territories? _Is his power base_ _built in the Attican Traverse, then?_ It was something to consider.

"When?"

"Shall we say... a month from now?" Saren suggested quickly.

Emiya grunted, considering it. _He has the advantage when it comes to resources. The more time I give him, the more he can exert and leverage that._

"Let's make it two weeks instead. No point in wasting time; we can both make it there on time, right?"

The turian hesitated before nodding again. "Very well. I shall see you in... 340 hours on Eden Prime. I shall be there on a turian frigate in orbit. Hail me and we will set up the meeting then."

Emiya nodded, putting the time and place to memory. He would have to look it up later, but for now, just having the name would have to suffice. "Alright."

That decided, the turian turned around and began to walk away briskly, if a bit gingerly still due to his arm, leaving Emiya alone in the hallway again. Letting out a long sigh and shaking his head gingerly, he too turned and moved to walk away.

With that settled, he now just needed to get out of here without setting what little remained of the asari cruiser still in one piece on fire.

* * *

;

* * *

The shuttle's doors opened and eight hardsuited figures rushed out with their rifles at the ready. When the shout for the area being clear was finally heard, a ninth figure emerged from the shuttle onto the asari cruiser.

Arnaut Kyle looked up and around, adjusting his previous perceptions of asari ships to what he was currently seeing. It wasn't altogether that different from what he had expected. _That's right. As long as I treat this ship like a bunker, I'm more than capable of handling this. I merely have to be careful of the asari, so that they can't put the blame for this on us._

All he needed was more manpower.

Whatever was going on with Shepard, the AIA and Redhax didn't matter one whit. As long as he could establish a foothold here and take control, then everything after that would be smooth sailing.

"How much longer until the reinforcements are ready to board?"

" _The shuttles have already taken off of Torfan; estimated time of arrival for the 43rd company; fifteen minutes._ "

"Good. Keep me posted," he replied with a nod.

With his own men, he could at least trust them to follow his orders. _Probably_. He realized about then that he felt nauseous, his breathing shallow and rapid suddenly. His heart was beating in his chest so rapidly that he could consciously feel his hand shaking in sync with every beat. _Calm down... You_ wanted _this._

Turning his attention to the nearest soldier, who was conscientiously not paying attention to him, instead vigilantly watching their surroundings.

"Have the asari been found yet?"

"One of the fire teams reported picking up something, but they haven't called in yet—" The soldier answered, only to pause for a moment. Turning his head away unconsciously, as if thinking it would enhance his hearing, he nodded to himself before looking at Arnaut again. "Sir, they've found some asari. Commandos by the looks of it."

"Are they alright?" Kyle asked, feeling the cold palpitations through his whole body.

"I think so, sir. What do you want to do?"

Taking in a deep breath, he resolved himself. "...Take me to them, and have the shuttles prepare for evac the moment they arrive. I want every craft we have in the air and outside the cruiser within half an hour, but only on my mark, understood? I don't want a single shuttle boarding or leaving this cruiser without my say-so."

"Understood, sir."

* * *

;

* * *

Saren let out a pained exhalation as the shuttle door closed behind him, allowing his body to fall down against the floor. Raising an arm to take off his helmet, struggling with each pained breath, he realized that his working limb was shaking to the point of near-uselessness to match the utter uselessness of his broken one.

"Spirits...!" he cursed, fumbling to at the very least remove his visor and fill his lungs with air.

It wasn't any different from the stuff in his suit—not _really,_ beyond a marginal difference in gas composition—but the taste and smell of something beyond the completely sterile suit air still acted as a strong comfort and grounder against the pain. The long walk hadn't made the sensation of the numerous bone and exoskeleton shards grinding against each other and his flesh any easier, either.

Their homeworld of Palaven had a relatively weak magnetic field, which meant that all living things were every day under constant bombardment of strong solar radiation, causing most organic beings to evolve a natural metallic carapace to protect them. This gave them considerable protection from the numerous cuts and bruises the other—"softer"—races often acquired during their lives, which gave them a considerable advantage in matters of martial prowess.

Until they were injured, that is.

Unlike those races who had to deal with their lack of a hardened exoskeleton or carapace, the turians hadn't evolved a nervous system nearly as complex. For one this meant that their sense of "touch" was much weaker. For another, it meant that what humans could overcome with a burst of epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol, would completely floor a turian with shock. The 'floor' for how much damage they could withstand was much greater due to those hardened plates—allowing them to shrug off what would scrape and wound and bruise others—but their 'ceiling' was much lower as well.

The turians could not simply molt off their injuries, like the rachni of old or have so many redundancies that they could ignore the damage altogether, like the krogan.

That he had gotten this far was solely due to being able to use an STG developed combat stim meant to replicate those neurotransmitters found in other races, allowing him to not become utterly catatonic from the pain.

But only for a short while—it was already wearing off.

Saren's vision had gone white, and he was certain someone was talking to him, but he couldn't understand it at all. _The... geth?_ The pain ebbed and flowed with his heartbeat, causing his entire body to twitch every half second. Managing to walk away from that man was a miracle in and of itself, but the fact that he had had the presence of mind to actually facilitate a meeting was something else entirely—something out of this world. Something touched him and his eyes flew wide open as he jolted, followed by another blinding rush of grinding hot agony radiating down from his shoulder, reaching all the way to the bottom of his feet in their intensity.

"Get us..." the turian began, only to hesitate. Could he afford to leave just yet? Even with his grievous injuries, something was nagging at him. That he had forgotten something vital just now.

The geth chittered a query at him, which finally broke his spell of lost self-reflection.

"He's not with the Alliance. But...?" Saren quietly murmured, as horrified realization dawned on him. As then, didn't that mean that there was a very real danger of their fragile ceasefire being broken if, _when_ , Redhax found out about what he had been doing here? "Damn it all..."

He glared up at the nearest geth then, fire pooling in his gut as he suppressed his agony and exhaustion through sheer force of will.

"Have you finished forging the video footage yet? Of the three humans that were shot?" This wasn't something he could allow to go to waste because of the deaths of three worthless humans. "Well...?!"

The geth replied with their usual mix of frenetic poise, clicking sounds and fabricated organic gestures warring with their obvious synthetic true nature in the robotic platforms they used. He relaxed, allowing relief to flood him for a moment at the reply he received.

_Still..._

Would that even be enough?

Redhax had managed to vanish all of the geth in his personal computers in the space of a second. Had they only been deleted, or did the human hacker think to copy them first? Could he glean from them the truth of that incident, even if he was presented with flawlessly doctored footage? Could the geth even be trusted to keep quiet? Until now he had thought them completely reliable in their own way, as no other organic would even think to communicate with them. Certainly, they were only really loyal to Sovereign, but so long as their goals aligned, then the geth could be made use of without worry.

But faced with 'Redhax'...

Everything had suddenly changed.

Staunch allies had suddenly turned into what could be his greatest weakness, he realized with sudden trepidation.

A prompt on his heads up display broke him out of his thoughts, as the geth sought to inform him of something. The turian almost growled, but his taut nerves relaxed as he realized that the footage had already been completed and they were only presenting it for his inspection.

Best yet, it had been completed already before his meeting with the human; even if Redhax had managed to download all the files on Saren's omnitool, he would still only be presented with the doctored footage of the events. The turian let out a nervous laugh, wheezing in pain as the movement sent blazing lines of agony through his entire body. The pain kept spreading, already all but radiating all the way up to the tips of his crest.

_It's fine. It's fine,_ he told himself quietly, almost whispering the words to himself in his reverie. As long as the geth did not speak to Redhax themselves then everything would be fine. _I need to set him up as an antagonistic existence to the geth and the Reapers, without alarming either too much..._

That would be the best way to ensure his position in between, allowing him to leverage both in the future.

Managing a delicate balance like that would be hard, especially since Sovereign was certain to grow curious once it realized he was dealing directly with the human. But it had to be done. For the sake of the future of the galaxy. He reassured himself again; this could still work. He could still handle this.

Another chime on his heads up displays, jarring and discordant in his dazed state approaching the black of unconsciousness.

"What is it now...?" A blurry image appeared, from what appeared to be a security feed in a pre-fab facility. It could have been from anywhere in the galaxy, the cheap constructions so ubiquitous. But the metadata indicated Torfan's surface as the source. And more than that it was flagged as a person of interest; one of the Shadow Broker's pawns.

"...This is...?"

A large krogan, wearing a crimson hardsuit and armed to the teeth. Quite obviously a mercenary looking for his next job, completely ordinary among his kind except for his obvious age and size. The krogan appeared to be walking out of a hangar bay while looking up at the sky.

Checking the time-stamp, Saren knew what the krogan was looking at.

The Alliance fleet, that had just been fighting with the batarians down on Torfan. The batarians, who _Saren_ had armed by robbing a Citadel shipment by hiring a third-party through several intermediaries, whom he had only interacted with directly at the very end to ensure the goods were delivered in full and that there would be no leaks. The third-party, which had since been completely eradicated to ensure no loose ends, _except_ for a lone krogan who had vanished before getting his pay for the job.

The krogan who had _seen_ Saren in person aboard the hijacked Citadel starship just after the job had been completed, who knew him as the client for the job, who could theoretically connect him directly to the batarians the Alliance had been fighting down on Torfan.

"Spirits be damned..."

Those three dead Alliance officers just became the least of Saren's problems.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya paused, frowning as he tilted his head.

Footsteps. At least a dozen people, wearing military heavy gear. Not asari, and definitely not turian based on the cadence of the individual strides. _I recognize this sound... duck-walking. Which would mean... the Alliance, huh?_

That was decidedly not good for him.

"Can't use the cloak, the cruiser's internal systems aren't back up yet and I need to avoid fighting..."

Which meant no hiding in plain sight, no information advantage or calling in a ship to make an escape with and no forcing his way through. How wonderful, it was starting to feel like the good old days now. _I really need to stop putting myself in these situations..._ _Still, it should mean that the asari will be fine. With Saren handling the pinecone and with the rest of the kshirae taken care of, it shouldn't be a problem._ Or rather, _Indoctrination_ , he reminded himself.

That damned thing had been down in Torfan for who-knew-how-long and the Alliance marines had seemed to be fine after their relatively short exposures to the lower levels. As long as they didn't tarry around here, then their presence shouldn't be a problem here either.

At least in the short term. _I'll have to set up contingencies once I'm out of here, huh..._ he complained to himself as he kept moving. Turning around and picking up the pace before he accidentally entered the range of the Alliance soldiers' scanners, Emiya moved at a steady pace.

_Should I have followed Saren, after all?_

Clicking his tongue at the errant thought, he chastised himself for crying over spilled milk, especially while it was all but still dripping onto the floor. _Okay, what are my options? Find someplace to hide aboard the cruiser and wait for everyone to leave? Infiltrate the asari and try to leave with them? Steal a shuttle and try to get away on my own?_

Did the Alliance already know he was here?

Not knowing what they knew and were planning, he couldn't just make sudden moves and run for it. Not when Shepard was rolled up in all of this.

"Okay... Go over your resources... What do you have on hand, right now?"

What could turn this around?

He needed something that could force the Alliances forces just outside the cruiser to move, even if just a little... Something, like the hastily adopted AIA identity he had taken from Shepard? _Maybe if I can get a signal out, then I can figure out what they know, and then try to make an opening for myself..._

Even with the loss of his gear thanks to Saren, he still had the cybernetic implants inside of his head. While the transmitting capabilities weren't the best—due to the limitations created by being installed literally inside of his brain, a relatively sensitive and fragile organ—its receivers were still quite sensitive. But only when it came to Omni-directional signals, something which few starships bothered to use for communication.

Tightbeams—bursts of concentrated light beams—were simply that much more efficient and secure, after all.

If he wanted to tap into the Alliance's communications, he would have to get close to one of the marines hooked up to the daisy-chain of short-range communicators that was hooked up to whatever tightbeam module they were using to communicate with the other ships. Meaning he would have to get close enough to the marines to be able to hack in, without being spotted by their sensor suites and radars, navigating the sensitive margin between the ranges of their communications and their radars all while navigating the insides of the cruiser.

Emiya sighed, shaking his head. "Should be a piece of cake, huh?"

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard blinked as the doors opened and the armed marines walked through.

That in and of itself wasn't such a big surprise, given that the asari commandos had already reported meeting with and coming back with the Alliance forces who they had run into. She could spot Anatha, Tryna, and Shiala all safely among the returning commandos number, to her relief.

What was surprising was...

"Major Kyle?"

What was he doing here? An infantry officer shouldn't have anything to do with a boarding operation, regardless of the circumstances here. Her own shuffling into the ground party during the Torfan operation was almost solely due to the lacking manpower and her status as an N7, meaning that she had the training to function in any part of the Alliance war-machine...

But Kyle was being escorted by marines?

Something about this was completely off, she realized just as the man in question looked up, his head turning as he with furrowed brows scanned the crowd of blue until her red caught his eye. He too blinked as their eyes met. Then, with a solemn air, he nodded at her as if saying that they were together in this now. An action wholly uncharacteristic of the usually almost _frenetic_ man.

She had a bad feeling about this.

Clearing his throat, he spoke. "I am Major Arnaut Kyle of the Systems Alliance. Who is in charge here?"

Immediately, Benezia stepped forward, as if having but been waiting for her cue just now. Smiling, she spoke. "I am Matriarch Benezia. Have you come at the Spectre's council?"

Nearly every asari in the room was standing on edge, hoping to hear that they were finally being rescued. In turn, this nervous energy affected the marines, who were starting to look around with growing worry.

"The Spectre...?" Kyle repeated, almost as if having lost track of the conversation. "Ah, no. It would appear that there has been a mistake in communications, as we have not been in contact with the Spectre who boarded your starship earlier. But yes, we are here to evacuate you."

It took nearly a full second for those words to register, but the instant it had passed nearly the entire room erupted into cheers of relief. Even the antsy marines seemed to be infected by the mood, as they looked around at each other. But Shepard didn't miss the calculating glint in Kyle's eye as he remained completely calm, in the eye of the metaphorical storm. _Why?_

"Thank you," Benezia said, not raising her voice but instead allowing her words to make their own silence as those around her gradually calmed down. "Have you already prepared crafts? I believe the hangar bay would be best suited for evacuation, given that the emergency systems remain inactive still..."

Shepard nodded at those words; Emiya would be able to sneak aboard one of the shuttles there with his cloaking.

Kyle did not respond immediately, instead turning to one of the marines by his side and exchanging several whispered words. Finally, nodding at the conclusion of the silent exchange, the Major looked up and smiled apologetically at the Matriarch. "I am afraid that we have not secured that a route to the hangar bay. But we have an alternative in mind, with shuttles already waiting for you there."

If Benezia was perturbed by the change in plans, it certainly did not show as she smiled warmly at those words. "Thank you. Your care for our safety will not be forgotten. Then, if you would but give me a moment, and we will have ourselves organized for departure..." Turning around, the elder looked around until she spotted Shiala. With a subtle gesture, the Matron was called over and joined the pair.

Shepard had to blink, frowning as something about that felt off. _Why is she walking like that? Wait, is she...? She's really... sashaying towards them?_

"This is Shiala," Benezia continued, gesturing at the commando beside her. "She knows the cruiser and the crew well—if there is anything you need assistance with please do not hesitate to make full use of her."

Kyle nodded seriously, intending to give a courteous smile and nothing more to the younger asari, but ended up doing a small double-take as their eyes met as the Matron removed her helmet. Blinking twice and frowning, the Major forcefully pulled his gaze away from Shiala as he cleared his throat.

"Ah, yes. Thank you. That will be, ah, good." Shaking his head, as if ridding himself of distractions like tangible things, Kyle's eyes determinedly locked onto Benezia's. "Setting that aside, where are the rest of the Alliance officers who had been invited aboard your ship?"

Having been slowly approaching the three, Shepard chose this moment to inject herself into the conversation. "Sir, we lost contact with them nearly half an hour ago, after it was decided that we would work together with the asari."

Kyle's piercing eyes turned to regard her, narrowing as he inhaled slowly before finally nodding. "...I see. We'll have to send out men to look for them, then. This cruiser seems to have become a wreck hours ago, but we've not been able to verify how long it will keep working. Matriarch, any guesses as to how long we have before things turn critical?"

"Ah, that is..."

Noticing the Matriarch's hesitation, Kyle frowned.

_Oh no — we sent Emiya to repair the ship, so it's not like we can give an off-the-cuff estimate. But if we had sent the engineering crew there, we should have some kind of estimate on hand at least,_ Shepard realized. And as the Dreyn N'var's reactors had powered down and then turned on again, it was obvious that _someone_ had repaired it.

Could they bluff and say that it had been an asari team that had also gone silent? But would the Alliance marines then be looking for them in vain? Should she simply say that it had been Emiya? If he dug into it, it would no doubt sooner or later come to light that he had been here, since he hadn't exactly been subtle.

Warring loyalties made her hesitate for just a second too long, making their silence stand out.

Kyle cleared his throat. "...Lieutenant, come with me for a moment."

Shepard glanced at Benezia, before nodding at Kyle's request and limping after him as he moved away to get some privacy, apparently wholly uncaring of her injuries. They came to a halt at the edge of the room, the Major's baleful glare chasing away any nearby asari as he came to lean against the wall.

"So, is he here?"

Shepard hesitated.

"Hmm. I see, so he is." Kyle sighed, his lowered eyes remaining on the floor, unfocused as he nodded once. "I... managed to gain some temporary authority by catching the attention of the AIA, back in Arcturus Station, by reporting what I thought was going on here. But, Shepard..." he said, looking away from her. "What the hell is going on here?"

She cringed, looking away. "It's... it's a bit of a mess, to be honest, sir."

"Figures," he scoffed, almost amused by her own distress it seemed. "But you know what's going on _here_ , at least... Right?" His eyes scanned over the gathered asari, before returning to hers with meaning.

What should she tell him? Was he looking for advice, or trying to assess culpability? She inhaled, making up her mind. Whatever else he was, Major Kyle cared about his subordinates. Of that, she had no doubts.

"Yes, sir."

"Then, can I trust you? I thought I could—that you cared about the Navy, about your fellow soldiers, about what we were doing here. But then I find out _you're_ working for the AIA too... Shepard. Can I trust you to do what's right here?" He paused intently for effect. "To not go running off after some hacker and come back half-dead with another AIA agent in tow? Can I trust you to not leave everything else behind to pursue some hidden agenda again?"

"Yes, sir. " She felt like looking away but held firm regardless. "That won't happen again."

Kyle said nothing, nodding only once as his eyes returned to the floor. Inhaling slowly, he pushed off the wall nodding again, almost as if convincing himself to go through with his decision, whatever it was. "Alright. Then, what should I do right now? I can't handle him and all these asari at the same time. Will Alliance Intelligence come down on me if I just ignore him to evacuate the asari?"

Shepard blinked, not having expected such an open admission. "I don't know either, to be honest, sir. But right now he's not our enemy. He wasn't the source of the disaster here, and he's... been helping with keeping the ship from falling apart."

Sighing, he patted her shoulder. "...Alright. We'll proceed with the evacuation, then." Walking away, she could barely hear him mumble quietly to himself. "Redhax or whatever his name is can rot on this cruiser for all I care."

* * *

;

* * *

"Hmm, they're finally getting everyone out."

Emiya nodded, crouched by the dimly lit corner of an empty personal quarter, tuning in to the broadcast signals of the nearby marine team that was slowly checking through this section of the crew quarters. A team of three marines, working in a cohesive unit along with five other similar fireteams.

He still hadn't tried to hack into any of their gear, instead familiarizing himself with the margin between their range of detection and the short-range Omni-directional communications signal. So far he had identified at least four types of messages, all with varying levels of encryption and priority. _This isn't going to be easy, huh. As expected of military-grade encryption._

Still, it wasn't like it was impossible.

After all, he could _hear_ them talking from his hiding place.

When the three spoke to each other the use of comms was a necessity, due to their sealed helmets getting in the way. Of course, if they were close enough it wouldn't be a problem, but since their gear was designed for use in a vacuum as well, there was no point in relying on direct communication. It didn't matter how loud you shouted, in space, no one can hear you scream. The helmet's internal microphone picked up what the soldier said, encrypting the message quickly and transmitting it to the other two as they moved, giving Emiya both the original sound he could hear clearly with his superhuman senses, and the encrypted message he received with his cybernetics.

With both the original message and encrypted message for comparison, it wouldn't be impossible to crack it. But that would probably just be the first step.

Figuring out the key didn't take long with that, given how much chatter he had to use.

The problem was that the communication protocol only allowed for voice messages on their communications suite, leaving him with no method for hacking the soldiers' omnitools or tapping into the other communications. Not without using spiritual hacking and leaving behind his body, at least. Something he couldn't afford to risk, given how close to them he was at the moment.

The margin of error between picking up their signals and being picked up by their sensors was too fine to risk like that.

The first of the four encrypted means of communication deemed useless, he focused instead on the second; communications between the various fireteams. Filtering out most of the chatter regarding individual movements and positioning as the fireteam moved around, only the general position data and situation were being transmitted to the other teams.

"Crew quarters clear. Approaching storage section."

" _Dmqe ibtmyqmg dlqtm. Toomntdjxkc gynmtcq gqdyxnk_."

Emiya could hear the team leader speaking clearly, followed by an indecipherable mess of a signal, followed by him receiving a similar garbled mess in reply a second later. _Okay, now I have a sample to work with..._ _Hmm, breaking up again. Need to get closer._

"Advancing."

"Covering."

Following the distant sounds of armored feet along the hallway, Emiya kept low and silent. _Encryption breaking really isn't my strong suit..._ he complained as he settled down again out of the line of sight of the Alliance soldiers up ahead, their voices loud and clear to his ears again.

"Clear."

"Clear."

Moving on to the next room, the three marines remained wholly unaware of their tail.

"This is taking too long..." Emiya grumbled, trying to keep his mind focused on both the encryption and listening to what the marines were saying.

" _Eq wnbkz snmnwwg... Jq'g zqtz."_

He perked up, straining his ears to try and catch the translated message coming through the soldiers' helmets. But it was simply too quiet, the volumes inside the hardsuits adjusted for being right next to the marines' ears.

"Tch..."

"Damn..."

The soldiers seemed to be angry and frustrated with the news they had received, but unable to hear what had been said, Emiya could only speculate on the 'why' as he continued to follow them. _If only they would talk back more, a bigger sample would make this so much easier._

" _Sq tzpxgqz. gxckg nw onggxslq jxcj qkqmch qvolngxpq nm yjqmutl zqpxdq tdyxptyxnk wnbkz._ "

The team stopped, as the team leader paused for a moment.

"Please advise on explosives and thermal hazard."

" _Olqtgq tzpxgq nk qvolngxpqg tkz yjqmutl jtftmz._ "

Emiya's brows furrowed before he nodded to himself. _They must have found where I killed Henell._

Ignoring the rest of the chatter that followed, he focused on the two samples he now had. Using not technique but intuition, he wrangled his own perception until the encrypted message began to sound like it made sense. Rather than seeking to derive the encryption key by breaking down the messages, it was simply easier for him to _listen_ and figure out how the message had been scrambled.

It wasn't as if he had ever been an expert in encryption tech or that he knew even half of the methodologies that went into securing military communications... But with spirit hacking—understanding the digital directly—it was possible to derive the key through simple repetition and intuition.

" _The damage appears to be localized to one hallway and the surrounding rooms, so we do not believe it was a mine or hidden IED of any kind. Given the sheer damage done to the floor and ceiling, we suspect that the device must have been fairly large, though we do not know what the active payload was yet. As such, you are all advised to maintain your hardsuits sealed and to report for a primary quarantine protocol upon your return._ "

_Got it,_ Emiya nodded as his probe got through, and he managed to connect to a mainframe — The asari were being evacuated from the Dreyn N'var. Saren had pulled back and was maintaining radio silence with the Alliance. There didn't seem to be anyone looking for him among the Alliance teams on board the ship, instead, they seemed to be looking for survivors. None had been found, only mutilated and shot corpses remained. Alliance officers who had come aboard the cruiser had been found dead. They were investigating the scene of his fight with Henell.

"Hmm..." he pored over the data at his leisure, keeping up with the fireteam he had been following until now to maintain his connection through them, careful to remain unnoticed both in person and in his hacking of their communications.

Should he try to infiltrate the Alliance vessels, then? With the rest of the Alliance fleet keeping a close eye on the ship, it wasn't as if he could just leave. His jaunts along the hull had been noticed by at least three Alliance ships, so any attempt at trying to sneak away would certainly be noticed now that they were keeping their eyes open. He wasn't sure that he could hack that many starships' cameras at the same time without brute-forcing it completely, which made him leery of even trying.

And just staying behind wasn't going to be an option either.

Then, could he pose as an asari? Or should he try to project an Alliance hardsuit and try to fit in among the marines? With so many of them, he was sure he would be able to fit in unnoticed. At least until he managed to get aboard whatever Alliance vessel they were heading towards.

But then what?

After that, he would just be stuck on another Alliance vessel without any easy way out again. If he still had the invisibility cloak, it would be one thing. But as it was he could just forget about it. And without the cloak, he couldn't afford to get too close to the Alliance vessels without a strong enough cover to last until their next stop near a populated center of commerce. Somewhere where he could get off, vanish and get the medical attention he needed.

His vision swam for a moment as he forgot to stabilize his breathing. At the very least he needed medigel and other supplies to stabilize his condition. And the only place he was certain to find those within a few hundred light-years was onboard the Alliance warships.

_Which means I need to don the guise of the Alliance Intelligence Agent and insert myself into their ranks again._ It didn't seem like anyone had realized that it had been him, yet. Perhaps they were wondering where he had gone off to, but so far no one seemed to have made any official queries for the mysterious AIA agent. _They're probably just happy I got out of their hair and didn't bother to look into it further..._ _I hope._

If he couldn't simply leave without being noticed, nor could he hitch a ride among those being evacuated, then...

The solution seemed obvious, he thought with some trepidation.

Emiya shook his head ruefully as if convincing himself that it wasn't a big deal. Hadn't this been exactly what he had been thinking about on his way to Torfan? About boxing himself in by relying too much on his usual tactics?

Clenching a fist he nodded to himself. This would be it.

But he would have to make this _good_ to sell it. Or rather, he would need to ham it up so that it would seem too big to be a sham. And while he was by no means an actor, he did have a certain flair for theatrics. It really was no different from swordplay—from building up expectations and forming false patterns to disguise your true intent, raising your opponent up just to bring them crashing down—once you thought about it from a certain perspective. Or so he told himself again.

"That means I'll have to send out invitations," he mused with the beginnings of a small grin peeking through.

* * *

;

* * *

Arnaut Kyle froze, causing Shepard to almost bump into his back.

The Major raised a hand to his forehead as his eyes stared at nothing, his mind obviously on whatever he was hearing through his ear-piece. With a grimace of uncertainty, he turned around and looked at her. He opened his mouth, standing on the edge of a question before he closed it with a click and turned around.

"Where did it come from? Right, and how didn't anyone notice it until now? Uh huh... Hail it again. They made the right call, we can't just shoot down an asari starship..." Kyle looked up, frowning at the people around him as he raised his helmet and put it on, continuing the conversation more privately.

Just then, Shepard's omnitool buzzed slightly. She looked down and blinked at the message. It was from Emiya. Opening the message, she eyed through the short paragraph. And then a second later it was gone; message, notification and all. Hastily lowering the omnitool, she tried to look around covertly to see if anyone had noticed her receiving the message. Her eyes met with Shiala's. A nearly-imperceptible nod and the asari moved up next to her.

Offering one shoulder for support, the whispered question was asked. "Is it _him_?"

Shepard nodded.

"He said he's leaving on his own ship and that everything is under control now."

The Matron nodded, the tension in her shoulders easing just a bit under Shepard's arm. "That's a relief. But how is he planning to leave on his ship? Will the Alliance not simply shoot him, if he tries to fly away?"

Shepard could only shrug, worrying over the very same question herself. Still... "He said that he had a plan."

* * *

;

* * *

The direct, short-range connection to the Janiri's Sickle went through, allowing Emiya to breathe out a sigh of relief.

"So far so good."

He had been slightly worried that the Alliance might simply blow up the Janiri's Sickle when he had recalled it for his ride. Especially as he had been maintaining nominal radio silence. That is to say, he had been using the Alliance ships' tightbeams to control the asari corvette and it would only be a matter of time until they realized something was off now that he no longer was in range with the marines' comms.

It couldn't be helped.

With most of the Dreyn N'var's systems still completely offline, it wasn't as if he could simply fly parallel with one ship and extend a docking ramp, as was done normally with a starship too big for the hangar. Especially as the cruiser had slowly begun to spin around on its own axis with the failure of its engines and the various boarding efforts. The autopilot was good on the corvette, but it wasn't _that_ good.

Which meant he would have to jump through the void to board the Janiri's Sickle, letting it linger only for a few seconds on its parallel course with the asari cruiser. But that was fine; everyone would see that someone had boarded the suspicious corvette that had been ignoring all hails and warnings. Having modified the transponder signal and removed all external markers of the starship's name or origin, all they would see would be a strange asari ship being boarded by someone escaping the Dreyn N'var.

There was no way they wouldn't be curious. The purpose of the opening act is to arouse interest.

The airlock opened and the air rushed out, as he hadn't bothered to get the air pumps working again. It wasn't as if the asari evacuating would miss a few hundred liters of air. Emiya kept his hand on the side-rail as he peeked out, looking around until he found the Janiri's Sickle against the infinite darkness. Wirelessly reaching out until it was in range, he controlled it and used the thrusters to get it just a bit closer to his own position.

And then he jumped, kicking out of the cruiser and towards the corvette. Turning it around with the thrusters, he angled the Janiri's Sickle as he opened the hatch. Like a fish devouring an insect, the hatch closed behind him as the artificial gravity inside the corvette pulled him down to the floor. Air began hissing as the airlock was sealed.

_They're hailing me again,_ he noted as combat sub-systems warned about the corvette being locked onto by the Alliance ships. Taking off the helmet, he shook his head as he sat down on the floor. It didn't particularly matter where he was, given that he was flying the corvette through his cybernetics. _Okay, time for 'rising action'..._

The tightbeam on his corvette aligned with Torfan, finding the settlement near the batarian base that he had settled on earlier. Five seconds later a shuttle on the ground began its boot-up sequence, the auto-pilot setting a course for the Alliance fleet. He thought about wiring the owner some money as compensation for the grand theft shuttle but decided against it for the moment. Better to not leave any obvious trails.

Another second later the shuttle from Torfan hailed the nearest Alliance vessel.

Then, with a slow inhale he untethered himself from his body, riding the connection into the shuttle. Materializing inside on the pilot's seat, he checked that his Onyx hardsuit disguise was fine and that his face was properly concealed. The Alliance vessel opened up a two-way comm-line and the visual feed revealed a uniformed woman with her hair tied in a tight bun, her face set in a stern scowl, no doubt intending to order him to turn around and keep a wide berth of the Alliance fleet.

But Emiya did not give her any time for that, speaking over the comms officer forcefully. "This is Alliance Intelligence Deep Cover Field Operative DCFP-A341CJS. Do not let that asari corvette take off! I repeat, do not let that asari corvette leave. Board it at any cost, but do not destroy it! The man who boarded that ship must be taken alive, no matter what! Do you copy?!"

The woman blinked, before turning around to talk to someone behind her. Probably a senior officer, who would know what to do. But he didn't wait—he didn't have time for long conversations, not with his spiritual core leaking as it was. "Just get it done, or I'll hold you all responsible for letting him get away!"

And then he cut the connection. Astralizing, he jumped back to his own body with only a few seconds to spare.

Opening his eyes, he breathed slowly as he waited for the order to circulate. A few seconds later the hails to the Janiri's Sickle doubled and several frigates began to move in towards him. They were gingerly surrounding him, carefully trying to cut any paths of escape off. It wasn't as if they could block him without risking their own ships if he tried to run off, especially given how large the engine was for a corvette. Its maneuverability was simply beyond them. If it came down to it, all they could do was shoot him.

But that was fine, he wasn't looking to _actually_ run away with it or anything. He exhaled, standing up. "Now, where is my backstage entrance... **"**

The Alliance marines would board the corvette from the side, much as they had with the Dreyn N'var. A small shuttle would attach itself to the hull and then form a seal, as a shaped charge would blow a hole and allow the marines to rush in. The problem was that they could do that to nearly any surface, as long as it was large enough for the seal to be applied. Not knowing where they would be boarding in from was a problem, since he needed to avoid them long enough for 'himself' to board as well to complete the switch. If they came from the port-side, trying to hide there would only end with him being discovered and ruining his plot. This meant that he would have to keep the final details of his plan fluid until he knew which angle they were coming in from.

Focusing on the external sensors of the Janiri's Sickle, Emiya waited with crossed arms. His fingers, tap-tapped a frantic rhythm on his new Onyx hardsuit's bicep as he continued to ignore the hails and probes by the surrounding warships. Until finally, the Alliance made its move. _They've launched the boarding pods... Looks like they'll go for the top of the ship, coming in and dropping down through the roof of the mess hall._

That left him with an airlock on the other side of the ship, near the stern. He kicked off the wall and rushed forward, mentally turning off all the lights behind him as he moved and opened the doors all over the corvette. "Lights out... the stage is set."

The whole ship shook for a second, as the pod latched itself onto the hull with magnetic clamps. A moment later the shaped charge blew a hole through, echoing through the ship at the same time as the breach's edges were sealed to allow the marines to board the corvette.

"The plucky heroes have arrived..." Emiya smirked, entering the airlock at the far end of the ship from the marines. Both doors closed, plunging him into the darkness between the silence of space and the cacophony of the boarding crew. "Time for the villain to take the stage."

He slumped, his astralized self already gone to confront his unwitting fellow actors.

* * *

;

* * *

" _The 124th marines have entered the unidentified asari corvette, no resistance._ "

Kyle kept silent as he listened in on the comm chatter, saying nothing. That damn Alliance Intelligence agent had appeared again, suddenly ordering them to board the starship. A part of him felt relieved that someone else was suddenly taking the fore once more, as this would get his own neck off the chopping block. Especially since it wasn't as if they could simply let someone leave without at least being seen doing something.

But at the same time, he felt nervous about picking a fight with Redhax. The damage wrought to the asari—be it on Thessia, or on the cruiser—was proof enough that tangling with the hacker wasn't a good idea.

"Hurry up, hurry up," he said loudly, moving along the mass of asari that were being evacuated. They needed to be off this cruiser before the fighting started.

" _Contact. Marines are meeting heavy resistance. Fou—five casualties, vitals holding stable._ "

Kyle could only sigh. This was just about what he had expected to happen.

Personally, he would have sought to merely contain the corvette by perhaps shooting out its engine and then maintaining a quarantine similar to the asari cruiser. That would give them the necessary time and space for handling Redhax with all the care and attention that he clearly deserved. That, and leaving them enough of a gap to cleanly pull out if it all spun out of control, just as it was appearing to now be doing.

But that man had other ideas.

_Why was he down on Torfan? Didn't the AIA manage to contact him earlier? I thought they only gave me the authority to act because they had lost contact with their agent..._ He really had no idea what was going on.

Speaking of that particular devil...

" _DCFP-A341CJS, boarding the unidentified asari vessel by starboard airlock. Rendering backup to marine boarding party in 20 seconds._ "

" _Understood, sir. Casualties at 9 marines now, holding stable position_."

_He's really going in himself?_ Did those AIA lunatics actually go out of their way to look for chances to get into the thick of things? Shepard came to mind immediately, as she was a reliable—or rather _had been,_ a reliable soldier, until Torfan where it was revealed that she too was working for the AIA. But the moment she had caught a whiff of Redhax down on Torfan, she had gone completely off, nearly on her own from what he had managed to gather after the fact. _They're both hot-headed... Did they train together?_

As a Major he wasn't entirely unaware of what the N-school graduates could do—what use was an officer who didn't understand what his subordinates could do, after all?—but much of what went down in the Villa itself was shrouded in mystery.

And there was a familiarity between the agent and Shepard that went beyond merely working together. A bond, forged by something more. Something deeper, he intuited.

" _I'm inside. En route to render support to marine team now._ " Kyle frowned. Something had _changed_ just now. It was the same voice, but something was subtly different. " _I can't hear any more gunfire, what's going on? Sitrep, now._ "

" _Sir, the marines managed to push forward. Hostile target has taken a defensive position in the cockpit._ "

Redhax had been holding the marines back at a chokepoint earlier, but he must have realized he was in danger of being flanked and had retreated into a position where he had his back against the wall—is what Kyle first thought.

But something felt off.

The hacker must value his mobility and multiplicity of options in any situation; holing up in the cockpit for a death-ground stand wasn't something he himself would do in that situation. _Something else is going on._ Stepping back out of the way, he pulled up the visual feed of an Alliance frigate with a scope on the action. The visual feed record of the frigate showed the civilian shuttle pulling up next to the asari corvette, followed by a man in an Onyx hardsuit jumping out and opening the airlock to enter the corvette, leaving behind the shuttle to drift in space. _That's definitely the AIA agent, then what is it...? What's bothering me?_

" _Enemy combatant has surrendered._ "

Kyle froze, closing the visual feed record immediately and tapping into the live feed from the marines instead. Switching between the feeds, he found a good angle that showed the entrance to the cockpit and the point-man marine advancing towards the seated man in a unique black hardsuit, with a featureless matte black helmet.

" _Easy, easy. I don't bite,_ " the figure could be heard joking over the live feed.

" _Shut up,_ " the AIA agent growled, advancing with his pistol held raised and lined unerringly with the sitting man's head. " _Get him up and search him. Get everything off of him and don't listen to a word he says, understood?_ "

_This is a farce._ Kyle thought with a frown. Something about this entire _scene_ was off.

Suddenly, the hacker pulled out a gun and took aim at the marines, managing to pull off two shots that harmlessly splashed against kinetic barriers, before four bursts of concentrated assault rifle fire punched through his chest, knocking him back against the chair he had just gotten out of.

_There was no kinetic barrier? Wait, all he had was a pistol? How did he hold off the marines...?_

" _Hold your fire! Hold your fire!_ " the AIA agent was shouting, rushing forward to catch the lifeless body of the hacker.

_There's no blood?_

The Major held his breath as the AIA agent set down the body, inspecting it for damage as he kneeled on the floor. Slowly, the agent's hand rose up to the helmet and after a second of gingerly looking for the latch, removed it. Kyle gasped, his surprise mixing in with those of numerous others as the AIA agent looked up at the marines.

The hardsuit was empty.

_What the...?_

" _Search the ship! Right now, find him!"_

The marines only hesitated for a second, before they all rushed to search the rest of the starship, leaving only one marine in the cockpit as the agent kept him from leaving immediately.

" _You stay here, keep an eye on the bod—the hardsuit!_ "

"Sir. Major Kyle, sir."

Kyle blinked, hastily closing the visual feed to his helmet as he looked around. One of the marines who had come to the Dreyn N'var with him was standing in front of him, obviously slightly confused.

"Yes? What is it?"

Snapping back at attention at the sound of Kyle's reply, the marine answered. "Sir, we have all the asari on board now."

"Good. Good." Kyle nodded before pausing to consider his next move. There was nothing of value on the asari cruiser right now, but should he leave some of them behind just in case? "Have you found anything else aboard the ship?"

"No, sir."

"...I see. Then, we are pulling out as well."

The marine nodded and Kyle followed after him into the transport. But his mind was already back with the live feeds from the marines aboard the as yet unidentified asari corvette.

" _Clear._ "

" _Clear._ "

The corvette was a maze of dark hallways, each dark door beckoning at the wary marines, drawing the eye and nerve alike of all who were following this operation.

" _Clear._ "

" _Clear._ "

With methodical precision and practice that could only be borne of hundreds, if not thousands of hours of mindful repetition, the entire corvette was cleared. Every room, every airlock, every hatch, and corner was cleared.

" _Clear._ "

" _Clear._ "

Until finally there could be no doubt. Redhax was no longer on the ship.

"Where could he have gone...?" Kyle muttered, biting on his lip.

Rolling back the helmet videos, he traced the resistance the boarding marines had met. There had been lulls in the fighting, just seconds long, where the man presumed to be Redhax had seemed to vanish only to appear from a completely different direction to flank them. Injuries were light—broken helmets, concussions, and a few dislocated limbs—and no one had been seriously hit as their kinetic barriers held strong through the entire duration of the fight, but the pressure they had been met with had been considerable nonetheless. _He could have moved around, through the ship, but this level of flanking... Is it possible to move that fast?_

Closing momentarily the feed and looking around in the evacuation pod, Kyle frowned.

"Is something the matter?" the asari beside him asked.

He blinked, trying to remember her name for a second. "Shiala, was it?" Seeing her nod with a smile, he continued. "I couldn't help but note, that for the duration of the conflict and the number of combatants involved... There seemed to be an awful lot of damage done to the ship's insides."

"Ah... Yes?" She nodded again, this time appeared innocently confused by his question, that manner with which civilian women often seemed to react to military men. Without realizing it, he was slightly puffing out his chest as he continued.

"It seems to me, that the fighting was extremely wide-spread. More so than the number of asari on board would suggest. Did... Do you have some means of moving between walls, perhaps?" he asked, in an almost joking tone. _Asari ships might be built with some method for going through internal walls—some form of half-phase barrier to fool and outmaneuver boarding parties. Some technology that is completely unheard of to humanity. I can't ask about this too lightly, but it does appear to be an asari ship too..._

" _Headcount! Everyone show your faces, does everyone know everyone else here? We can't rely on ID, but is there anyone here whose face you do not recognize, marines?!_ " Kyle could hear the AIA agent yelling over the comms he was still half-listening to, as the agent gathered everyone aboard the smaller asari ship together.

"You are referring to Biotic Blinking?"

Arnaut stilled, turning to regard the asari with his complete and undivided attention. "Blinking?"

"Yes, it is an advanced Biotic technique, somewhat similar to the Charge. Are you familiar with that?" she explained.

"The Charge...? I, yes. Yes, I know of it."

"The Blink is quite similar, but travel distance is quite limited in exchange for enhanced ability to phase through matter. It is how starships can use the Mass Relays over such immense distance safely as well without worry of collision, I believe."

Kyle rocked. _Phase through matter? Why have I never heard about this?_

"But, how is that possible?"

Shiala looked abashed as she shook her head. "I do not know the specifics, I am afraid. I believe it has to do with pushing into adjacent space in physical dimensions we simply aren't capable of observing normally. Taking the path from আ to ច, not through Ȝ, but 'ȝ' as it were..."

"Err..." He nodded turning away from Shiala, hoping that he at least understood the gist of her explanation even if she had slightly lost him towards the end, before looking at her again hastily and remarking with slight embarrassment. "Thank you."

Shaking his head minutely, he focused on the matter at hand.

_If he can phase through matter, even at only short ranges, then..._ Kyle pulled up the visual feed from two of the Alliance frigates closest to the small asari ship. _It's not there anymore._ The shuttle the AIA agent had come up from Torfan with. It was _gone._

Realization hit him with almost physical force. He reeled to act, sudden panic rising in his throat. "To all Alliance vessels, locate the civilian shuttle that was near the asari corvette immediately!"

He received a chorus of confused acknowledgments, as the mounting realization of having been played grew within him. Rewinding the footage, he went back to the moment the agent had jumped out and entered through the airlock and joined the marines. The shuttle had been in a nearly parallel course with the corvette. The keyword being _nearly._ The agent jumping out of the shuttle had pushed it away from the corvette, just as much as it had allowed the agent to approach the corvette. Within a minute it had deviated slightly and by a dozen it was gone from all scopes observing the asari starships, having drifted completely out of everyone's sights.

Five seconds later the shuttle was found, already a hundred thousand clicks from the asari ships in a spot where none of the spinal-mounted railguns were aimed, already out of the range of any of the close-range GARDIAN-lasers. _It was slowly speeding up with thrusters, moving into the blind-spot the whole time._

"Stop that shuttle, before—"

" _Took you guys long enough! Too bad, I'm already clear. See you around, everyone!_ " a new voice spoke through the comms and a second later the shuttle had gunned its engines, accelerating away much to fast for any warship to catch. Not being forced to turn to match his course first, anyhow.

" _After him! Leipzig, Yorktown, pursue immediately! Do not let him escape!_ " the AIA agent roared from the asari ship, his anger such that even Kyle had to wince. But it was already too late; the shuttle was in full burn. They could give chase and there was no way the shuttle would be able to escape from so many Alliance starship's sensors, even if it tried to hide behind a planet or moon.

By conventional wisdom, there was no way that the shuttle could escape; the Alliance needed only to keep on his trail and spread out to make sure they didn't miss a change in course, and sooner or later the shuttle would run out of fuel. But Kyle's gut-feeling denied all that. Everything felt too out of place, too scripted for a conclusion like that. No, he was fairly certain that it would be a meaningless chase.

Redhax had managed yet again another daring escape. But at least Kyle wasn't going to be the one dealing with the fallout for this, as the AIA agent was making damn sure that everyone knew what was going on, apparently having forgotten in his rage that the marine helmet-mounted cameras were still recording him.

" _Damn you, Redhax!_ " the agent shouted, punching the wall of the cockpit.

_What a tool,_ was all Kyle thought with a pleased huff as he closed the video feed.

* * *

;

* * *

Benezia inhaled slowly as she entered the room.

A dozen eyes turned to regard her and the man behind her with quiet suspicion as they both entered. The Major snapped sharply at attention beside her, as she offered a courteous bow.

"Gentlemen, may I present my most heartfelt gratitude for all the help you have granted us. It is no exaggeration on my part to claim that my life was saved by your assistance today and I shall not forget that."

Some of them seemed to soften at that, while others silently scoffed and regarded her with only more suspicion. _These Alliance types are certainly hard_ , she thought even as her smile never so much as wavered.

"Yes, of course. It was the least we could do, ma'am," the man sitting furthermost from the door said as he stood up.

Admiral Steven Hackett, commanding officer of the Fifth Fleet and the single-most experienced man in the whole Systems Alliance Navy. The rest of the room seemed to vanish from view as she focused solely on him; he was the only one in the room who truly mattered. Taking in every detail, every movement, every little thing of the man before her, she memorized and internalized his every facet at that moment.

"Go on, sit. I hear you have had a rather trying day, after all."

"Thank you," she said with a smile, even as she noted that the Major behind her was not offered the same courtesy. _The Major acted on his own when he boarded? No, he would be in the brig if that were the case... Did he gain authorization to act from somewhere else, from someone outside of this fleet's chain of command? What intrigue we have here_...

As the gathered introduced themselves promptly, Benezia considered the implications of what she had observed so far. After all, not much was known of the chain of command and internal political structure of humanity, given how little contact they had still had with the other races. Though the Embassy on the Citadel sported a united human front, salarian intelligence reports indicated a very fractured and divided state of affairs behind that united cover. But beyond that, there was very little to be said. The First Contact War had rather understandably left humanity quite wary of entering the galactic political stage and relatively few humans could claim any true familiarity with the other races yet.

Even among these heads of the fleet—men and women of power and prestige within the Alliance Navy—many could not help but stare at her. Had she been half her age, she might have _preened_ under their undivided attention. But she was here on much too delicate a matter right now for such immature vanity.

Saren and Emiya were both still here, yet neither had sought to contact her or the Alliance heads. Be it out of a trust in her ability to handle the diplomatic side of things or a simple lack of care, it had fallen to her to keep things from spiraling out of control now. How much could she tell them? How much did the Citadel Council know? What had Emiya and Saren planned?

"Let us not beat around the bush, ma'am—what exactly happened on board your ship? I have been informed that none of the asari rescued from the batarians are among those evacuated, and that a _Spectre_ has a personal warship parked right next to our fleet in complete radio silence..." One of the officers stated suggestively, as she finally tuned into the conversation again.

Despite everything she knew and all the power she wielded, she was effectively just as in the dark as those sitting before her here were. Yet it fell to her to keep things calm and maintain as many bridges as possible, for when Saren or Emiya— _hopefully, both_ —finally thought to contact her and bring her up to date on their plans. Did they wish to reveal to the rest of the galaxy what was going on? Did they wish to keep their cards close to their chest for a while longer and downplay the events?

She was certain that those two had their own, equally stubborn and inflexible points of view that had to be settled before things could truly begin moving forward. That or one of them would kill the other. Regardless, she had to keep _their_ options open. This meant that she had a room full of very annoyed and inquisitive people to talk down and satisfy without saying anything that she might later have to contradict once she knew what either or both of those blockheads wanted to do.

"Oh, that very much depends on your definition of 'happened', you understand," she exclaimed with a disarming laugh. It was a good thing that waxing poetic about nothing at all for hours on end was one of her most well-practiced talents, then. "You see, it all began with a _very nice_ dinner party, that..."

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard let out a long sigh of relief as she felt the painkillers hit, dropping into her bloodstream and filtering into her brain like a jackhammer made out of foam. Or _cotton candy_ , she mused already growing slightly delirious. Her limbs—all knotted muscle and aching bone seconds before—felt as if they began to melt into the medical bunk she was lying in as the medic hovered over her, all disapproving tuts and frowns.

The female doctor, a middle-aged woman with an almost regal bearing here in her kingdom, tutted disapprovingly again as she fussed over Shepard's leg with a variety of instruments. She was saying something, asking questions and giving furtive glances, but Shepard was too far gone to pay any of that any attention.

It was good to be back on board an Alliance ship; the familiar internal design and hum of engines doing more for her peace of mind than she had ever before thought possible. The return to the familiar and safe doing as much for her as the drugs she was being administered. The ache and grinding in her leg vanished in a wave of hot bliss and numbness, allowing her to finally relax for the first time in hours. A distant—and most likely drug-fueled at the moment—part of her mind wondered whether there was something primal in the human subconsciousness, that likened the inside of a spaceship to a mother's womb.

The thrumming of the engine and the heartbeat...?

Shaking her head out of such thoughts, she looked up. The Alliance medic hovered over her, talking a mile a minute, but she still couldn't hear any of it past the sheer bliss she was experiencing. Bulkhead shifted into wall which morphed into floor, all in one flowing river of shapes and colors that failed to stand out as they should.

Looking around, her focus shifted as her senses kept getting distracted.

Around her there were dozens of asari as well, those among the evacuated who had injuries more serious than mere bumps and bruises, receiving first aid. It was slow going, Shepard distantly noted. Most of the Alliance medical personnel would never have had to treat an alien before, but luckily they had some files on hand and the medical personnel from the Dreyn N'var were still capable of taking the lead on that front.

Floating in her own mind, viewing the scene from behind her own eyes as if she had taken a step back into a spectator's seat, she looked on at everyone else around her.

The asari looked harrowed. Haunted.

The medical personnel looked tired, too. Drawn out and stretched too thin. She didn't recognize any of them, besides the ship's doctor who was still hovering over her. It must have been the personnel from the other starships and those who had been down on Torfan earlier. _Right, they haven't had any breaks since the operation down on Torfan..._ she realized belatedly.

She wasn't sure which she felt worse about—her mind seemed to right itself, as suddenly a burst of clarity brought her back to a more stable frame of mind. She blinked, looking around.

"Is that better? Answer verbally if you can, Lieutenant."

"Uh, yeah..." Shepard answered after a long and confusing second, realizing that she had just been conked out of her mind. A quick glance at the clock told her that she hadn't been out for it for more than a minute, at most, even if in her perception it had felt like a day already. Blinking, she noted that her leg didn't hurt either, meaning that the dosage of whatever she was one must have been adjusted to a happy medium now. "I mean, yes ma'am."

The medic nodded, tapping away at her datapad as she did some final adjustments. "Good. You were getting close to organ rejection there, but it looks like you didn't quite cross that line yet." Looking up, their eyes met as the doctor expressed her utmost disappointment with Shepard. "I'm sure you were already informed after the operation of the dangers of strenuous physical activity, therefore I will have to place a strike on your medical history."

Shepard frowned, about to argue that it wasn't as if she had exactly had a choice in the matter, but deciding instead to simply keep quiet. Doctors generally took it poorly when you argued with them, even if it was about _your_ body. Well, technically the new organs were on lease for another month, but that was beside the point.

"How are the others?" she asked instead.

"Others?" The medic looked up with a frown, then looked around as if to show that she could see for herself. "Bumps and bruises. The mental trauma appears to be the worst of it. It's almost good how few injured there are—Looking at how confused and jumpy our personnel are, I don't think we could handle very many seriously injured asari the same way we could human injured. Textbook learning and actual experience are, as always, two very distinct things. Especially pertaining to alien physiology, where hands-on experience really is key."

Shepard only half-listened to the doctor's almost-maternally-amused talking, as she kept looking around the temporary sickbay.

But she couldn't find Boroffs or the others, no matter where she looked. She hadn't heard anything about them, either. Were they on another ship? Frowning, she tried asking again. "I mean, the other Alliance officers. Commander Boroffs was there as well, at the dinner party, but he didn't evacuate in time. How is he, do you know?"

"Boroffs?" The doctor's frown deepened, but she raised her datapad and began to scroll through a list. Finally, she looked up and shook her head. "He isn't here."

"Then, is he on another starship?" Shepard asked, already dreading the answer.

"I don't know, it doesn't say... _Oh_ , excuse me," she said and turned to join another medic who was waving at her to come over, leaving Shepard to process the non-answer.

_Did... did they die?_

Raising a hand to palm her face, she sighed, barely able to contain all the conflicting thoughts running through her head.

"God damn it..."

The remnants of the warm bliss that had coursed through her whole body washed away with hot shame and bitter frustration, entangling thoughts turning two-fold as she tried to think through the events of the past few hours.

Was there more she could have done?

She tried to think back, but it was all a jumbled mess in her head. Had she been wearing her hardsuit the whole time, she could have accessed the footage from her helmet and reviewed the events, but as it was she could only try to piece things together from memory. No one had even come to debrief her regarding what had happened, she realized with a startle.

What the hell was everyone doing?

Kyle and Benezia had both left for another ship, that much she remembered at least, to meet with the Admiral.

But what about Emiya?

Emiya, who hadn't lost his head for a moment, who had managed to save everyone, who had managed to come out completely unscathed. She clicked her tongue, raising a hand to cover her face as she remembered her worried plotting behind Major Kyle, even after she had given the man her word. Her desperate ideas to help Emiya out, thinking that he was going to be left behind on the Dreyn N'var. And the deflating realization that he had managed to get out completely on his own, boarding the Alliance starships and slipping back into his role as... _her_ , more or less.

What had she been thinking, trying to help him?

Miserable, broken and helpless Shepard?

Trying to help _him?_

She'd felt so proud about getting him and the asari to sit down. Those thrills of pleasure at seeing him so nonplussed around her. The feeling of fulfillment at being someone he could rely on; having him trust his back to her without hesitation.

A thousand emotions warred within until finally, everything coalesced into a molten core of _something_. Hot anger. Disappointment. Expectation. He had died once, leaving her behind with nothing but that desire to catch up to his back and to run past him. To be able to turn around and dance and laugh, keeping up with him stride for stride.

And she had thought...

Had she been complacent? Had she stopped or slowed down, somewhere along the way? Or... Or was he just beyond her reach?

Shepard looked around. Somehow that comforting familiarity from before had turned around on her now. Pressing down on her from all sides. Blinding her. Suffocating her. She felt helpless. Useless. Like there was more she should be doing, that she wasn't doing enough.

"What is it? Do you feel ill?"

She looked up, realizing that her dark thoughts had somehow managed to alert the doctor who had returned to her side. Which only, in turn, made her feel worse as she could see the countless behind him, still in need of medical assistance.

She wet her lips and the words came tumbling right out, like a reflex.

"No, no—I'm fine."

At the same instant, as the medic nodded with a smile, all too happy to move on, she realized that she desperately needed to sort her head out and figure out her next move. And she hated that she had to think of it in those terms, like she was back on Earth, back on those dilapidated streets and housing projects, playing various two-bit players against each other just to make through another day.

The weight of betrayal hung around her neck, heavy like a millstone.

She hadn't joined the Systems Alliance Navy for a family or loyalty, but that was what she had found. But Emiya's situation and the enormity of what he was dealing with... And what about Benezia, Anatha, Tryna, Shiala, Major Kyle and Captain Anderson? She was going to have to talk to Emiya about this, and _soon._

She groaned quietly under the weight of it all. "And I have no idea where he even is right now..."

With her luck, he was already halfway across the galaxy.

Her omnitool beeped and she blearily looked down at her arm, half-hoping, half-expecting it to be Emiya. When the title of the message jumped out at her, she sighed and slumped against the cot.

_Oh great, court-martial hearing at Arcturus Station._ She almost laughed at the tragicomedy of it all—any other day, for anyone else, it would be a career-ending worry. But right now, it really was the least of her worries.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya kicked back, finally allowing himself to relax inside the privacy of the sleeping pod.

Not that he intended to stay for long or to actually rest, but getting off his feet for a short while felt like heaven after the day's events. But just being able to get his weight off of his feet and lie on his back, without having to use his hands to touch anything either as he simply lay there and used his cybernetics was a welcome relief. It wasn't helping the pain, but it was a respite nonetheless from the constant ache that threatened to force his body into shock constantly. But despite it all, _somehow,_ what bothered him the most—the worst of it all—was his _throat_. Having to speak in a tone of voice different from his usual to avoid being too obvious, and having to pretend to be outraged at having been duped so badly and acting the part of the agent had put a strain on his throat.

A tickling pain that threatened him with another coughing fit, which would disrupt his breathing; the only thing which was keeping him from going into shock at the moment.

_Maybe I went a little overboard with the theatrics..._

Carefully coughing to clear it again, he focused on his work anew.

He still felt slightly awkward, butting in on the hot bunk schedule on the Alliance warship, leaving more than one disgruntled grunt standing around in the crew quarters without a place to sleep after a long day, but he really needed the privacy for a moment. Still, he kept his ears and... _digital ears?_ , on the ground for anything noteworthy. Having turned the pod-screen opaque and now armed with a high-speed connection to the Orizaba's systems, he could think and plan here without worry of being found or bothered.

On the one hand, he _could_ just leave.

It had worked so far with every other mess he had managed to kick up.

That would certainly be the easiest and quickest way out of this mess. Grab enough medical supplies to keep himself stable until he got to the nearest human settlement with proper facilities for grafting back the skin on his limbs, along with any tools he might think necessary for fixing his cloak.

The Alliance wasn't looking for him and no one was in any immediate danger anymore, as far as he could tell. That fight down on Torfan aside, but that didn't seem to be directly related to anything he had been dealing with. Benezia and Saren could coordinate to handle any fallout, too, surely.

But those were only the _immediate_ problems.

If he simply took off, this whole incident would be grouped in with everything else Redhax had done. After all, Saren was still a turian working for the Citadel. It wasn't likely that he would share information regarding Indoctrination with the Alliance brass. At least, not before his own superiors were aware of the issue. Maybe the Council already knew, maybe they didn't.

Emiya didn't find it likely, though.

Not unless Benezia had been lying to him, anyhow. He sighed, shaking his head as he decided. "I went through the trouble of getting here... Might as well make use of the job's perks."

The Systems Alliance Navy had protocols for dealing with most of the hazards involved in combat and spaceflight. Microbial, viral and bacterial hazards were easy enough, given how large of a part they had played in human warfare for decades before spaceflight. The dangers of radiation and element zero exposure had also been explored in great detail since humanity had taken to truly moving beyond their own solar system. Even propaganda and memetic hazards had their own protocols, all outlined in the manual he could still remember from back when he had been in basic. With the access he now had, he could see it had been updated since—or then his higher clearance merely allowed him to read through chapters too advanced for mere recruits.

It didn't really matter, he just needed them for a framework.

Using those protocols as an outline, he should be able to submit a report on countering Indoctrination and handling of possible Indoctrinated individuals.

Though it wasn't as if he had any definite solutions or tools for protecting individuals from Indoctrination or for easily detecting those who had already been affected. Or for actually convincing anyone who read his report to believe him. But he couldn't just do nothing, either.

_Maybe I could use Benezia's reputation to give it proper credence?_ The Matriarch was in a meeting with several of the Alliance bigwigs at the moment and he had no interest in getting involved with that. But for the sake of informing the Alliance on how to deal with this new danger, he might not have a choice in the matter. _Though, I could also be forcing Saren's hand if I go through with it..._

He mentally weighed his options for a moment, before he sighed again. If there was something to be gained by keeping the information hidden, he would, of course, consider it. But he couldn't allow himself to be paralyzed by possibilities, given how virulent and dangerous this Indoctrination could be. If there was no pressing reason to hide the danger, then he would have to reveal it to the world.

Otherwise, all those who suffered from it then on would be his victims, as much as they were Indoctrinations.

Emiya blinked as another burst of chatter caught his attention on the digital side of things. The Alliance was sending marines down to Torfan again, for some reason. And not to the areas they had taken control of during the earlier operation. He frowned, digging a little bit deeper and found where they would be landing.

It was the compound he had visiting before he had found the batarian installation. There had been an ongoing gunfight there now for close to half an hour, that was showing no signs of petering down any time soon.

Calling up a visual feed from the installation, he paused at the sight of the familiar gigantic figure running through a wall as if was made out of plaster instead of reinforced plastics and filament. "That krogan?"

For a moment Emiya considered moving out to subdue the dinosaur-guised-force-of-nature himself, but then he thought better of it. Redhax had already escaped and he as the AIA agent wouldn't care about that. Still, it wasn't as if he could just ignore it all. Reviewing the video footage he quickly found that while the krogan was more than happy to respond to all challenges with overwhelming violence, he _hadn't_ instigated the fight.

Not at _first_ , anyhow. The initial attempt had been completely out of the blue, but as it had escalated the mercenary had more than taken to getting everyone involved in the gunfight. It was pure chaos, and the mercenary was obviously enjoying it very much.

"Someone is trying to kill him?"

That didn't make much sense to Emiya, but he couldn't exactly claim to know the krogan either.

Should he intervene, or leave it be? The krogan was undeniably a force of nature on-screen, but the Alliance marines weren't the type to back down from a fight if they found a half-decent excuse for having one. Even if there was a morbid sense of curiosity welling within him, he had never been the type to simply watch things from the sidelines.

Ultimately, annoyance won out—all of this would just distract the Alliance from more important things if it was left to play out.

Patching through, Emiya asked with all the annoyance he could muster. "Is this _really_ necessary?"

There was only the slightest hint of surprise visible in the krogan's reactions in the live-feed. But a second later the mountain of armor, bone, and muscle vaulted over a large work surface with a deep, almost thrumming, chuckle. " _No. But sometimes these things are done for pleasure. Beats drinking the day away any day!_ "

Apparently the krogan was not entirely unused to being surprised, the hacking into his comms not even causing a second's skip in a beat in the raging firefight.

"Why are they even here? They approached you for no reason, from what I could tell."

" _Who knows. Maybe I stole a job of theirs, maybe I blew off the head of their father fifty years ago. It's not worth paying attention to every gnat and pyjak._ " The loud roaring of the massive shotgun indoors along with the faint screams of panic and pain in the background capitalizing the krogan's statement.

Emiya finally sighed.

He _really_ didn't need this right now. "Okay, here's the deal. I get you into a shuttle and out of there. In return, you stop and get to live."

" _Hehehe, but it's finally getting to the good part._ "

"If by ' _the good part_ ' you mean ' _facing the entire Alliance marine corps in orbit still itching for a fight after taking out the batarians_ ', then yes. You're absolutely right; things are about to get very good in a few moments," Emiya dead-panned, finally getting a reaction out of the krogan.

"... _You've got an in on the Alliance feeds?_ " He actually sounded slightly impressed. " _So you're the one behind the number done on those batarian whelps. Heh..._ "

Emiya tensed, confirming his suspicions that the krogan wasn't merely some dumb muscle. _Krogan can live just as long as the asari,_ he hadn't forgotten that. But the laid back, seeming devil-may-care attitude had almost convinced him otherwise already. He would have to be more cautious with their ilk in the future—should have been more careful _now_ — and should not have contacted the krogan directly at all, instead simply guiding the Alliance to handle the matter from behind the scenes to minimize casualties and collateral damage.

His condition was making him sloppy. Gritting back a frustrated sigh at his slip up, he instead changed the subject to salvage the situation.

"You have ten seconds."

The response was immediate, suggesting to him that the other had already made up their mind seconds ago. " _Fine, fine. Blasting pyjaks is fun, but burning credits is never a good habit... Lead the way, human._ "

Emiya did sigh this time again. It wasn't the cleanest solution, but from where he stood the krogan did appear relatively innocent. Besides, he did owe a slight debt thanks to the earlier tip, too. Getting the krogan out was just a matter of setting the pieces in place and plotting another escape plan now that he had agreed.

Emiya was starting to become very good at fabricating escape plans he realized with a silent chuff.

"There. Stay out of trouble and you won't hear from me again, krogan."

" _Heh, don't be so sure, human. The galaxy is a small place for people like us._ " The krogan rumbled another round of chuckles, like grinding boulders. _"Oh, And you're buying the next round._ "

Emiya didn't bother answering, simply cutting off the commline. There was too much stuff he still needed to get done. Though he wouldn't have said no to a shot of ryncol right then and there, however.

"Cheeky toad."

But something about this interaction scraped at the edge of his attention. Frowning, he tried to run through his mental checklist of things to take care of. Finally, he shook his head. _Just focus on this and get through for the Alliance, then focus on the rest._

Indoctrination was turning out to be an even bigger headache than he had first thought, especially as there were no easy methods for confronting or handling—

"The geth...!"

Saren had said the geth could handle the source of the Indoctrination, hadn't he?

Did that mean the little AIs were immune to the effect? Could the little balls of light he had seen be immune to the qualia corrupting effect, much like how they would be immune to most—if not all that he knew of—biological viruses simply through their synthetic nature? Or given the turian's apparent lack of concern for the individual programs had he instead meant, that identifying and getting rid of the infected before they posed a problem would be easier? That the ability to 'lift the hood' and take a direct look at the individual geth to detect any issues, which wasn't practically feasible with most organics, just made it easier to find them? And that deleting a corrupted string of ones and zeroes was less of a hassle than getting rid of a flesh and blood person?

Certainly, at the very least Emiya could see either possibility being a massive boon in any quarantining or eradicating effort against Indoctrinated organics who were already too far gone for help.

He hesitated, indecision and calculation battling it out. If he accepted that paradigm then much of what he had written and planned to write for the Alliance might be useless. Rather than trying to adapt the Alliance tactics around the dangers of indoctrination, would it be better to instead build tactics around the geth and the Spectre instead?

But what kind of exchange was that? Should he consider the ratio to be one-to-one for organic and synthetic life, as he had now come to view them? As far as he had observed so far, singular geth programs had very little in the way of intelligence, scarcely being even sentient. Was there some threshold that should be reached before a geth became more, a critical mass at which binary became a being? And so long as those condemned to be formatted back into nothing numbered below that, did it constitute a lesser loss? Akin to cutting off a limb to save a life?

Emiya could foresee a thousand caveats and loopholes through with which he could justify to himself sacrificing countless synthetic instances to nothingness, so long as it was only done piecemeal. A death of a thousand cuts a thousand times—one geth here, another there, and before you knew it...

He would again be standing on mountains of corpses, drenched in oceans of blood. Only this time he would have convinced himself he _wasn't_. The thought alone made him nauseous.

Should he ask the geth what they thought of the matter...?

Sighing deeply, he shook his head. Their answer ought to be obvious, he thought. Hadn't the geth already fought a war against their creators due a similar enough question once before?

Besides, it was a meaningless question at this time.

That kind of solution would just create as many problems as it solved if applied on a larger scale. Artificial Intelligences were simply too taboo, and no one would accept their 'help'. No one would accept geth aid to fight Indoctrination. In the public's eye, it would seem like too radical a tool for the problem—accepting an arguably even greater evil to combat an as-of-yet unknown danger.

He would have to bring it up with Saren if things worked out and see what the Spectre had to say on the matter. That, and asking how exactly the Artificial Intelligences had come to work with the Spectre in the first place. _Did the geth ask him the same question...?_

For now though...

" _Hey. You worked out your side of the deal, so I'm letting you go now. As agreed,"_ Emiya vocalized inwardly at the numerous geth he had already completely forgotten about. In his defense, it wasn't as if there was any physical sensation to remind him of his passengers, and his unique possession of his body meant that the cybernetic parts weren't strictly necessary for his continued existence. That, and he was still in considerable pain and dealing with far too much for his liking.

He somewhat understood that they had heard him and were now convening again and debating something, in that confusing and haphazard way of theirs.

Still, just _forgetting_ about the geth that he had saved and the geth that he had technically kidnapped did make him feel slightly guilty. " _Everyone, uh... alright?"_

__

_Yes_

Came the immediate reply from within, unanimous and clarion-clear.

_Well, at least they don't seem too bothered by getting kidnapped_ , Emiya thought dryly to himself as he realized that he could not even differentiate between those whom he had met aboard the asari cruiser and those he had taken directly from Saren. Wincing to himself again, he wondered what they would tell the turian about all of this and wondered whether letting them go was really the right call.

But with a sigh, he dismissed those worries. He had given his word already.

" _Alright, I'm going to upload you to the local data relay hub on Torfan. Try not to get into any more trouble, alright?_ "

__

_All data accrued and disseminated must be passed on_

Emiya nodded hesitantly, not quite sure what they meant before he felt foolish about performing gestures in meatspace to entities bound strictly to the digital plane. " _Right, anyhow._ "

Without standing on any unnecessary ceremony, he simply dropped the numerous programs into the civilian extranet and then closed the connection to the Alliance warship behind them. He wasn't sure whether that would stop the disparate AI from accessing the starship, nor whether he shouldn't have just uploaded them straight to Saren's systems.

But he figured they could handle themselves from here.

Besides, he was already running late—Benezia had been holding the fort on her own long enough already. He hoped the Matriarch wouldn't be too mad about his lateness, but he still needed to wrap up these files.

Then, it would be showtime. _Again_.

* * *

;

* * *

Benezia's strained smile didn't so much as twitch, even as the blustering military officer sat down after his loud tirade.

"I understand that we are all very tired, nevertheless—"

"You won't tell us a damn thing, is that it?" the man in question angrily asked again.

"I would not go quite so far as to say that. We are all friends here and there is no need for such hostility—"

Half of the men in the room threw up their hands, their exasperation and end of patience obvious. _Slightly more patient than salarians. As temperamental as the turians, but less controlled in their anger. More likely to lash out, won't do to push too hard._ This was a valuable experience, given how little contact there had been with humanity since their entry on the galactic stage outside of the Citadel and trade.

The door opened and several heads turned to see who was interrupting, annoyance and irritation both seeking acceptable targets for venting. Benezia, facing away from the door opted to instead observe and catalog the various people in the room.

"I see that you have already begun without me," a familiar voice spoke and Benezia tensed just the slightest. She too turned now, almost hesitant to see whether her ears were playing her. "It doesn't matter. Matriarch Benezia, what have you told them?"

She licked her lips, now suddenly in between a rock and a hard place as Emiya asked that. Was he asking for a summary, or putting her on the spot? She laughed lightly, deflecting easily. "Nothing that you will find acrimony with, I hope."

"Who are you, to—"

"Alliance Intelligence. My name is not important and you'll find that my... _qualifications_ for taking part in this meeting are more than sufficient," Emiya said as he walked to the table, tossing a datapad to the center with a dismissive flick of the wrist. "If you wish to debate the finer points you may do so on someone else's time."

A large screen behind Admiral Hackett flared to life, surprising a few of the officers. If it weren't for the tension, Benezia would have smiled at how the heads seemed to be turning to and fro in perfect unison to Emiya's pace. _So this is how he usually does it. He has been so guarded with me, that I was beginning to wonder..._

"Wait, you're the one who bungled up on that asari corvette. The one chasing after that asari hacker?"

_Asari hacker?_

Emiya stood perfectly still, staring down the officer before coolly answering. "Any information pertaining to ongoing investigations by the Alliance Intelligence Agency into any persons of interest is on a strictly need-to-know basis. Any requests for information regarding the subject may be directed to the head office of the Alliance Intelligence Agency on Arcturus Station. In short, _sit down and shut up_."

"Now, look here you—"

Benezia almost laughed out loud but was glad to note that no one noticed her twitch.

"Two days ago, at 15:31 Navy time during the operation down on Torfan, I called a complete quarantine on the lowest level of the primary target installation," Emiya droned on as he walked around the table with slow, circumspect steps. Stalking around them, towering above all in the room in both stature and presence at that moment. "Measures, which I have since come to realize might not be adequate as the disaster that struck the asari cruise Dreyn N'var has since demonstrated." At this, he inclined his head towards her which caused all eyes to turn her way once more. A heavy, curious but still unknowing silence settled on the room, allowing him to continue. "The purpose of this debriefing is to clarify and set in place the beginning of a primary means for containment and handling of any future Indoctrination events."

"Indoctrination?" Hackett asked, finally establishing a foothold of his own in the conversation.

Unlike the other officers, Benezia noted, he had sat back and observed the new arrival with a cool distance that belied his actual import. This was a man not wont to easily speak out or waste words. And now with a single word he had set the tone for the rest of the officers and the way the rest of the meeting would play out; they would not be dismissing Emiya's words out of hand now. A fact she was quite glad for, wishing for no one to have to experience again the events she had just suffered through. _So this is how he plays it—a man of compassion and conscientiousness._

It was fascinating, watching the effect of that one word ripple out through the gathered humans. At a surface level, their rigid hierarchy and military decorum reminded her of the turians and she had to wonder if that were due to their first contact, or due to an older tradition. But even cursory observation revealed a multitude of attitudes among the lower-ranked officers—exasperation, curiosity, disinterest, and excitement—which would have been unthinkable among the turian military. _They're quite similar to the salarians, but without the biological reinforcement of the imprinted mothers to enforce order or the habit of devolving into meaningless discussions and debates. I wonder how their tendency towards groupthink would compare to them, or even us...?_

Benezia sighed—If only she were still a Matron, or even just a hundred years younger... What a time she would have getting to know these humans more intimately.

But she had greater responsibilities now, she reminded herself as she returned her attention to the discussion.

For now, Emiya had the floor and their attention.

"Yes. A term designated by the turian Spectre—Saren Arterius—which at this time may still be changed. I have prepared a preliminary protocol for the command-level officers at this time, but I must stress that it is mostly conjectural and remains clinically untested at this time."

The Admiral said nothing, his wrinkled countenance like carved stone.

"So the Citadel _knew_ about this?" a voice asked from the side as if delighting in that realization.

Benezia almost frowned at that. She couldn't allow this to become a political cudgel for the Alliance to wield. What was Emiya thinking, using the Spectre's name like this? Had they really met? She couldn't even imagine how that meeting had gone down, given their headstrong natures and the sheer chaos they had been embroiled in. She realized with hollow understanding that the turian could already be dead and she would have no way of knowing, given what she knew of Emiya's abilities.

The man in question, however, didn't even bother to acknowledge the comment as he moved on.

"To classify the Indoctrination phenomenon for the benefit of ground personnel, I have used existing nuclear, biological and chemical protocols as a basis, thus very little new training should be necessary for immediate action—but for the command-level officers, I must stress that the means of contamination and propagation for Indoctrination are still unknown and the existing protocols probably will not be sufficient by themselves. Therefore I have appended modified propaganda and memetic containment measures as further reading, which will be necessary for understanding and combating it in the field."

"You're making this sound as if it's an immediate threat, even during short-term operations?" An older female Captain commented as Emiya paused for a moment. Noticing his lull in presentation, she continued. "How are propaganda and memetic measures to be used in the field? During extended operations, previous inoculation and positive reinforcement will weaken, this is of course known. Are you suggesting we play propaganda films and morale-raising material during operations directly into every soldier's helmet displays?"

Some chuckled at the obvious jest.

"Rear control units outside of the operating theater will have to be established, that will run control questions and monitor physicals as necessary. The counter-espionage and malicious agent screening protocols can be modified for real-time use as well," Emiya answered calmly.

The captain scoffed, apparently not satisfied or amused with what she was hearing.

"Those tests must be exercised under carefully controlled conditions, with long controls and checks to ensure accuracy. How do you expect it to work during an operation? Do you intend for marines to be answering questionnaires while under fire?"

The round of chuckles followed her reply again, as if on cue.

He shook his head and answered. "As the victims grow increasingly erratic, their ability to maintain their identity weakens immensely as their qualia are slowly corrupted. Rigorous control will not be necessary during operations, as they are likely to even become unable to answer simple questions such as what is their name, or date of birth, accurately. I will expand on that more in a moment..."

"That's ridiculous," someone opined as they threw back their hands. "What are we talking about here; _hypnosis?_ "

"During combat, things will be different, however." Emiya continued coolly. "In a soldier turned under fire the effects are likely to be extreme, likely resulting in feral behavior and their turning on their fellow soldiers on the spot. At which point, any rear control action will be useless."

Those words hung in the air as everyone processed what they had just been told.

"...You're really are talking about brainwashing, aren't you?" a cooler head, a tan Captain with sour expression who had been quiet until now Benezia noted, questioned.

"In essence, yes. An Indoctrinated subject's memories have become scrambled and corrupted, to use simple terms. Their ability to reason and understand their surroundings decreases proportionally to the rate at which they have been affected. At this time the process appears to be quite random, resulting in the destruction of the subject's personality, leading usually to their death..."

Saying that the screen that had been on but blank finally began showing images. A batarian lying on a roughly hewn stone floor, his skull and brain splattered over the floors and wall. There was a hush, as nearly everyone froze at the unexpected and grotesque image.

"...Through either self-destructive tendencies as the subject grows increasingly erratic, possibly due to a conflict between the base personality and the invading influences, or due to a directive by the corroding effect."

"Directive...?" The sheer horror in the word that Benezia uttered made everyone turn and look at her with surprise. She realized she was shaking slightly. With an apologetic nod, she motioned for Emiya to continued as she lowered her hands beneath the table.

"Alternatively, indoctrinated subjects may also become highly aggressive and begin working together towards a common cause."

Benezia's stomach clenched as she knew what would come next.

A video began playing, showing rabid and frenzied asari tearing apart their former friends and comrades. Familiar faces, twisted in mindless fury and betrayed fear tore at her and she had to look away. She could feel the eyes of the humans on her now, but she couldn't quite compose herself with the loss still so raw.

"Worse yet, this is only the beginning, I suspect."

The video changed again, this time showing two asari sitting together in what looked like a mess room, laughing and talking to each other without care. Even without sound, it was just an everyday scene of two friends conversing.

And then suddenly one of them stopped.

There was a second of confusion. And then violence, blood, and death.

"Those infected may not show any outwardly observable signs of mental regression or compromise, acting as sleeper agents until triggered. While in this state they may apparently retain all of their faculties and even emotions, the conflicting memories, and personality changes either wholly sealed away or directing the subject's actions with purpose. I suspect that a slower process of corruption allows the victim's psyche to 'heal' over the breaks, allowing them to remain apparently unaffected until triggered."

"Mother of God..."; a silent, horrified whisper, halfway between a prayer and a plea.

"Certain subjects—possibly dependent on predisposing physiology—may also experience physical mutations."

This time she was prepared. Or she thought she had been, as the twisted and _corrupted_ visage of her old friend was even beyond what she had seen before. "Oh, Nirida..."

"At this time, I am working together with Spectre Arterius to investigate and handle this matter directly. But in the case of additional incidents, as I have already stated, I have prepared protocols for containing and handling Indoctrinated cases." Emiya came to a halt at the end of the table again, finishing with his presentation. "I have sent the document to each of you. Read it with care and do not distribute it incautiously. The primary outlines are for the detection of indoctrinated personnel, and for the containment and disposal of any such risks.

"Disposal...? Is there no way of reversing, or—or, _curing_ this?"

"At this time, no."

Emiya's cold voice cut their hopes down like an executioner's blade, leaving only a cold fear pooling in their guts.

Taking his datapad again, he continued as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Primary means of detection for compromised personnel will be based on the personnel's use of omnitools and subsequently obtained telemetry. Since at this time it does not appear as if Indoctrination is being used for subversion or infiltration, the primary vector that must be guarded against is accidental exposure. Due to this, maintaining an in-depth file on the personal lives and personalities of all personnel becomes a matter of major importance."

"What?"

"One method with which it may be possible to detect indoctrination is cross-referencing date on hand with personnel directly, as due to the mnemonic contamination it may be possible to detect irregularities in memory. Remembering events that did not happen, acquiring the memories of events from other indoctrinated, the inability to distinguish one's own actions from those of others, confusing another's spouse for one's own, remembering previous relationships that have not actually occurred, claiming the accomplishments of another for oneself, and even core beliefs may all be twisted and become noticeably different from before, indicating that indoctrination has occurred. The deepest extent to which these changes can occur is at this time unknown, due to lacking data, but hypothetically a complete breakdown of higher cognitive functions can be assumed to result from extended exposure. It may also be possible to use councilors and psychological therapy to mend the psyches of those with minimal exposure, but I suspect that will not be feasible due to as detecting those affected will be difficult until it is too late."

Someone stood up and slammed their fist into the table, their explosive rise rocketing the chair they had been sitting on away so hard it bounced off of the wall behind him. "You, you're telling us to form some form of _inquisition_? You want us to go out on witch hunts against our own men and women? What's next, torture and interrogation!? Commissars out there, performing field executions?"

"Application and deference to an as-of-yet-unratified protocol remain at the discretion of commanding officers, as per regulation. You may do whatever you wish until such a time that Systems Alliance Command has made a decision on the matter. Sit down."

The officer grit his teeth, glaring at Emiya.

"Sit down, Peter." A calm voice; a rock in the middle of the storm.

Turning around with a shocked look of betrayal towards Admiral Hackett, the officer seemed to shrink slightly. Then with a nod, he retrieved his chair and sat down again. Several of the others seemed to draw strength from the implacable man, but Benezia could see just how tense he too had become.

It appeared as if none had come away from what had happened to Nirida unscathed.

"' _Accidental exposure_ ', was it?" the Admiral continued with a question.

Emiya nodded. "At this time we are engaged in negotiations with the Citadel to obtain more complete information on any previous incidents. Currently, we are aware of two incidents of this magnitude in the past century."

There was a near-collective sigh of relief at that.

"Just two? In a hundred years?"

"That's not so bad..."

"We can prepare and train any new personnel to handle these situations... Maybe draw up more refined protocols, once Arcturus and Earth are brought up to snuff."

The discussion sounded hopeful.

But Benezia couldn't join in their good cheer. The galaxy was a very large place. An incredibly large place. More so than she could have ever imagined as a Maiden; even as a—in her own opinion at the time, much more worldly and experienced—Matron. Hundreds of years of traveling the nothingness between the stars at speeds far exceeding that of light.

Literal lifetimes to understand the sheer _vastness_ of space.

Two chance meetings of this kind would have been extraordinary in a single _system,_ even within her long lifetime.

But in the whole galaxy?

Two were a _very_ large number of incidents in such a short amount of time. It was not even a full century since the last, she knew. Shanxi and the First Contact War was still within living human memory; most of the men seated here having taken part in that conflict, if only tangentially. Whatever it was that had caused the incident on Palaven with Saren, it had originated from the human world.

Human lives were so short, yet these men had already been twice involved?

_This will not be the last we hear of this..._

There was much more to come, she knew and dared not say.

"For now, the most pressing issue is manpower." Emiya continued. "We not only have the asari and Alliance ground personnel to screen, but we also have an immense number of batarians prisoners to clear."

"Damn it... He's right. We're going to have to waste months compiling personnel files and cross-referencing them to make sure we're getting accurate information for making sure they're not a risk. And that's assuming they're even willing to cooperate. Are they a contagion risk to our personnel?"

Emiya shook his head. "Unlikely. But it would still be best to ensure that all personnel dealing with them are regularly screened and cycled."

And then, for just a moment, his head turned towards her. And she simply _knew_ that he was looking her in the eyes and speaking silently. _But, that is not necessarily the case for the asari..._ were his unspoken words or warning. A careless mind-meld could, in theory, serve as another vector for the spread of Indoctrination—just like in the kshirae legends of old.

Benezia sighed again, realizing that she would be wrestling with an immense task of her own. And he was leaving how to handle it to her discretion, a favor she was more than grateful for as she offered him the slighted nod.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought he returned it before he continued.

"To that end, I have made some preliminary drafts for holding the batarians and our ground personnel under quarantine without alerting either to the measures for now, until more personnel can be brought in..."

* * *

;

* * *

The room was very still when the Alliance Intelligence agent finally had concluded his presentation and left, the Asari Matriarch taking her cue to excuse herself then as well.

"Have we managed to contact the Spectre at all? To confirm any of this?" Hackett queried.

"Nothing, so far. It's like he's left everything on autopilot and is ignoring us, but on a ship that size he would need at least a small crew..."

He grunted in acknowledgment of the answer.

"Could we tightbeam the Citadel directly? Ask the Council to issue a statement to the Ambassador?" General Maeda considered out loud.

"That's only if we can trust them to answer honestly, and whether there isn't some greater conspiracy afoot that even they don't know about. You know how the Spectre's operate; no direct oversight. Why else would one appear here, so far from their own territories, without any support?" The words were met with nods and frowns all around. "No, I think we should be more concerned with matters closer to home. It was _your man_ who called the AIA, Maeda."

The General grimaced in response, even as the Major in question squirmed in the corner of the room, completely forgotten by everyone else. "He did it on his own. Besides, the agent was already from before—was even down on Torfan without anyone of us being informed. Or so I was told."

All eyes turned to stare at Kyle for a moment. He fidgeted in place but said nothing.

"I see. Then until further notice, we assume that we're not being fed bullshit. Once we return to Arcturus Station, I will discuss the matter with the AIA directly and seek confirmation there," Hackett said, concluding the matter. "For now, keep those still quarantined since Torfan under watch. And read up on the material we've been given. Even if we can't trust it completely yet, there's no point in just ignoring it either."

"Should we try and establish the new protocols for identifying an... 'indoctrinated' among those in quarantine?" The question was laced with obvious distaste, but this wasn't something they could simply ignore.

"Their exposure probably wasn't sufficient—besides, their numbers aren't large enough for a reliable control either," Maeda interjected. Pausing, he weighed heavily his next words before speaking. "...Should we try and create a baseline comparison with some of the batarian prisoners instead? Draw up some rudimentary exposure references?"

Talk like that was skirting a very dangerous line; it wasn't _quite_ experimentation on sapients. But if it was handled imprudently, it could easily blow up in their faces just as much as actual experimentation could. A great deal of scientific progress stemmed from just such ruthless pragmatism; anyone with even a passing knowledge of modern human history could point out such events, and the parallels to be had here.

But...

It was not as if they were purposefully infecting anyone and if some already were beyond help, it _would_ be a waste to do nothing.

"...Do it," Hackett agreed after a painful minute.

It was also not as if they had any means of helping those who had already been affected; the protocols the Alliance Intelligence agent had delivered suggested that immediate termination was the most humane and efficient method available.

Was, in fact, the only method for combating any further spread.

Were Steven Hackett any harder a man—were he surrounded by more ruthless or unscrupulous officers and advisors, then it was very much possible that the point, that experimentation was very much necessary if they wished to understand this new threat before it became critical, might have been raised.

Perhaps they were all thinking it now, as a stifling quiet descended upon the gathered. Someone, seeking a change of subject spoke then.

"What about the asari? Will this really be the end of it? I hope none missed the fact that she was only playing for time until the AIA representative arrived."

Hackett scowled at that, not saying anything in response. Another problem he had no desire to tangle with.

"You're suggesting she's working with them? How? _Why?_ "

No one seemed to have a satisfactory answer to that until someone opined the reverse. "Rather than that, it might be possible that he is individually working with her. They aren't known as the 'diplomats' for nothing." Everyone thought of other words to characterize the Council race, much less suited for polite company, at that suggestion.

"The Matriarch might just be lying, too." Was the scoffing reply ultimately; all this speculation of complex conspiracies obviously beginning to grate on some. "She might turn around on us the moment she's back among her own kind and has to worry about her reputation in all of this."

"So, what? Buying time by throwing diplomatic relations to the wind? That doesn't seem like the asari—dossiers state that they value their galactic image and long-term relations above all."

"But what is long-term for them? We'll all be dead in a hundred years and then she'll still have to hear about 'that one time on Torfan' for the rest of her life..." Someone groused in reply.

"It isn't as if we can _do_ anything about her. Thessia and the Citadel must have been made aware of things by now," Maeda finally stated, having remained quiet alongside Hackett for a while now.

"The politicians will have to handle that. We've done everything by the book here."

"You mean, ' _hope for the best_ '? Is that it?"

"As long as the events onboard the asari cruiser are kept quiet, the victory on Torfan should be enough to satisfy the public—and the policymakers by proxy. At least until the next elections."

Hackett nodded at that. "I will contact the Human Ambassador on the Citadel and inform him of the new revelations."

"Udina will be thrilled, I'm sure," someone commented in jest.

Hackett had to give a dry chuckle at that, no doubt already envisioning that conversation with no small sense of trepidation. _If we're lucky, Udina will only_ _demand a parade on the Citadel Presidium for saving an Asari Matriarch._

"Alright... then what about that new asari corvette we now have in our possession?"

"My Chief Engineer has told me that they have found not found anything unusual aboard the ship and that it should be operational," Hackett said calmly and rubbed his beard. "Nonetheless, I believe it will be best to have it flown straight to Arcturus."

Maeda nodded diplomatically. "If someone comes demanding for the corvette, they will know how to play it best. And if not, then they can blow it up or take it apart however they wish." Pausing to weigh his words carefully, the General looked at Hackett. "And what about the... asari hacker?"

There were scoffs and chuckles all around the table, but the man in question said nothing for several long seconds. Until finally, with a grimace, he shook his head. "If Alliance Intelligence and the Council Spectres want to play a game of cat and mouse without telling us anything, then we'll just have to play along. Do we have any reason to believe that any of our systems or ships have been compromised by this hacker?"

Silence.

Hackett nodded.

"Log everything as usual and leave nothing out of the reports. If the AIA wishes to hide something, they may do it on their own." A round of nods. "Then, that will be all. Dismissed," the Admiral declared and everyone rose out of their seats to leave. "Captain Anderson, would you stay behind for a moment?"

The tan Captain blinked and then nodded, dark eyebrows furrowed slightly in obvious curiosity as everyone else filed out and back to their own vessels and duties. As the door closed and left the two alone, the Admiral finally spoke.

"David, go on, sit."

The Captain nodded and obeyed, smiling ruefully as he did so. "What can I do for you, Steven?"

Hackett grimaced slightly and leaned back in his chair.

"It's in regards to your protege—Shepard, I believe?" Receiving a hesitant nod in response, the Admiral continued. "There is something going on with her. I would like you to find out what."

Anderson frowned, now uncertain but still unwilling to directly question Hackett's request. Seeing that, he continued.

"She was working with the AIA man down on Torfan, and with the asari, too." The older man shook his head. "I'm not suggesting she knew anything, especially since she was working with Maeda's man the whole time. But now I've been informed that she has been called back to Arcturus Station for an Article 35 hearing."

That got Anderson's attention.

"A full hearing? That's ridiculous!"

Hackett sighed, allowing the Captain to collect himself. "I have reason to believe that this is being pushed through by the AIA. For what reason, I don't know. But I suspect it relates to our asari-ship-hopping mystery man—perhaps the Agency wishes to directly interview her themselves."

Anderson nodded slowly in understanding. "And the hearing acts as both a threat and an excuse. If she plays along with them, they will no doubt promise to dismiss it and leave no markings of it in her service record."

"It does sound plausible. Regardless, you know her."

Hackett's words hung in the air for a long second, until Anderson nodded.

"I understand. I'll talk to her before she leaves."

"That won't be necessary. I'm assigning the SSV Tokyo to return to Arcturus Station as an escort for the wounded from Torfan. You'll have plenty of time," Hackett explained. "You've almost as much experience as I have with the AIA, so I'll trust you to handle this."

"Alright," the younger man rose up, straightening his uniform as he did so. "Thank you, Admiral. If that is all?"

Hackett nodded and Anderson departed, leaving the man alone in his office.

* * *

;

* * *

_Okay, now what?_ Emiya asked himself with a heavy exhalation as he left behind the meeting room, his mind already abuzz with plans and calculations.

Having given them a fighting chance against Indoctrination, was it time for him to finally focus on himself now? His aching arms and legs certainly hoped so, the constant pain never growing any less jarring against the inside of his projected hardsuit. He wasn't sure whether the continued 'buzz' he felt was good or bad, strictly speaking. _At least it means there's no nerve damage. I think._

Cooking for the last two years of his life had been a pain after he had lost sensation in his left hand's fingers after one close call too many. Then again, with modern medical understanding, it was still probably fine.

That said, things with Saren hadn't given him that much time to recover and get ready for their meeting, so there was little time to waste.

Eden Prime was still a complete unknown, beyond what the Spectre had said. But there was hardly cause for taking the turian at face value at this point in time, despite the overtures of a truce. He needed to investigate the planet before the meeting, perhaps even in person. Or had the other been counting on that? Considering travel time through space, if he left for Eden Prime immediately—or as soon as he was able, his wounds and other pressing concerns allowing—could he make it to another settlement and then back to Eden Prime within a reasonable timeframe?

Given his newfound ability to jump from Relay to Relay, it wouldn't really be all that difficult for him. Hell, he could probably manually slingshot from one unpaired Relay and slow down with a starship's own engines and make it even faster to the planet if he needed to.

The problem was that he needed time to secure the area. To perform reconnaissance and to make sure he had room to maneuver and act. Leaving after having done so once would all but completely negate all the effort and force him to re-do it the second time he arrived.

Better to make it one trip only, then.

Besides, attempting to occupy him with travel didn't seem like the Spectre's style.

_A complex ploy. Too complex._ That was his gut feeling from their one meeting and his understanding of turian character in general. Their rigidity and straightforwardness did not lend itself to overly long and complex plots. Hadn't Saren burst onto the scene above Torfan with one lone starship and forced his way through with sheer authority?

Emiya shook his head; he was probably over-analyzing the choice of meeting ground. It was more likely that the Spectre simply had a power base nearby and trusted his ability to exert his influence on Eden Prime. _I should make my way to some larger settlement. Preferentially a Systems Alliance colony, where I can access the Navy's databases, gather intel on Eden Prime and then leverage my own—_

"May I have a moment of your time?"

Benezia's question froze him in his tracks—sending another painful bolt through his limbs—jolting him out of his thoughts completely.

He turned around, cooling his head as he nodded after a solemn second. Their earlier discussion hadn't ended on the most constructive of notes and now things had gone quite out of hand. What should he say? Wincing slightly, he weighed how or if he should apologize for his failures. This was hardly the first time he had stuck around after failing to save so many, having to confront those who had experienced loss and suffering—he was more than used to dealing with the aftermath already.

Weathering their anger was also a form of salvation.

A poor replacement for the real thing, but the least which he could offer.

She, however, did not give him time for such, as she forged on by herself. Clasping her hands gently before her body in a complex gesture, the Matriarch spoke quietly with a small bow. "I wished to extend my thanks to you, for all that you have done today."

The words hit him like a gut punch, spreading a foul taste in his mouth. Feeling suddenly thankful for his face-concealing helmet, he grimaced and said nothing. There was nothing to be said, the bridge between their points of view too broad and uncrossable for any discussion to be possible. Was it merely the difference in age and maturity; in whether they could accept casualties and losses, effort and intent to help, for what they were? Without one's grief and expectations clouding the seeds of good that had been sown, even if they hadn't flowered into more thankful results?

Or was it just his own cross that separated them so?

His own ugliness rearing up after years of getting used to it from others? The blame, excuses, and hatred. It was a sudden thought amidst his tumult, like lightning bolt out of the clear sky, that split through his mind— _When did I get so used to it?_

Was it just the inability to accept anything other than salvation for all, despite the tempered cynicism and bitter experience he wore as his mantle against the world? Accepting the suffering and anger of those whom he had failed, like some form of masochistic penance, even coming to _expect it_ now? Secure in his knowledge of reality and that his ideals would never come true— _could_ never come true—in the real world, had he come to accept only pain for pain?

What did it matter how strong he became if the end results never changed? Striving for perfection as the result was an ever-elusive goal, regardless of scale. He knew that well or at least thought he did. But had the simple and heartfelt words of gratitude torn open his true feelings? Was he only acting as a hero of justice to spite his own weakness, now? Had it been like that during his life, as well? He couldn't remember anymore. Somehow he felt like an immature child before this implacable and ancient Matriarch—a feeling he found he immensely disliked.

_I knew I didn't like her from the start,_ he thought ruefully, as if chiding himself.

Noticing his reticence and quiet, Benezia called out to him as she straightened. "...Is everything alright? You appeared... lost, for a lack of a better term, for a moment there."

He knew she had wanted to use his name, and knew that she knew that he knew that too. A gambit for accruing affection; sharing in their private secret by framing them as alone together here aboard the Alliance's ship and surrounded by their men. It also changed the light with which he had viewed her earlier thanks entirely—hadn't this happened once before? Her thanking him and catching him utterly off guard? Was it merely a quirk, or could he construe it as a more deliberate action on her part?

A calculated reinforcement of his perception of her?

Emiya almost scoffed at his earlier thoughts regarding Saren now, suddenly growing all too enlightened as to why the turian had so staunchly held her at bay. Here, was someone who could play the long game, setting plots within schemes within calculations and wrapping each layer in so much meaning that separating intent from happenstance became impossible. Here, was a woman could hide her motives in plain sight and make you agree with it before you had even realized it. Here, was someone he couldn't afford to let his guard down around lest he finds himself all wrapped around her finger before he knew it.

His mind cast back to his attempt at stubborn retaliation during their first meeting—that aggressive, almost impetuously boyish attempt at pushing back at her control—and he had to wonder whether that too had been a ploy of hers? A bait lain out which he had blindly taken, thinking that he was taking charge. This was how they were, weren't they? But where Tyra had butted heads with him head-on, slamming her affection at him without preamble or pretension, was this how an elder and more experienced asari went about the matter?

_I'm suddenly very grateful for this helmet,_ Emiya thought sourly as he sought for something to say.

He wondered if she realized she was doing it, or if it was all merely in his head, and whether she understood why he and Saren were so guarded around her. He also wondered at Shepard; how easily she overcame that and could work together with someone like that.

Was it their similarity, or their differences, that made it so?

"It's nothing. If that's all, I have a meeting with Saren to prepare for," he said curtly, immediately cringing at himself.

Giving up the conversation as a lost cause and deciding he really needed to move on, he nodded at her once and moved to make his exit.

"Yes, about that..." she prompted, waiting to see whether he would wait. But he knew she knew he would. "I believe I had mentioned a previous incident, in which Saren had been involved. Do you remember?"

He nodded once—he had in fact intended to look into that incident in preparation for his next meeting with Saren.

"There was something else, something that I did not think to mention before," she continued. "I had certain, shall we say, _reservations_ , about your background earlier." He said nothing to that, which she took as a sign to continue with a small smile. "There was someone else there as well. Someone who lived through it all and walked away, I mean."

That got his attention.

Noticing the slight straightening of his posture, she nodded.

"A human by the name of Jack Harper—one of the defenders on Shanxi when the turians first met your species—came into contact with Saren and with whatever they found there on that planet. I also have reason to believe that this Harper was there on the turian homeworld when Saren's brother died, as well."

"Harper...?" Emiya muttered quietly. The name did not ring any bells, but he might be able to find records dating back to Shanxi's invasion while he investigated Eden Prime.

"You may know him better by his modern title, a moniker he took up after the events of Palaven." Benezia paused, leaning slightly closer to whisper the next words. "He goes by the name 'The Illusive Man', leading a pro-human organization by the name of..."

"Cerberus..." Emiya groaned.

"Ah, so you are acquainted with them." She nodded with a slight smile at his reaction, now 'reinforcing' his apparent distaste for the organization with maternal approval.

"It's a passing familiarity," he opined with a shake of his head, schooling his expression back to neutral as he considered how to handle the matter.

Perhaps he could track down and talk to the other survivor to get a better read on Saren... But with The Illusive Man's identity being what it was, it would probably be far easier to achieve the reverse; to question Saren on this Jack Harper and then question The Illusive Man on Saren Arterius if their paths crossed.

_No, they will cross_ , he thought glumly.

If the leader of the pro-human organization Cerberus had come into close contact with the Indoctrination phenomenon, then that threw into question everything about the organization. He had once skimmed through their manifesto and thought it seemed tailor-made for the discontent and wary among humanity—a reactionary recruitment drive as much as a mission statement.

But now he had to wonder; was it a more elaborate and long-term plan for undermining humanity instead?

Nirida Henell had seemed perfectly sane at a glance—what had she been planning to do under the Indoctrinating artifact's guidance? If Indoctrination could completely scrub away and scramble apart a person's mind and turn them into a mindless animal, then couldn't a more careful and selective process be used to completely subvert someone?

Of course it could. It was relatively easy to brainwash someone, even without the ability to directly manipulate memories.

Emiya sighed, raising a hand to run through his hair—only remembering at the last second with some awkwardness that the helmet would get in his way—and nodded his thanks to Benezia. "I'll look into it. I'll be heading that way, regardless. Will you be leaving with Saren?"

The Matriarch shook her head. "The crew of the Dreyn N'var must first be cared for. Especially given... _recent revelations_."

He nodded, showing his understanding.

"Of course. If you need help, I'll see what I can do. I can probably set up a one-time use extranet mail account, or..."

"Perhaps I may contact Shepard?" she inquired, probing intently despite the seeming casualness of the question.

Emiya hesitated and then grimaced, before shaking his head. "She and I will... probably be parting ways here. I don't intend to latch onto the Alliance and I'll be leaving as soon as I can."

He doubted she would be leaving the Alliance Navy any time soon and with the operation here still on-going and entering the crucial clean-up phase, it didn't seem likely that she would have the freedom to keep chasing him.

There was still the matter of the AIA identity he had used, but that was a separate matter entirely.

"I see," Benezia said with a nod, her eyes revealing nothing. "Then..."

"Anyhow. I'll forward you some contact details once I've hashed everything out in a few days."

"...Do you intend to leave immediately?"

He considered it for a moment again but then shook his head.

Better to keep a low profile and board another ship headed out, was what he had concluded before. He could get his hands on a ship of his own to replace the Janiri's Sickle—its sacrifice as a decoy a slightly regrettable if all too necessary cost—once he found himself somewhere more civilized again. Something less eye-catching and economical, he figured preliminarily. And he still needed to get medical treatment, the only reasonable recourse for which within the next thousand of light-years was on board one of the Alliance warships.

By now the casualties from Torfan and Dreyn N'var should all at least be stabilized, meaning he could in good conscience check himself in. It wasn't as if he was in mortal peril; maintaining his physical body was really only just that— _maintenance_.

Besides, he still needed to talk to Shepard.

Somehow the thought of slinking off without a word, _again,_ simply didn't sit right with him. A notion he didn't bother examining in too much detail, simply accepting the gut feeling as it was as he focused on more important things.

"Not quite yet. But soon," he said. Them, he continued on that thought. "Do you know where Shepard is?"

Benezia nodded, speaking softly. "I believe she is aboard the Alliance cruiser 'Tokyo'."

He nodded. "Right, she must be with the engineering crew. I still need to talk to her."

The Alliance had been expecting casualties, both human and batarian, as a result of the Torfan operation. But a cruiser-full of asari was stretching their capacity out. Asari cruiser's being overdimensioned behemoths in the eyes of most other spacefaring races. Most of the asari crew had been spread out among four human cruisers and a destroyer from what he had checked out before.

"I'll reach out to you if anything new comes up." Nodding his thanks, he turned and left.

Benezia offered him a courteous bow and a silent smile before she too turned to return to her quarters. He was not the only one with a packed schedule for the foreseeable future.

* * *

;

* * *

It had to be Captain Anderson, Shepard concluded.

She knew she could trust the man, but more than that, she understood his priorities and way of thinking. She had been shaped and tutored for most of her adult life by the man, after all. If she told him what was going on—why she had acted out as she had on Torfan, meeting Emiya and protecting him, conspiring with an alien leader while...—then he was sure to question and scold her for her recklessness.

But he would understand—or so she wanted to believe.

Arnaut Kyle was also a possibility, but she had only worked with the man on this one operation and she did not trust his judgment when it came to Emiya, the AIA or the asari. She had briefly entertained the idea of going directly to Admiral Hackett, well aware of the man's nigh-legendary status and his spotless reputation. But rumor and public opinion was one thing; confiding and possibly conspiring with him was something entirely different.

And it _would_ lead to a conspiracy when she confessed to whoever.

That, or her immediate arrest.

Perhaps she was too close to everything, too overwhelmed by all that had happened. Which was also why she believed that she could trust Anderson's judgment. Years of military service had taught her how valuable an after-action report and review could be—a trusted outside observer's analysis of what had occurred.

All that remained was to tell Emiya.

The results of which filled her with no little hesitation. But she couldn't not tell him, and she couldn't not tell Anderson.

Still, at least she needed to find Emiya first. She had no idea where he was and given that no one had come to talk to her, for any reason, she felt fairly certain in assuming something big was going on and keeping everyone occupied and that she was best off staying out of their legs. So she trusted her training as a soldier—always take any downtime you can to relax, you don't know when you'll get another break.

From that point of view, the bunk in the temporary medical bay should have been a boon, as she still hadn't been released. It's softness and dimensions much greater than the sleeping pods she was used to. But no matter how she turned and tried to shift within the confines that her leg allowed, sleep continued to elude her.

She squirmed again and then felt something, like a presence beside her.

Opening her eyes, she looked up and almost wasn't surprised to see Emiya looming beside her on the bed.

"How long have you been there?" she asked, her first thought escaping past her lips without any input from her brain.

He seemed to blink, his head tilting the slightest bit.

"Not long."

Was it just her imagination or was something _off_ about him?

"Are you alright...?" she asked.

"...It's been a long day," he said neutrally, before looking around. "Seems like most of the asari are fine. Physically, anyhow."

Frowning at his deflection, she followed his gaze and then nodded. "Yeah. Most of the non-combat crew was pretty shaken up, though."

They stared at the asari for a long while, saying nothing. After a while, Shepard noticed that the doctor who had been treating her earlier was eyeing Emiya strangely, so she gave the doctor a thumbs up to reassure her that it was fine.

"Did you and Benezia handle everything already? I heard you had to pull off _another_ stunt again to get off the ship."

Emiya made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff as he crossed his arms. But then, as if thinking better of it, he returned his arms limply to his side, shuffling awkwardly for a moment.

"I had to throw away my starship as bait, but it seemed to work out. After that Benezia had to hold down the fort with the Alliance heads until I got something cobbled together to explain what had happened on the cruiser."

"Yeah?" she inquired, glancing at his arms for a second as she tried to imagine that conversation. "What did you tell them?"

"The truth, more or less. I had expected Benezia to lay the groundwork and that I would have to stick to the constraints of her story, but surprisingly she left the entire thing to me. I'm almost amused at being thought so competent that she thinks she can rely on me to create a cover story in the space of half an hour, and then to handle the fallout on my own." Emiya shook his head. "I could have just left her to deal with everything."

"She trusts you," Shepard said with a grin.

He said nothing for a second, and she wondered whether he was startled by her proclamation or if he was simply rolling his eyes at her suggestion. " _Anyhow_. I put together some basic countermeasures based on the existing Alliance guidelines. Your guys won't be completely in the dark with that. Hopefully, that'll minimize the damage from now on."

"Good. Nobody likes being a mushroom," Shepard replied with a nod.

Emiya chuffed, apparently familiar with the joke as well.

"...I also met the man of importance she had been talking about, the one into whose good graces she had been trying to get. The one who had spurred her on to look for that Professor I had been looking for as well—turns out he's a turian Spectre." He shrugged.

Her eyebrows almost vanished beneath her hair but after a moment of consideration that made sense. Benezia had been familiar with the Spectre on her ship, even if she had been acting very stiff with him. _Or was that just how she acted with turians normally...?_

"Turns out he's already looking into it as well. I... agreed to meet with him at a later date to discuss things in more detail," Emiya continued.

She grinned, reaching out to slap his thigh lightly. "Nice. We're making progress already."

He made another scoffing-laugh sound that almost sounded like a wince, and she knew he was rolling his eyes at her. Or... "How did it go with the—uh, Henell? Did you put her down? You didn't get hurt, did you?"

Emiya shook his head.

"It was a close call, but it was fine. If I run into any more of those things, I now know how to handle them."

He didn't seem to be lying; the confident tone of his voice undeniable. Coming from him, it was as good as a boast. "Any advice?"

"They're tricky. Set up an ambush with high-yield explosives and try to lure it out and finish it quickly, if you can. Inside starships, you'll risk a major hull breach—it might be possible to space them deliberately like that, but they might just be able to use its biotics to get on board. Might have to consult a more experienced biotic to see if that's possible..."

Emiya was thinking out loud now, completely lost in mental scenarios. Shepard considered whether or not he was usually so quiet because he was constantly thinking about something, lost in his own thoughts and hypothetical war-games.

She chuckled quietly, never before having thought that she would characterize Emiya as a daydreamer. Then again, hadn't she first thought of him as 'that weirdo with his nose constantly in his omnitool', back in basic?

"Hmm?" He blinked, realizing that he had lost track of the conversation. "Well, just keep your distance and a cool head, and you'll figure it out." Clearing his throat, he finished lamely.

Shepard nodded, suppressing a chuckle badly. "Got it."

She must have looked strange, as he stared at her for a long second completely still. But finally, as she said nothing, he seemed to give up on it and shook his head. "Getting back on track, I'll be meeting with Saren in two weeks in another system."

She blinked.

"So you're leaving already?"

"...Yes."

Neither said anything more, leaving a slightly awkward silence to linger. She had figured as much; he had his own greater agenda to handle, it wasn't like he would simply tag along with her as if he was a part of Alliance military.

Which reminded her...

"The AIA probably already knows you're here," she said in a lowered voice, making sure that only he could hear her. He stiffened in response, turning his head at her in a way that screamed that he was staring at her, even if she couldn't see his face.

"Damn," he muttered and looked away. "I had hoped to avoid that."

Shepard chuckled, crossing her hands confidently. "Don't worry about it. I've got it."

His head swiveled back to her and she could feel his gaze again. "What do you mean?"

Slightly taken off guard by his heated response, she replied with the first thing that came to mind. "I mean, I won't let this affect you. I was thinking that I could introduce you to the Captain of the ship I'm serving on—David Anderson."

"...Why?"

"So that if I get court-martialed, or the AIA does something, you won't lose your contact with the Alliance Navy. I mean, wasn't that the big idea with how you're networking now?"

"...What? —No, that's..." Emiya sighed heavily, palming his helmet as he took a deep breath. "Start from the beginning. Why—"

"Sir, that is quite enough." The female doctor who had been observing from the side said, finally having had enough it seemed. "If you are not seeking medical attention, then I must ask you to leave. Now."

Shepard looked around, suddenly worried over who might have overheard them talking. But it seemed as if the doctor had been the only one to notice—perhaps acting to preempt any actual raising of voices.

Emiya glared at the doctor, before the set in his shoulders becoming decidedly smug and self-satisfied.

"Alright."

_What is he..._

The doctor nodded with a severe expression. "Then please leave, before—"

"Do you do _flayings_ here?" Emiya asked over her, raising his left hand palm up.

"Flayings...?" The doctor repeated, exasperated and confused in equal measure.

"Yes. Or do you prefer ' _degloving_ '?" he asked as he unlatched the Onyx hardsuit's left arm and pulled it completely off like a long glove. Shepard had first through he was making a joke about taking off his hardsuit until she saw the pink striations of his bare muscles, and she realized that he was _serious_.

There was no skin on his arm.

"Oh my Lord..." the doctor whispered in abject horror.

"You said you were fine! What the hell is this...?!" Shepard shouted, almost jumping out of the bunk.

"I am _fine_ ," he replied annoyed, and she could _hear_ the roll of his eyes now. Then he turned back to face the doctor. "Well, are you going to admit me, or not? It's not bleeding, but who knows how long it'll take for an infection to set in now that I've exposed it to air."

The woman blinked, then shook herself back into a more controlled frame of mind. Turning around, she yelled, "Prep operating room one for a skin graft! One limb with massive—"

"Four limbs," Emiya corrected, causing the doctor to almost stumble in place as she turned so fast to stare at him with an open-mouthed expression. Her eyes slowly traveled down until she stared at his legs.

"How... are you even standing...?"

"Did..." Shepard began, before hesitating. He seemed fine. Had seemed fine. But she trusted the doctor. How badly had he gotten hurt? "Did Henell do this?"

"No." Emiya shook his head. "Well, you know how it is with networking... Sometimes you can wine and dine your way into their good graces, but sometimes you're going to have to twist their arm a little to get past the proverbial firing squad."

"...He had a firing squad?"

"Proverbial," he repeated blithely and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes at him.

There absolutely _was_ a firing squad. She just knew it.

"I'm going to call Captain Anderson over now. And then we're going to all sit down and talk all of this through, or so help me..." Shepard said, rubbing her temple with one hand and pointing threateningly at Emiya with the other.

Emiya nodded. "Alright. We can talk during the surgery. If only Doctor Chakwas here will calm down first."

"Absolutely not! I will not have anyone else in the operating room!" the doctor in question shouted as a wheelchair manifested itself by the work of a rushing orderly. "Now sit down, and take off that helmet. The anesthesia will—"

"No." Emiya interrupted, waving away the wheelchair dismissively. "Just find a meeting room with some privacy and an open line, and I'll be there."

Shepard nodded, staring at the apoplectic doctor with growing apprehension.

"Now you listen here, marine. As the Chief Medical Officer, you—"

"Not Navy. The helmet stays on—and I don't need anesthesia or painkillers either," Emiya said while looking at the doctor, before turning to Shepard again. "If you wanted your Captain, then he's returning from the Orizaba right about now on a shuttle. Better get to it." Then, with a flourish of his still covered hand, he pointed to the wheelchair that had been brought to him. "Here is your ride."

"Now, you listen here...!" Chakwas shouted growing heated, grabbing the wheelchair as she stepped between them. "There will be no dumb machismo here, do you understand?" Then she turned to Shepard with an accusing finger. "And you will not take so much as one foot off of this bed without express permission, lieutenant."

"Of course she isn't." Emiya acquiesced, "You're right, doctor, what was I thinking? Now, where was operating room one, again?" All the while as he threw Shepard's way a low-key thumbs up, as if telling her to make a break for it the moment she could.

Shepard shook her head, laughing weakly. _What a mess._

"Every time. Without fail."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Olive Birdy and V01dSw0rd for proofreading the first half.
> 
> WHEW
> 
> It's been a while, eh? Sorry about that. Been super busy, as usual. A lot of things caused this break, but primarily it was the title of this chapter. I wanted something special for chapter 36, naming it "Stratagems" as a direct reference to the 36 Stratagems. My plan was to use every single fucking one of the strats in this chapter, but well...
> 
> I kinda went crazy trying to figure that out. And by then two months had passed. And then I had school and work and stuff...
> 
> So by the time I figured I should write again, I figured I should warm up a little and wrote that HP crossover. It'd be easy, something to get thew old noggin' joggin' again. But then my computer died and I had to spend two weeks using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier to salvage everything I could from my near-bricked HDD. Not fun. So I bought a new, much, MUCH better computer. But then, well, Half-Life: Alyx was announced and old VR head-mounted display prices dropped. So I figured getting one for like 150 bucks was too big of a steal to pass up on... And then I bought Skyrim again. In VR. And well, it all went downhill from there.
> 
> So... I am now 100% addicted to Beat Saber.
> 
> I also got something if a burnout on Fate in general. So many new anime, so much new stuff coming out... And none of which I give a flying fuck about :V Kinda even considered dropping this fanfic account and moving on. It wouldn't be the first time I've done it. (My previous accounts most popular fic still gets people asking for updates and it's been over 5 years. People are nothing if not tenacious )
> 
> But well, then I got reminded of how much I'd enjoyed writing MotM and just how much shit I still had planned. Like, I have this huge ass mind map taped to my bedroom wall for the next arc, and it's just taunting me. Because the next arc is really fucking daunting me in terms of how much stuff I need to set up, and how much I've already set up and need to follow through on. So I had to spend like a week going through my old notes and re-reading chapters just to figure out where I had left my plot threads.
> 
> ANYHOW, the plan is that I'm back now. But probably not at the same rate of updates, as still have a fuckton of other shit going on. Kind of been thinking about writing original fiction, too. Have some isekai ideas I'd like to write to be honest, despite how CURSED the genre is.
> 
> Anyhow, here was the last chapter of the Torfan arc! Thanks for reading everyone!


	37. Messy Moon Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! MotM is also now being published on AO3, if you'd prefer to read it there. I'm not a huge fan of the site and I'm way too lazy to go through all the hassle, but this complete mad lad by the name of _obeyingthemuse_ asked me if it was okay for him to upload it there and I said yes. So if you prefer reading on AO3 then perhaps consider checking it out and giving _obeyingthemuse_ a kudos and comment.
> 
> Thanks _obeyingthemuse_!
> 
> Also, proofread and edited chapters 1-10 again just now on ffnet and spacebattles, but those changes won't be on AO3 yet.
> 
> Sorry, _obeyingthemuse,_ for doubling your workload _:V_
> 
> * * *
> 
> ;
> 
> * * *
> 
> OTM: Yeah, no kidding lol. But at least now I'm up to date on reformatting! I can _finally_ download this as a book and read it on my iPad at leisure! :D

Kyle exhaled, exiting the shuttle with heavy steps.

It had been one meeting after another. Accusations, questions, and threats were all hurled his way, but he had weathered through it all somehow. He couldn't even remember anymore what he had been thinking when he had called the Alliance Intelligence Agency on Arcturus Station—hot anger and blinding fury having burned out, leaving him only with a sense of bone-deep weariness.

At least the asari had made it out alive, that much he could hold up his head with pride about at least.

Or was that just what he told himself now, having used that as his excuse before his superiors over why he had gone over their heads the way he had. Perhaps he couldn't hold Shepard's indiscretions over her head any longer, given how he no longer held any claim to a spotless loyalty towards the Navy as a whole.

He had been able to attend the meetings wearing the hardsuit he had donned while boarding the asari cruiser, a thing he now felt incredibly thankful for as the suit's internal heat management system kept his body temperature regulated despite his nervous sweating. A dress uniform's back would have been slick and sticky with sweat by now, he knew.

All he wanted was a hot shower and a bed to crash down into.

Everything could wait until he woke up and maybe, _hopefully_ , it wouldn't feel quite so crazy any more then.

"Major Kyle. I am glad to see you again," a female voice said stopping him in his tracks.

Arnaut looked up, swallowing heavily with trepidation and expectation. And true enough there was an asari standing there, apparently in wait for him.

"Shiala... was it?" he began slowly and she nodded, smiling winningly at his remembering her name. He blinked, forgetting what he had been about to say and shook his head a little, figuring that he was more tired than he had thought. "Oh, err, w-what are you doing here...?"

"I wanted to thank you, for coming to our rescue the way you did. I heard from the other soldiers how you defied your superior's orders and stormed onto the cruiser, ordering everyone to come to our aid," she said, almost gushing and squirming in place.

"Err..."

"You're so brave... I just couldn't let it go, I just had to come and thank you myself," she continued, stepping forward with every word until she was within an arm's reach of him.

"That's, how did you even get here...? None of the asari should have been evacuated here..." Kyle wondered, turning around to stare at the shuttles suspiciously. _None of the shuttle pilots would have flown her here without authorization from above... Would they...?_

Kyle shook his head; he was much too tired for this right now. "Look, ma'am, you are not supposed to be here. Let me escort you back to the other asari, and..."

His omnitool chimed with a priority message, disrupting his thoughts. Frowning, he muttered an apology and opened it. Blinking, he read and re-read the message. There was an urgent top-priority request—or _command_ , rather—from Arcturus Station for him to contact the Alliance Intelligence Agency's head office. Immediately, that was.

He groaned, rubbing at his temples. He really, _really_ did not want to deal with this now.

"Major, you appear very stressed. Is there anything I can do for you? Perhaps I may prepare for you an energizing beverage—coffee, I believe you call it? I have recently familiarized myself with making it, you see?"

Kyle frowned. He really shouldn't...

But it would allow him to keep an eye on her until he could escort her wasn't like he could see any useful grunts anywhere nearby on whom he could shove this asari.

"...Fine. Black, no sugar. But we'll have to get it from the vendor, I need to run and make this call as soon as possible."

Shiala smiled demurely. "Do not worry. With my biotics, preparing it will take no time at all."

* * *

;

* * *

" _Logged: The commanding officer is aboard. Chief Engineer Adams stands relieved_."

Anderson exhaled as he set foot aboard his ship, nodding at the saluting shuttle maintenance crew as he did. Marching quickly, he made it to his office in short order. Sitting down with a heavy sigh, he stared at his workspace for a minute before he finally shook his head and turned on the terminal.

With his XO out of commission, he couldn't simply delegate internal ship matters as usual. The asari had to be moved and the other ships would have to be informed of the additional passengers they would be receiving, after which he would inquire as to whether or not he was to take on any additional wounded, and...

His omnitool chimed.

Glancing down and spotting the incoming call from Shepard, Anderson hesitated.

He had been wasting time with busywork, trying to push back having to face Shepard while he tried to figure out his own thoughts. Adams was acting Executive Officer with Shepard wounded; had been designated so even before they arrived, with how entwined his lieutenant had been with planning the Torfan operation. The engineer had been handling duty rosters and other internal matters for a week already and was more than capable of coordinating with other Alliance ships when it came to moving passengers around.

All it would have taken was a notification to Adams, to inform the acting-XO of matters.

With a grunt, Anderson accepted the call.

"Captain Anderson speaking," he answered.

There was a short moment of silence before he heard Shepard's reply. " _Captain, it's Shepard. Could we, uh, talk for a bit?_ "

His heart jumped in his chest for a second and he wasn't sure why. He coughed, buying himself some time even though he already knew his answer. Wasn't this exactly what he had promised the Admiral he would do? To have a private talk with Shepard?

"Of course. Where are you?"

And immediately as he said it, he worried that perhaps he had been too forward. If she truly was dealing with the likes of _that Spectre_ and Alliance Intelligence, who knew how she would react...

" _I'm on my way to your office now,_ " she replied instantly, to Anderson's wonder. Wasn't she still in medical? It was hard to believe that Chakwas would have let the lieutenant walk around just yet. " _I'll be there in a few minutes, captain._ "

"Very well. Anderson out," he said somewhat brusquely and closed the omnitool.

Standing up from his chair, he paced back and forth for a minute as he tidied up his office with nervous energy. Checking his appearance and uniform a few times until he finally shook his head and forced himself to sit down behind his desk to wait for Shepard to arrive.

The door opened and he looked up, blinking twice at the sight of Shepard in the wheelchair. Frowning, he asked, "Did Chakwas give you leave already...?"

She looked away guiltily before clearing her throat.

"No. But one of the orderlies did when I told him I had to meet with the Captain," the lieutenant confessed. "May I come in, sir?"

Anderson nodded and she entered, the door closing behind her. Looking down, he tapped a prompt on the terminal and locked the door to make sure they would not be bothered. Looking back up, he extended a hand and almost bid her to take a seat on one of the chairs in front of his desk. Then, realizing how awkward that would be he cleared his throat and stood up to make some room for her wheelchair by setting the regular chairs aside.

Then, sitting back down he crossed his fingers and looked at her, suddenly at a loss for words.

Looking up, he somehow felt relieved to note that Shepard seemed just as nervous before remembering just why he had wished to talk to her. At the same time, there was a niggling question in the back of his mind—a part wondering just why _she_ would be nervous now?

Had she realized that the Admiral suspected her?

Was she in so deep in some twisted conspiracy that the pressure was getting to her? Anderson couldn't believe that she would willingly betray them. The Navy. _Him_. Surely if he could just get her to open up, he could understand how this had all come to pass...

"Captain, there was something I wanted to talk to you about..." Shepard began, catching Anderson off guard.

He blinked and then nodded gravely, thinking that perhaps this was it. "Of course, lieutenant." Then, realizing that he needed to reassure her, he changed tack. " _Shepard_."

She blinked, then a wide, wide smile spread over her face as she nodded. Looking down, she silently considered what to say as he patiently waited for her to begin, worrying that she might well grow skittish if he tried to pressure her.

"Do you remember years back, when we first met, that fire on Mars?"

Anderson raised his brows, suddenly feeling as if he had completely lost the thread in this conversation. "Mars...?" he repeated quizzically.

"I had just been accepted to N-school and then my friend from bootcamp had suddenly gone missing. We—that is, you allowed me to come along—flew to Mars to try and find him, only for the trail to end at that house that had burned down," she explained, gesticulating with her hands as she did. Pausing to consider, she seemed thoughtful. "Or maybe 'melted down' would be a better description..."

Blinking again, he nodded with a slight frown. He did vaguely remember such events, the fire and death reminding him of that Spectre once again. It had been years ago; it was no wonder that he had completely forgotten about that event. Looking up at Shepard before him, Anderson felt something click into place.

_So that's why she's tangled up in all of this..._ The captain thought regretfully.

He remembered how shook he had been on that flight back as well as his own feelings of helplessness at seeing her so broken. She had come a long way since then, yet still, it seemed that the death of her friend haunted her. It was little wonder then that she had reacted as she had after the Skyllian Blitz; the loss of another friend would have weighed even more heavily on her conscience. He understood those feelings well, being no stranger to loss, and having seen comrades and civilians alike die before.

But it was no good for her to be so hung up on such things, especially if it had led her to become tangled with the AIA.

Sighing, he nodded for her to continue, already expecting how this conversation would play out and trying to think of how to best convince her to trust in him again.

"So, you can imagine my surprise when it turns out he's still alive...!" Shepard exclaimed, animatedly throwing up her arms in the wheelchair.

Anderson blinked, furrowing his brows as he tried to process what he had just heard. "What?"

"Yeah!" she agrees excitedly before sighing explosively. "I thought that, too! He didn't even think to tell me that he was fine, or _anything_. Just flew off to who-knows-where and then comes back when I think he's been dead for years."

Raising a hand to cover his mouth, Anderson worked his jaw as he tried to understand what she was saying now. Somehow it felt like she was venting at, rather than confessing to him. "I see..." Pausing, he tried to remember the name of that recruit. But the detail escaped his memory, even as he realized that it would still mean that Shepard had been in contact with a deserter. "Shepard, are you certain that it is him?"

It had been years. And she couldn't have known the man for very long if they had met in bootcamp. Certainly, friendships that formed in basic tended to run very deeply given how shocking an experience for those used to civilian life. But surely she might have made a mistake, or someone was fooling her.

The tan captain shook his head again, clearing his thoughts as he tried to bring this conversation back on track.

"When did he approach you?" he asked.

If he assumed that this was the work of the Alliance Intelligence Agency—for who else could have access to the information and resources necessary to convincingly have someone pretend to be Shepard's long-dead friend?—then he needed to know when she had been approached. For what purpose would they have gone through all that trouble?

An immediate candidate sprung to mind; the Alliance Intelligence Agent who had made sure to keep his face hidden earlier. The man who had been secretly working with Shepard since before Torfan.

"He _didn't_." Shepard scoffed with obvious offense. "I had to chase him down to get my leg broken by him, before he even bothered to notice that it was me."

What?

_What?_

"What?"

Shepard shook her head as if she couldn't believe it either. Blowing a strand of hair brushing at the side of her brow, she frowned then. "That's not important, though. I can vent at him later; I should explain what he was doing down on Torfan."

Anderson froze, the implications of her words not quite making sense in his head. Or rather, her words themselves failed to make any sense to him.

"You approached him? On Torfan?"

"I thought he was the guy who I had thought had kidnapped him on Mars, but he, uh..." She blinked, suddenly lost in her own words as she tried to make what was in her head come out half-way coherently. "I thought he was the mysterious guy who showed up on the security cameras from Ares Station, and he was, I think...? But he had also been kidnapped...?" She paused again, crossing her arms and furrowing her brows, deep in thought now. "Wait, but how does that work?"

Anderson waited patiently as the seconds ticked by. But she looked no closer to having any idea what she was talking about.

Finally, she looked up with frustration shining through. "Emiya, what the hell? If you got kidnapped and then broke free, but had to fly to get your brain fixed, why—and _how_ —did you get back to Ares Station?"

Not understanding who or what she was talking to or about, Anderson had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Wasn't this exactly what the AIA agent had been talking about? _Indoctrination,_ he thought the word with heavy heart. She _had_ been down on Torfan, in the thick of things, and then aboard the asari cruiser just as everything had gone to hell.

It made more sense to Anderson than her being a spy, now, given the apparent sheer incoherence coming out of her mouth.

What had the agent said about handling those who had been indoctrinated? That there was no cure?

He swallowed slowly, his collar somehow pressing all-too-tightly against his throat now. Surely there was something that could still be done; she was just confused, perhaps she wouldn't turn violent. The video footage he had been shown flashed through his mind. One asari turning on another at the drop of a hat.

" _It's complicated and doesn't really matter. Besides, where are you even going with this?_ "

Anderson jumped out of his seat at the familiar voice, his head turning left and right as he tried to find the agent who had suddenly spoken up. "Where...?"

"Captain?" Shepard seemed about ready to jump out of her wheelchair at his sudden movement, staring at him with wide-eyes. "It's just Emiya. He's talking through the terminal," she said and pointed at the desk.

He blinked and looked down, staring with suspicion at his terminal that for all intents and purposes appeared to be turned off. But then, as if sensing his gaze, it turned on by itself. As if someone had hacked the computer and had been listening in the whole time.

"How...?" Not even Alliance Intelligence should have access to his personal terminal.

"We can't just drop all of this on him without some context, Emiya." Shepard shook her head. "I barely believe it myself and I've been through most of it."

He focused on his still-seated lieutenant, frowning as he spoke gravely. "How is he doing this?"

"He's—Emiya, that is—some kind of super hacker. The one that was on Thessia and slipped past half the asari fleets just a few days ago."

" _It's actually been over a week,_ " the voice from the terminal corrected.

Shepard frowned, staring at the source for a long second. "Why are you doing a voice?"

There a moment of awkward silence, before the third voice coughed.

Anderson blinked as the voice behind the terminal replied, " _It was a disguise,_ " with another long-suffering sigh. His head spun as he realized that he had no idea what was going on anymore. If Shepard wasn't indoctrinated, then—or rather, was that even a credible phenomenon if the one who had told them about it wasn't even an Alliance Intelligence Agent?—or was she a spy, after all, or...?

Or was _he_?

Numb with confusion, the captain all but collapsed back into his chair.

" _Captain Anderson, it's nice to make your acquaintance. Unfortunately, it could not be in person, but that's hardly a hurdle,_ " the voice through the terminal spoke. " _As Shepard hopefully tried to explain before getting side-tracked._ "

"How... How are you doing this...?" Anderson staggered. "The terminal—no, this entire ship should be equipped with the latest in counter-electronic warfare. This shouldn't be possible."

"He's actually on board the ship right now, captain." Shepard helpfully provided, but only managing to alarm him more. "He's being patched up by the doctor right about now."

Frowning, the captain stared at her with the beginnings of outrage. "Onboard the Tokyo? Right now?"

On _his_ ship? Without his knowledge or permission?

Perhaps realizing that, Shepard seemed to pull back away from him with wide eyes. Seeking to reason with him and defend bringing someone aboard his vessel, she tried to explain. "He got hurt helping the asari escape and he doesn't have anywhere else to go, captain."

"Aboard the—but he was..."

Anderson shook his head, unable to understand anything right now, only certain of the anger bubbling forth from his gut at being left completely in the dark like this. With a last fierce glare to the terminal, he moved around the table and past Shepard.

"Captain?" she asked, startled by his sudden movements. "Where are you going...?"

"I don't know what you have gotten yourself into, lieutenant, but I won't stand for anyone to sneak aboard my ship," he replied testily as he marched towards the door. He would head straight for the elevator and take the on-duty armed guards with him. "We can continue this discussion— _whatever it is—_ in the brig."

"S-sir...?!" Shepard yelped, turning the chair in an effort to follow him.

But just as he was about to reach the door the lights in his office went out, plunging them into near-darkness. Blinking, he staggered and looked up at the lights. Then as he realized that the door before him wasn't opening, he tried to push the glowing haptic switch in the center to open it manually. _The proximity sensor should have opened it already..._

But the glowing red circle signifying the door remaining locked and the cool material of the door itself was all that he was met with.

Anderson frowned, glaring at the door now. "Ship's computer: open captain's office door."

" _I'm sorry David, I'm afraid I can't do that_."

The captain blinked as he stepped back from the glowing red dot before him, incomprehension and incredulity warring for supremacy.

"Emiya...?" Shepard behind him asked, sounding now much less certain.

" _It looks like this won't work out, Shepard. But, well... I kind of expected that already,_ " the voice spoke wearily.

Turning around to stare at the lieutenant and the still-glowing terminal display at his desk, where the voice was coming through, Anderson began to realize that he might have made a terrible mistake just now.

He had thought the appearance of that asari hacker who had escaped earlier very strange. It had seemed to come out of nowhere, that final bit of excitement with the asari cruiser after Major Kyle had begun to evacuate the asari off the near-derelict starship. He had excused it as some strange bit of asari politics, perhaps some old alliance or friendship the Terror of Thessia had sought out for shelter.

But if it wasn't an asari at all, but rather a human being who had moved to Thessia after deserting the Alliance Navy, then...

"This Emiya..." Anderson began to ask, too incredulous to remain quiet. "He's _that_ 'Redhax'...?"

Shepard nodded, her expression of worry barely visible in the dim light of his office.

" _Don't worry,_ " the hacker in question said. " _Doctor Chakwas has just finished with the skin graft cultivation. This will be all over in a few hours. I'll be gone in a few hours and that'll be that._ "

For a moment Anderson considered shouting; the guards posted just outside would hear him through just the door, surely, if he just shouted loud enough. But what would that accomplish? This was _Redhax_ , he realized with trepidation. He hadn't looked personally into what had transpired on Thessia, but the waves that the event had made were clear to even him.

The Citadel had mobilized everything it could short of a whole fleet and it hadn't even slowed him down. What he and a couple of armed guards do?

"Wait, Emiya..." Shepard floundered, still trying to turn the chair around.

Anderson realized then, that _somehow_ his lieutenant had managed to talk to her old friend and connect with him. That was the only way this situation made sense to him.

He had thought that perhaps Shepard had been fooled before, but now he realized that made no sense. Someone like Redhax wouldn't even need to bother with something that convoluted. The fact that he had completely out-witted the Alliance fleet here and had effectively taken this starship without anyone else realizing was proof enough of the man's competence. No, this set-up only made sense if it really and truly was her friend behind that terminal, humoring her for the sake of that friendship.

The captain simply could not conceive in this instant how things had gotten here otherwise. He looked at her, shame hitting him as a heavy wave as he realized he had allowed his temper to lead him—and worse yet, her—astray.

"Shepard, I..." he began, words of _something_ budding on the tip of his tongue. But as their eyes met all thoughts were blown away.

It was like she was realizing that she had to do something, a moment of pure transformation. As if she was sloughing off shackles and donning a mantle of confidence.

"Captain, do you trust me?" she asked. "Have I ever done anything to make you believe that I had anything other than the best intentions at heart before?"

He shook his head numbly and she nodded.

"Then please, sit down and trust me. You can count on me to always do the right thing, sir."

He nodded again and staggered back to his chair, not quite sure why. At the same time, she glared at the terminal.

"Emiya cut the crap. You're just throwing a tantrum and embarrassing me right now."

Anderson almost tripped over his chair at those words. He stared at his lieutenant with wide eyes, suddenly not too sure whether trusting her was the right choice after all, given that the first thing she did was antagonize their effective captor. The silence was deafening for a long moment, the stillness permeating the room so strongly that Anderson could hardly breathe.

"Now are we gonna talk this out, or are we going to continue acting like drama queens?"

" _Well, if you're going to put it like that, I'm almost inclined to keep going just to prove that I can._ "

"But you won't," Shepard said confidently, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat to wait.

Then, the door behind Shepard unlocked itself, the red circle turning green before the lights in the room flashed back on again. Blinking with surprise at the returned brightness, Anderson gawked. In turn, his protege merely nodded with satisfaction. But he could see the nervousness in her eyes; this had been a close call.

Noticing his staring, she took a deep breath and then continued.

"This is about the meeting you had with the other officers, about _kshirae_. Emiya noticed something was amiss on Mars, years ago, when he investigated the Prothean ruins on his own. Something which led him to Thessia," Shepard explained, pausing for breath. "He intended to study the Protheans there, to better understand his findings. But because of his past and his reputation catching up to him and stuff... Well, _Thessia_ happened. I'm not really sure why, but it did."

Anderson blinked.

He chose to ignore the unfamiliar word, for now, suspecting it was merely another word for indoctrination—which suggested that Shepard hadn't been told everything—and instead focusing more on what she had said about Redhax's motivations.

She made it all seem so innocent, somehow.

Frowning, he couldn't help but question her narrative before she could continue. "The Citadel mobilized the Spectres and the salarians, just because he was looking into the Protheans? I don't believe that. I can't believe that." He scoffed then, remembering something more. "In fact, more than one news outlet seems convinced that you are some kind of black market information dealer and mercenary out to destabilize the galactic economy." Shepard opened her mouth to reply, but he didn't give her time as he finished his thought. "And that was _before_ he dropped a space dock from orbit onto the asari homeworld!"

He realized he had grown heated again, exhaling hotly through his nostrils as he leaned back into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest now, matching her pose.

The lieutenant in the wheelchair said nothing, only frowning minutely. Then, she prompted the terminal. "Well, Emiya?"

" _...Shepard told the truth more or less. Kshirae turned out to be something else; we're calling the phenomenon 'indoctrination' for now, but it is a very real_ _danger,_ " the hacker began. _"But there is more to the Citadel's actions than just that. In fact, I doubt they know anything substantial of my actions on Mars or my studies on Thessia,_ " Redhax answered, surprising Anderson with his apparent candor. His eyes were drawn to Shepard again as he listened to the voice coming through the terminal. " _And while I have been active over the past few years in my—shall we call it—cyber-vigilantism... I believe the bulk of the Citadel's interest in me comes from my previous, and direct, dealings with them._ "

Shepard frowned. "That wasn't in the file you gave me..."

" _It wasn't a publicly acknowledged_ _event,_ " he excused. " _I compiled that using some quick stuff that I was able to scrounge up on the extranet. You won't find any mentions of the events I'm talking about now, on the extranet. The STG would have worked hard to erase any evidence of their failure, I'm sure._ " There was a hint of smugness there, the tan captain noted. Then again, from the sound of it, perhaps he did have plenty of reason to be smug. Very few in the galaxy could boast having gotten one over the Special Tasks Group and getting away with it. " _It has to do with why I had to leave Mars. I made a bargain with them for a life-saving operation. The 'brain problem', I mentioned before._ "

"You cheated the STG on a deal?" Anderson asked, blinking.

" _We both stuck to the letter of our agreement. I merely preemptively made myself scarce before they could inform me that our deal had not included any stipulations for my freedom or safety afterward._ " Shepard snorted at that, shaking her with rueful amusement. " _The information I handed to them as payment—while completely true—was also of much lesser value than I had initially led them to believe. So I suspect their intentions for me are just as much professional as they are personal, at this point._ "

His lieutenant was now grinning, quite amused by the idea of such one-upmanship. She had always had a competitive and flashy streak.

Anderson was beginning to see how she had cultivated a friendship of sorts with the hacker, based on these similarities.

" _Much of what I've done since has been simply due to situations that I could not ignore._ "

"What do you mean?" Anderson asked, focusing anew on the conversation, unable to connect that sentence with the image of the infamous hacker from the news. How did the person who was investigating the Protheans on Thessia while hiding from the STG mesh with the supposed terrorist who was destabilizing the galactic economy?

The gap between those two extremes was still too great for Anderson to bridge.

" _If you could save a life with the press of a button, would you do it?_ " the hacker asked.

Realizing that it was not a rhetorical question after a second of silence, the captain considered it seriously.

"I would," he finally declared. Real-life wasn't that simple and he was sure the man would justify his actions with more reasons, but Anderson could not disagree with that as a basis. "But surely it can't be that simple."

" _Most of the time it is,_ " Redhax denied. " _According to the letter of the law, anyhow. Everywhere I look, I see these buttons. Simple decisions where the choices are to either act or to ignore it altogether._ "

"But..." Anderson began, wanting to argue the point, only realize that there was no way he could work within the system if he had antagonized the salarians and the Citadel so. In fact, wasn't it the Redhax signature that it could not be traced to anyone? The lack of evidence becoming evidence? "Then what about the news about you engaging in information deals and corporate espionage?"

It was mostly curiosity that now fueled his questions, rather than antagonism or an attempt at denying the man's actions. He simply was not familiar enough with the man or his actions to mount any kind of true criticism yet.

" _News agencies play their tunes to the beat provided by their shareholders and donors. Whenever I blew open a cartel or a credit washing operation or what-have-you, they would hastily cover it up by any means necessary. And on top of that, it's not all me. A year back I had to spend as much time on countering the attempts of copycats and false-flags using my 'name', as actually 'pushing buttons'. Most of them were hired by those same parties—or their ilk whom I had yet to get to—in an attempt to drum up public opposition against me,_ " the hacker explained with a disdainful scoff. " _Eventually they realized I wasn't going to stop and they were starting to run out of credits and social capital, so they tried to wash their hands by re-branding, trying to pretend nothing had happened. But at that point—those who hadn't been already been caught, anyhow—began running afoul of corporate law in a dozen systems with their rapid downsizing._ " He chuckled now. _"At that point, I was even employing lawyers from the same firms as they were to comb over the details for various unions. A real shitshow all-around._ "

Shepard seemed to draw a vicious pleasure from what she was hearing, Anderson noticed, no doubt remembering her own run-ins with the press after the Skyllian Blitz.

"I see..." Anderson said neutrally, hesitating to say anything more. It really was just the hacker's word against the collective word of the various galactic news organizations.

The voice from the terminal paused and then as if only just remembering a detail he had forgotten to mention, he continued in a much more serious tone of voice. " _And what happened on Thessia was somebody else. I certainly am complicit in how far things escalated there and knew the owner of the orbital station from before, I was not a part of what happened there. Not until the end, when it was already falling and needed to be stopped, anyhow_."

"Then who did it?"

" _...I don't know. Not yet anyhow. It seems like everyone was blindsided, and in the chaos of the aftermath there just wasn't time to investigate. The trail appeared lost, given how damaged the Thessian information infrastructure was by that point._ "

A somber silence descended upon the room, pressing down on any further questions.

Until now, Anderson hadn't known what to think of the hacker, but he was beginning to get a better picture of him. He could now see quite clearly how Shepard had managed to befriend the man, even if the idea still boggled the mind. It was also apparent that despite his notoriety, the man wasn't all-powerful.

At the moment, the captain wasn't sure what to feel about that revelation. _Because it might be a closer thing than anyone will be comfortable with..._

Finally, having gathered his thoughts, he asked the question foremost on his mind, "Then why all this?"

What did they want with him?

At that, Shepard looked uncomfortable. But she forged on. "It's because of what happened on the asari cruiser, with the asari that the batarians had kidnapped."

"Indoctrination?" he asked, suddenly realizing that he had _again_ forgotten about the matter in the recent confusion. "So it's real?" he asked with furrowed brows.

" _Yes._ "

Closing his eyes, Anderson inhaled deeply as he slumped into his chair. That did not change much; it merely confirmed things. He still wasn't sure how much he could trust the hacker, but as with his earlier suspicions regarding Shepard being tricked, it simply did not make sense to assume this was a ploy anymore. Perhaps the AIA had some ulterior motive with distracting the Navy brass with new protocols, performing some fell deeds or deals out of sight.

But if it was just one man who had put together everything he had been presented with at the meeting?

It didn't seem reasonable. Surely a hacker of his talents could achieve a hypothetical, more nefarious goal, though much simpler and more efficient means if he put his mind to it than that?

"Do you expect there to be more cases in the future?" Anderson asked gloomily.

" _...Probably. I'm not the only one who believes it to be a possibility. At the very least, it's better to be prepared._ "

Sighing, the captain nodded. Then, not certain if the gesture had been seen he voiced his understanding. "I see."

"I thought it was important to introduce you two, captain, because I might not be able to remain in the Alliance Navy for long," Shepard explained.

That got his attention, before he was reminded of his own secret mission. "I see. So you were the Alliance Intelligence Agent after all, Shepard." He sighed heavily with equal disappointment and frustration.

She merely nodded, unashamed despite being caught out.

"And the hearing on Arcturus Station is so that they can pressure you to report back in person," he continued and she nodded again. "What do they want to know?" he probed.

Shepard grimaced. "I approached them because I wanted to find out what had happened to Emiya—why it was covered up and why none of it seemed to make no sense..." she explained, glaring for a frustrating moment at the terminal that remained studiously silent. "And the AIA opened doors that I didn't even know existed before. They asked very little and it felt like I was helping pass vital information along," she said and shrugged. "Sometimes I would notice something that I had reported making it to guidelines and reports that we got from Arcturus Station. Things related to the batarians and pirates..."

Her words trailed off.

"But now it seems obvious they only approached me to set a trap for Emiya," she finished with an annoyed expression, hitting her palm with her fist to vent her frustration. "Now that they think he's approached me, they're recalling me."

"To spring a trap on him, or to hold you hostage..." Anderson agreed. Then, he shook his head as he met Shepard's eyes again. "I warned you about them, Shepard."

Anderson never took pleasure in having had foreknowledge of such things, especially when it affected those he knew personally. But he _had_ told her so. She could only nod and shrug, having decided then that the risks had been worth it at the time.

" _I see. So that's how it was._ " Anderson blinked, surprised with how amused the hacker sounded. Then, with no minor dread, the captain realized what was coming. " _Fine. Let them spring their 'trap'. I've lain low for long enough, so why not take this opportunity to turn it back around on them?_ "

"Whoa, hold on a minute Emiya," Shepard interjected. "The whole point of this is to make allies, right? There's no point in getting tangled up in a stupid fight if you don't have to, _right?_ "

" _And if they intend to burn you that would remove one of said allies from my side, making them an enemy, no?_ "

She hesitated at the logic, then shook her head. "That's why you should work with Captain Anderson—he _can't_ be burned by them, not easily at least, _and_ he's a senior officer and he's much better connected with the rest of the Navy than I am. If he took this to Admiral Hackett, then—"

" _And risk having the Citadel make the wrong—or perhaps_ right, _depending on how you look at it—conclusions from that?_ " Redhax countered calmly.

Shepard paused, frowning as she processed his words, effectively allowing him to continue.

" _In fact, a very public humiliation of the Alliance like that might even do them good diplomatically. I certainly don't intend to hold back on any Earth-based corporations while in the neighborhood._ _Why would I make an exception for the Systems Alliance itself, then?_ "

Anderson felt a cold shiver of dread run down his spine as he heard the confident proclamation.

While the Systems Alliance was by no means perfect, he had still taken oaths to protect it from enemies within and without. It was more than mere words; it was a duty to which he had dedicated his whole life to. A solemn oath he truly believed in.

Perhaps the hacker meant well and could accomplish much good with his talents and proactivity, assuming that his stated motivations were true and Shepard's trust was not misplaced. But that didn't mean he had the unilateral right to simply do it; it wasn't merely buttons and simple binary decisions, no matter how much he would insist on it. The more such an outsider intervened to fix something in the system, the more the whole would begin to fall apart as those who chose to abide by and live within it—for whatever reason—would begin to lose faith and seek alternatives.

It could unravel the very fabric of the social contract.

But he held his tongue in check, suppressing the urge to speak up as he forced himself to _think,_ having suddenly grown a healthy understanding of the headaches the various operatives of the Citadel and the asari of Thessia must have had from dealing with Redhax.

He couldn't oppose the hacker. Not directly and most likely not covertly either, given the sheer disparity in their abilities. Even at square one, how much they knew about each other differed so greatly that any conflict would be over before it even began. Redhax could observe Anderson every hour of every day without his knowledge, while the tan captain couldn't even so much as say whether the other was aboard his own damn ship. That humiliating—or perhaps, humbling, if he wished to sound less self-deprecating—realization had to temper all of his actions going forward.

Shepard made an annoyed sound of protest, trying to think of a response as she crossed her arms confrontationally, no doubt experiencing similar thoughts as he was currently. Worse yet, she had little in the way of his years of experience in politics to draw experience and temperance from.

But she was the key, he realized.

_She_ was the only one who seemed to have any kind of handle on his actions, as seemingly the only one he listened to at all. But he could not hope to manipulate her either, facing not only the same issues as with covertly working against Redhax directly, but also the issue of Shepard being no fool.

Meaning that for the time being, he could only trust in his protege.

"What about Benezia and Saren?" Shepard asked, jolting Anderson out of his thoughts.

_Saren?_

"If they know about indoctrination then can't they call all of it off, now that you're working together?"

Anderson's frown intensified at the thought of the hacker working with the turian Spectre, suddenly remembering his past involvement with him springing to mind all too vividly. Looking up, he wiped his expression clean as he focused on the conversation again.

" _I don't trust them,_ " Redhax replied curtly. " _Besides, I doubt even they could 'pardon me' so easily, especially given that I would not stop what I've been doing until now, even after all of this has been settled._ "

The tan captain struggled with keeping himself expressionless even as Shepard scowled at the terminal between them. While knowing that Saren was not in command of the hacker was good, the man's sheer bullheadedness frankly shook him. He seemed determined to remain on a collision course with the rest of the galaxy.

But why?

Anderson shook his head. He wouldn't be able to figure that out, not by himself anyhow and not anytime soon. But he could tell Shepard what he thought of the matter. By sharing what he and the officers had been told, his misgivings about the hacker's motivations, and warning her about Saren, he could at least steer her clear of the worst pitfalls and help her get a grip of the reins.

Noticing that Shepard's hackles were being raised and that she was about to begin arguing with Redhax, Anderson coughed to interject. This wasn't the time or place. She blinked and looked at him. "He has a point, lieutenant."

That only made her more confused.

"In a—" he hesitated for a moment, grimacing as he couldn't deny the word he needed to use here. "— _conspiracy_ like this, it is vital to maintain a certain level of deniability and expendability." He raised a hand to forestall her, understanding how strongly she felt about the justness of their cause from her expression alone. "Sometimes even in doing the right thing, there will be fallout. And we must accept that and strive to ensure that we do not bring everyone else down with us. Just as you were committed and ready to pay the price for dealing with Alliance Intelligence, so too, must I consider the costs."

Using her own situation against her like this might have been unfair, but she accepted his argument nonetheless, which was the most important part. Steven had entrusted him with finding out what was going on with Shepard and he had accepted. Even if the scope of the problem far exceeded his original expectations, there was no way he would allow this to crash and burn the admiral now.

Shepard exhaled through her nose, her furrowed brows speaking volumes.

"...Fine," she finally said with an explosive sigh.

Anderson grunted, understanding her frustrations perfectly.

"Then, what are your plans for now? And what should I call you?" the captain asked the terminal.

" _Emiya is fine,_ " the hacker replied casually. " _And while I've nominally agreed to work with the turian Spectre, we haven't agreed on anything yet. We're meeting in a few weeks, but I would prefer being more familiar with him before the actual meeting itself takes place._ "

"And Alliance Intelligence will no doubt have compiled dossiers on him."

Emiya chuckled at the captain's comment, making no effort to deny it.

" _If I can accomplish more than one goal that way, then why not?_ "

Anderson nodded. "Alright. Then what of me, if you intend to stand by Shepard against them?"

" _Nothing, for now. Unless Shepard had something more in_ _mind_." He waited moment to give her a chance to interject, before continuing. _"Besides, don't you already have your hands full with transporting the wounded and preparing the indoctrination protocols?_ " Emiya asked. " _Especially with your second-in-command out of commission. For now, anyhow. It is by no means meaningless busywork, if that's what you thought._ "

Frowning yet feeling somewhat relieved, all the same, the captain nodded as Shepard shook her head.

"Alright."

That concluded the meeting, leaving David Anderson alone in his office again as his lieutenant returned to the sickbay before any of the orderlies came looking for the wheelchair-bound woman.

As for himself, he couldn't help but wonder what he would tell the Admiral. The hacker had displayed his complete and utter control over the situation, meaning that there would be no point in trying to act against him. _I will have to ask Hackett to trust me on this if he asks. If he looks into matters independently, then..._ Rubbing his brow and leaning back against his chair, he couldn't help but sigh again at what a mess he had been pulled into. _I'll call him now, while I'm still certain that the hacker is listening before we leave for Arcturus Station._

"Computer, priority call to Admiral Hackett."

As the terminal responded in its usual manner, the captain couldn't help but let out a relieved sigh.

* * *

;

* * *

"Councilor Tevos, it is good to see you," Benezia greeted warmly.

"And you as well, Honored Matriarch." The asari on the display replied with an incline of her head small enough that it honored her elder without compromising the status of her office. "The frightful news of the Dreyn N'var's destruction has disturbed many among our people, asari and others alike. But word of your safety will surely ease the minds of all now."

Benezia smiled in acknowledgment, but internally her mind was whirring at the implication there. The Councilor was implying that her political base had become weakened somehow? She had been out of the loop for a mere handful of hours; what could she have missed in so little time?

Her mind whirled with possibilities, hypothetical pieces falling into place to fit the reality she found herself in.

The disaster at Thessia and its aftermath—the increased gatherings of Matriarchs on Thessia—the deaths of Nirida Henell and the rescued asari—Liara's involvement with Baliya Haphia—The push for political power by the younger Asari Matriarchs—the Siarist spiritual unions, disunited and discontent for so long despite their nominal majority...

"I see, so Matriarch Trellani has finally chosen to make her move?" Benezia asked quietly, before shaking her head at Tevos' reaction all but confirming her suspicions. "Then..."

That would make things more difficult for her, as well Tevos knew. The Councilor said nothing, giving Benezia time to think.

Evacuating the asari would be a matter of merely asking the right people and informing them of the public relations boosting opportunity. The disaster at Thessia would no longer be a pressing matter and there would be numerous parties, who would be more than to help her with her crew and stand out among the hundreds and thousands already crowding the Thessian efforts.

But that wouldn't be enough.

Not with indoctrination as a risk.

But if her power base was being hollowed out beneath her, then finding someone willing and able to quarantine her entire crew would be much more difficult. Even if they kept it quiet—no, that would not work if the abandoning of her cruiser had already become public knowledge; they would have to make it a public affair. Something no one would want to be a part of if they could help it.

Perhaps if she could—no, but perhaps if...

Benezia grimaced as she considered numerous options, finally coming to a conclusion.

The optimal course of action would be to rely on Emiya, entrapping two moons in one orbit. He had access to resources that would ensure that she could care for her people without losing political capital, and it would work to bring them closer. Normally, after being entrusted with a vital yet sensitive matter—like ensuring that her crew was neither in, nor a, source of danger—as she had been, asking for help would be a sure sign of incompetence. Something that would surely jeopardize their fledgling alliance.

But that man was rather strange.

The biggest obstacle in their relationship at the moment was her seeming surplus of competence. Simply put, he was wary of her. By asking for help, it would lower his estimation of her to a more reasonable level, from where she could more aptly apply her talents of persuasion on him. Additionally, she had a gut instinct that he would consider helping her a favor to himself, _somehow_. It was that delectable mixture of maturity and immaturity; how he safeguarded himself from everyone else by wrapping himself in cynic stoicism, keeping his core of idealistic warmth hidden from the world.

_Like a bonrl treat,_ she thought with a small smile. _A sweet, running core covered in a hard, bitter crust._

Not too dissimilar from Saren, either. Though that one clad himself in duty and convenient prejudices.

Benezia shook her head; these thoughts were getting her side-tracked from more important immediate matters. Of course, she had only entertained those thoughts because she already knew what had to be done, day-dreaming of alternatives for a few moments before she had to make up her mind.

The human was gone and she had no way of contacting him and she had no leverage on the turian, and worse yet, this matter could not wait. Every hour counted, which was why she had contacted Tevos on a priority line. A good solution now was better than a perfect one tomorrow.

She would have to cut loose Liara and leave her daughter to fend for herself, for starters. Picking a fight with those old biddies and drawing them in—perhaps even pushing them to ally themselves with the Siarists against her—was completely out of the question. Then again, hadn't she and her Little Wing agreed to already do so when she had left for Usaru? To cut ties and allow her daughter to live independently? Not that Benezia had ever truly stopped meddling in her little professor's life from behind the scenes. But now she would not be able to afford to waste the political capital.

Not with both Haphia and Henell dead and unable to speak for Liara.

Perhaps she would have to entrust the matter with Aethyta. She had been acting very protective as of late, hadn't she?

"She will have to wait for now," Benezia said as she continued the conversation. "Trellani has been waiting for this for well over a hundred years, I am certain she will not mind waiting a few more."

Tevos blinked, clearly surprised by her decision to ignore the threat. "Oh?"

"Has Saren reported any of our recent revelations, yet?" Benezia continued, knowing that he would not have. But given Emiya's decision to move forward overtly, she was certain that the best method remaining for her would be to rely on the Citadel's power through Saren as a proxy.

The Asari Councilor had not, Benezia deduced from the silence.

The turian _had_ been oddly quiet. She wondered what Emiya had done to him, for him to be out of commission for so long.

"I am certain he will soon. But for now, I must jump the gun and request for the Citadel's aid with transporting and quarantining both the remaining crew of the Dreyn N'var and the ship itself."

"Of course." If Tevos had not been interested before. "I shall dispatch whatever aid I can. In the meantime, what _has_ Spectre Arterius been doing?"

Then she was _now._

* * *

;

* * *

Saren woke up, groggy and confused.

First, there was pain. Then panic. Finally, consciousness and control.

Struggling up into a seated position, his beady eyes scanned the empty room as he tried to re-assert himself. Vague memories mixed with hallucinations and nightmarish thoughts. Every motion shot another lancet of pain tingling through his upper body, but somehow, strangely...

He felt lighter.

As if his thoughts were clearer and unrestrained, somehow. Like someone had been screaming in his ear for so long that he had gotten used to it, only for that source of chaos and distress to somehow vanished, leaving him with nothing but an alien silence.

The turian shook his head and got up, grimacing at the lack of geth platforms near him. None seemed to be forthcoming, leaving him only with the grim conclusion that they were otherwise preoccupied at the moment. _No doubt reporting my every failing to their master..._

At least they had patched him as best they could, Saren thought as he looked at himself gingerly, but he was far from being actually well enough for action again. Even reaching over for the painkillers on the nearby tray was a near-herculean task. An injury like this couldn't be so easily fixed. It would take at least half a dozen operations and months of physical therapy, even with the Citadel's greatest medical minds working together.

It would take time and rest that he could not afford. Not now, not soon, likely not ever given the way things were escalating.

After struggling for a few minutes to work his omnitool, Saren gave up and instead found a terminal instead. He had too much work to do, preparing for Eden Prime and Emiya Shirou. He needed to mobilize his personal resources, clear up time in the next two weeks, ensure that the geth wouldn't be able to come along and spy on their meeting...

Every movement made his battered arm burn worse and worse. _Maybe I should just cut it off..._ But he ignored it, suppressing the sensations and gritting his teeth through his work.

Everything was coming crashing down around him.

The geth had seen the entire debacle and had likely already told their 'god' _everything_.

The krogan loose end was gone; the Alliance having somehow caught wind of the mercenaries Saren had hired and had created an opportunity for the ancient battlemaster to escape.

The batarians potentially had their own black ops program relating to indoctrination and Reaper tech, which they had managed to keep secret even while Saren had been supplying this cell with Citadel materiel and munitions.

Emiya Shirou had escaped, but had several Alliance warships on his trail, already too far away for the turian to be able to intervene.

Benezia and her asari were aboard who knew how many Alliance ships and completely beyond his ability to silence now.

Councilor Tevos had sent him a message, all but demanding an immediate reply...

Saren took a shuddering inhale, sorting everything out in his head and enforcing order on his thoughts. This was hardly his first crisis and it certainly wouldn't be his last, given the direction the galaxy was headed in.

He could only suck it up and keep going, one problem at a time.

The geth had never been his allies, strictly speaking. They were useful and acted as manpower and resources when he couldn't leave any trails using his normal methods. But he had not allowed himself to rely on them. And luckily they were very simple, even naïve when it came to dealing with organics.

A weakness he had no intention of rectifying any time soon.

The real problem was the damned Reaper.

Saren would have to play it by ear until he knew what conclusions Sovereign had drawn. Until then... _I believe him to be a risk because of his ability to overpower the geth; I chose to meet him on Eden Prime without any geth, but failed to find a chance to eliminate him..._ That might work for a while, as far as excuses went.

But eventually, he would have to put the human down to appease the Reaper. But for now, he was much too valuable, both as a source of information and as a temporary ally. But, surely a time would come in the future when the ever-shifting scales tilted _just_ out of the human's favor, and t͏ _h̷_ e _n͜͞_...

Another wave of nausea passed through him, forcing Saren to focus on simply breathing for long seconds as the floor and walls seemed to swim before his eyes.

"That's one matter..." he told himself, willing himself to keep going.

The krogan had somehow escaped, which was a problem. But he hadn't made contact with the humans and better yet, the incident seemed to have spooked the old lizard into hiding. So for the moment that could wait.

The Batarian Hegemony had in their tantrum pulled back all of their channels from the Citadel Presidium, halting all trade and blockading all travel through their vast territories. Officially, anyhow. In practice, however, there were still numerous lines of communications and trade, with travel being no more restricted than it had been before; their supposed territories were simply too vast for their government to actually govern.

But he was fairly certain that getting anything out of his sources in the Hegemony would be like pulling fangs. If past experiences were anything to go by, he might have to shelve over valuable minerals and metals in the sums of millions of credits, before he got anything useful out of the four-eyed aliens.

And as far as tracking down the hacker went, if the whole of the Citadel hadn't managed it until now, then there was little point in worrying over the _humans_ managing it. _But, he did imply he would be heading towards human-controlled territories..._

Mandibles flickered with amusement as a possibility sprung to mind.

"I might have a use for that one, then..."

Saren hadn't yet managed to form any plans for activating his newest asset, given the hurry with which he had had to leave for Torfan. But perhaps that would be for the best; allowing her to think it had been intentional. Keeping her on her toes and allowing her to believe he had had a plan for her the whole time.

The hardest part would be phrasing the order right, to ensure she did not reveal anything were she to be caught. But so long as she didn't realize why she was being sent back home, then it would be fine. In fact, it might even appear to the hacker that she would be working for her own organization rather than him, muddying the trail just enough to pass scrutiny and not endanger the truce.

And finally...

Saren grimaced again, considering the last to issues he had on his agenda. He had no idea what Benezia might have told the asari councilor and he could not afford to cross the Citadel Council. So as much as it galled him, he now would have to contact the matriarch and talk to her.

"Well played, old woman."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a pretty short chapter since I didn't want any Emiya or Shepard points of view here. That said, for a moment there she went 50 points Paragon on Anderson and then immediately afterwards 75 points Renegade on Emiya :D
> 
> Anyhow, sort of a wrapping up of Torfan that I couldn't fit in the previous chapter. I kind of struggled with how to end this chapter, too since it's just 10k-ish words. You know you've gone too far when you think: "This is _just_ 10,000 words. I can't possibly publish _this_..." haha :V
> 
> Next stop: Arcturus Station.


	38. Arcturus Advent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1-20 have been proofread and edited again. While I did that, I also re-wrote some scenes in Citadel Shindig and Serial Shenanigans relating to cybernetics. Biggest change were some of the dialogue during the party with Mordin, and removing the NP Emiya used to heal himself; it really work since it was just an ad hoc Avalon on my part, which was just lazy, given that there were canon methods for handling that issue. Also some of the dialogue with Hoana and the chase down to Dretirop.
> 
> Once I get around to chapter 20 onward, I might also make other similar minor changes. We'll see.
> 
> Also, that guest reviewer who keeps dropping essays as reviews: wtf&thx&lol

_White wall, white ceiling, stretching just beyond his reach in all directions._

_Somehow he couldn't quite tell the dimensions of this room at times. He would stare out and then suddenly it would be as if the far wall was a hundred miles away. And then in the blink of an eye, it would be back to where he knew it was._

_It wasn't anything strange, or anything wrong with his perceptions._

_The lack of features was simply throwing him off when his mind wandered. It was an amusingly enough accurate parallel to how he had gotten here._ Scale _. First, he saved one. Then two. One life to save another or two._

_There had been a certain faux-enlightened smugness when he had recognized it happening and thought that he understood what it meant. His ideal wasn't to save one person, or even to save the world. It was never something that concrete, rather it was the idea of saving. Of saving everyone he needed it. Of course, that was impossible. He had known that since his earliest days on this path. That much was an obvious truism._

_But it was the_ act _of saving that was important._

_Which meant that there could be no retreat. There could be no defeat._

_Then ten people—sometimes at the cost of one or two—and soon a hundred lives were saved at a time. An intoxicating amount, enough that he could, however temporarily, all of the pain and blood. In hindsight, it was obvious how he would end up. The only surprising thing was that it had taken so long for it to happen._

_And now thousand, a hundred thousand, millions at a time...?_

_Regardless, any and all claims he could lay to wisdom and experience were well and truly null and void, since he had been unable to foresee just how far things could grow._

_He'd lost hope of even counting this time around._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya's stomach lurched back into relative normalcy again, as the SSV Tokyo appeared on the far side of the mass relay, having completed the jump through hundreds of light-years in the space of a few moments.

He inhaled once, then focused on exhaling slowly for a long time.

Arcturus system; the headquarters and capital of the Systems Alliance, and in theory, humanity. It was the first system outside of the Sol system that humanity had set foot into when in 2149 Jon Grissom first traveled through the Charon Relay at the edge of humanity's then-traversable space. One red giant star, three planets, one asteroid belt, and most importantly, several other relays. To sweeten the deal, two of those planets were hydrogen-helium gas giants, making them effectively inexhaustible sources of fuel for the System Alliance's continued expansion.

Of course, the lack of a habitable world put something of a damper on those plans, initially. Certainly, the third planet, Eunomia, was solid ground beneath your feet if all you wanted was to land. But it was a frozen ball lacking any atmosphere or any useful minerals, so very far away from the best source of energy in the system; the star. It wasn't even worth using as a source of water since the asteroid belt was plentiful with water vapor.

Therefore, the burgeoning star-faring species decided to instead _build_ their first new habitat beyond Sol.

Using the materials found in the asteroid belt and from various other celestial bodies within relay's reach, the projected was started in 2151. Over ten years of work, over a trillion credits in materials alone, the blood, sweat, and tears of countless who helped build it later, _Arcturus Station_ was completed.

A monument to humanity; a massive Stanford Torus-type space station in stable L5 orbit around Themis, the first planet orbiting the red giant star. Essentially it was a great, big doughnut, spinning just fast enough to create artificial gravity without the use of element zero, with a massive mirror floating above it to guide the ray's of Arcturus where they were needed most, be it the hydroponics facilities or then the massive solar panels at the center of the doughnut.

It was to this day the greatest man-made structure in the galaxy, capable of permanently housing nearly fifty-thousand people.

Which meant that it was utterly dwarfed by the Citadel.

A fact which no doubt fueled humanity's nascent inferiority complex, given how until the First Contact War, they had thought themselves the lone masters of the universe, with this their new throne from which to expand out into the galaxy. Grand dreams, dashed very quickly as the Citadel had intervened to end humanity's first interstellar war, showing all too clearly just how vast the rest of existence still was.

But that was hardly the only reason it interested him very little at that moment, his cybernetic senses reaching out with the cruiser's sensors almost by themselves to follow his thoughts.

The Local Relay—the Arcturus pair of the Charon Relay—hung some hundred million kilometers from the Relay he had just come through, all-too tempting as he thought about his return to the Moon Cell. To say that there was no temptation to leave for Sol right then and there would have been a lie, but for now, he could only patiently wait.

Lacking any starship of his own and onboard a Systems Alliance cruiser on a strict schedule, he didn't have many options for striking out on his own. Even ignoring the numerous injured from Torfan aboard, there was still the matter of the entire First Fleet to consider. Largest of the Alliance's fleet, it was tasked with the security of Arcturus Station, system, the various mass relays, and finally the Local Relay leading back to Earth.

Not the kinds of odds he wanted to take on at the moment, so ultimately he could only sigh as he crossed his freshly re-gloved arms.

_Literally_ re-gloved, as it turned out.

It had been a fairly interesting process to follow, being more than a little distracting during his conversation with the ship's captain. At first, they had fixed several of his torn muscles, re-attaching what would have otherwise become little more than useless flesh back to the ligaments to ensure that he wouldn't experience too much loss in muscle functionality. Even so, his left bicep still felt a little too tight at full extension; something he had been assured was fine, as his mind and body would adjust themselves to it with time.

Then, the various layers which Emiya had never bothered to remember had been fixed one by one, using increasingly freakish and fascinating devices and designs. At one point, he was certain they were literally painting something back onto his body. _Perhaps that was some sort of healing agent, or a glue for the next part..._

Until finally, the fully grown skin graft was brought in. It had quite literally been like putting on a bespoke glove; a near-perfect fit where all that was necessary afterward was stitching it up to his existing skin. That was then repeated three more times, once for every limb. He almost felt like Frankenstein's monster from the old movies, what with all of the stitches around his limbs and the paler tone of skin clashing with that of his unmarred hide.

All he had been missing was the bolts on his temples and a half-dozen grave robberies.

The skin grafts felt slightly odd now, tingling with what he could only describe as 'white noise' from the nerves that had not quite yet acclimated themselves with his brain. They weren't quite right. The Doctor Chakwas had told him that he should remain in bed for a good month before he could even think about beginning physical therapy, preferably with all of his operated limbs upraised at all times. But he just didn't have time for that; there was simply too much to do. It wasn't even _that_ bad. Having a hole drilled in his hip bone for the marrow sample necessary to cultivate the skin grafts had been much worse, as had the process of losing the skin in the first place. Even if he would have to oil the skin daily, since the pores and sweat glands did not work properly on the grafted skin, he didn't see any reason to just lie around.

Besides, working through the pain was almost nostalgic. Maybe he would have for a light workout with a blade. Some easy rehab to get his nerves acclimatized before things kicked into gear again...

"Huh," Shepard looked up, just then. "We're out of the relay now."

Emiya nodded at her observation, half-surprised she could tell as he leaned back in his chair. "The Tokyo is headed for the dreadnought. Once the patients are off-loaded, it's straight to Arcturus Station."

It was probably from long experience aboard this specific starship, growing used to its engines and the nearly-imperceptible changes in sound and vibration, rather than any ability to sense the colossal mass effect fields like he did, he decided.

She nodded, leaning back in her bunk before his chair. She was still under medical observation, as the good doctor had loudly declared that she would not be getting out of that bed a single second before they were at Arcturus Station. He suspected it was mostly because Chakwas had found no authority to pull on him and he had dismissed all of her advice, once the operation was over and done with.

"We're cutting it a bit close, huh..."

"I'm sure they won't mind," he commented gruffly. "You're here now and couldn't get away anymore, even if you tried."

Shepard nodded again and then put her head back down on the pillow, staring vacantly at the ceiling. Then, noticing that he was getting up, she blinked.

"Where are you going?"

He looked down at her, rolling his shoulders. "I need to see how far I can push myself, and we have a few hours before we're at Arcturus Station."

Her brows furrowed. "But Chakwas told you to stay put," she then pointed out quietly, not wanting to draw the aforementioned doctor's attention.

"That hardly matters if I need to fight or run. I need to see how hard I can push myself—every little bit means I don't need to put others at risk," he explained quietly with a scoff. He had broken enough kneecaps and arms for a lifetime already. If his condition really was that bad, then he would simply have to change his approach entirely. "I need to know how hard I can push myself," he repeated again. "To know whether or not I can help you, if things turn sour."

Shepard blinked then, thoughtful.

Finally, she nodded. "Alright, but I'm coming with you. Grab the wheelchair," she commanded, pointing. "I want to see this for myself."

"What am I, a performance artist?" he groused but obeyed nonetheless.

It was better to get moving before Chakwas caught a whiff of their intentions. Shepard sat down snug and smug in the chair, following him quietly as he left. With all of the injured being crammed onto the warships returning to Arcturus, there wasn't much room for swordplay anywhere.

But he just needed a few square meters, nothing more.

Mentally cataloging and checking through every nook, cranny, and corner of the cruiser, he finally found a half-decent spot; a storage room that wasn't rated for housing personnel due to poor ventilation, usually used for munitions and materiel storage. With the operation on Torfan, the room had been all but cleared out, giving him plenty of room.

And it wasn't far if they took the elevator, he thought with a backward glance at Shepard.

He didn't want to overexert her while she was still recovering, or get her worked up into moving about on her own. He would have to keep it short to convince her that he was taking it just as easy as she was. _Maybe I should pretend exhaustion..._? He frowned, dismissing the idea. It would probably lead her to believe she needed to work harder to compensate, rather than to take it easy. Giving her an annoyed glance, he mused at how annoying it was to deal with someone like her. Too stubborn, too proactive, and all too sure that they should throw themselves into the line of fire for others' sake. Irrational and worse than that, difficult to predict and control. If he didn't do something about her, she would be jumping into an early grave headfirst with a running start.

Entering the storage room, he nodded.

"Alright, this will work." Turning around he glanced at her, noting that she had followed him the whole way and showed no signs of intending to leave. With an aggrieved sigh, he nodded again, this time towards a corner where there was space enough for her wheelchair in between two large crates. She would be out of his way there. "Go there if you're not leaving."

"Sure. But what are we doing here? The gym is three levels down from here," she queried.

Emiya didn't answer, instead locking the door with a mental effort as he began rolling his shoulders. Now that he had some privacy, he could take off the damn helmet for a while. Wearing the damn thing constantly was starting to chafe already, especially knowing that he might not get many chances to take it off in the near future. Setting aside the helmet on one of the crates, he stepped back to the center of the room.

Then, without any preamble he Projected his twin blades, grasping them with numb hands. Grimacing, he adjusted his grip and simply focused on how the wrapped leather and hard hilt felt. Because he knew _exactly_ how it _should_ feel.

Just as when his cybernetics had been scrambled on Thessia, if he knew what he was supposed to be sensing, it was easy enough to simply adjust himself to it. The extended tips acting as a lever, the artificial gravity pulling them down; the weight on the intermediate phalanges of his index and middle finger, while the pommel pressed against the heel of his palm and the pad of his thumb. Closing his eyes, he exhaled and rolled the blade around in his hand lightly, simply registering the sensation of the hilt moving around in his hand.

_Hmm, not bad. I'll need a few hours to work out the kinks for certain, but..._

"Hey, it's those swords again!" Shepard exclaimed excitedly.

Emiya's eyes opened and he turned to glare at her, his focus disturbed. But the sheer wonder in her eyes that were unerringly tracking the white blade in his right hand knocked all the air out of his indignation.

"Here," he said, flipping the blade in his hand with only-barely-acceptable expertise, offering out the hilt of the sword for her inspection.

She accepted it gingerly, her eyes going wide at the weight of the weapon as she grasped it.

"It's... _heavy._ "

"A little bit. But that's good," he remarked, before turning back to focus on the black blade in his hand. Maybe with something to distract her, she wouldn't bother him again, so that he could...

"Why do you fight with swords, anyhow?" she asked, immediately deflating that hope. "I mean, I _know_ you can handle a gun."

Frowning, he considered what to say. How did he explain their mystical aspects without getting caught in the need to explain a hundred other things to her? Well, that wasn't all, even if it did matter a great deal. The swords were heavy, as she had correctly pointed out. Which meant that in the hands of a superhuman fighter they could deal much more damage than a gun could. It was a matter of kinetic energy versus momentum, which was also why he had come to prefer loosing arrows overusing guns when at range. Defensively they also held the advantage, since if a powerful opponent crossed the distance, he didn't have to waste any time switching into a defensive mode, and...

"Oh, I get it," she opined, cutting off his line of thought, _again._ "You just like them. Got it."

He frowned, a refutation hot on his lips but he paused as she pointed at his left hand with the tip of Bakuya in hers. Kanshou stopped the continuous, circular and spiraling movements it had been undergoing as he stared at it; his left hand even in its debilitated state, was still familiar enough to perform the usual warm-ups and joint stretches on its own. Frown turned to grimace, as he tried to recoup a denial still.

Shepard had crossed her arms over the white blade sitting in her lap, smirking at him with plain amusement now. "It's kind of unexpected, Emiya. I used to think you were super serious all the time, but you're actually kind of a goofball, huh?"

Scoffing, he turned his back to her. _I won't even dignify that with a reply._ Any answer or argument at this point would only be giving her the satisfaction of thinking she had gotten under his skin. Going back to his exercise, he slowly began working his way up in range of motion and intensity. He was still keeping it at less than a fifth of his usual strength and speed, keeping the flowing magical energy in his body focused on how the skin grafts were holding up. _Seems fine so far. I might have to extend a sword or two from within my body, if I kick it up a notch. If I just extend it out from above the back of the elbow, it should keep the rest of the skin from getting loose, with minimal damage._

"I can't exactly fault your choice, though. You were pretty amazing on Benezia's ship," Shepard said quietly.

Emiya only nodded, though he didn't check to see if she was even looking at him. It was time to start incorporating some footwork into his test. After all, the maximum power he could exert from just his arms was nothing compared to what he could do with his feet. Every powerful strike, cut and move began from the ground, moving up your feet and up to your hips and back. Why train your biceps or triceps, when the latissimus dorsi—the back muscles, and the largest muscles in the upper body—would still be stronger in their untrained state?

And that was without even considering the quadriceps and hamstrings, no slouches when it come to power generation either.

Taking a single step forward, he dropped and shifted his weight, feeding all of the energy created from moving all of his body mass up the chain of his body, through his back into his shoulder, down his left arm into his hand which finally swung out so fast that the grasped blade simply vanished for a single instant.

The sound of the blade parting air was so sharp that he could see Shepard flinching with surprise.

"Where did you learn how to do all this, anyway...?" she asked, clearly impressed.

He twirled the sword in his left hand with a satisfied expression before bringing it in a reverse grip and hiding it behind his arm. Facing her, he shrugged easily.

"Here and there, it's mostly just hard work. Anyone can learn if they try."

"Huh." She blinked, hesitating for a second as she looked down at the sword in her own hands with considering eyes, before she nodded. "Then... Could you teach me?"

Emiya paused, brows furrowing.

"That's..."

He was about to say that it would be useless for her. Contemporary combat made melee weapons useless. She would be better off sticking with guns, like she had been until now. But that wasn't actually entirely true. It had been mostly true back in his day, but it wasn't anymore. Weapons and armor technology always went hand in hand, competing with one another for dominance. When he had been alive, weapons had effectively been dominating given how efficient gunpowder weapons were against people.

But today, with mass effect technology... The biggest limiting factor—besides sheer cost—was the heatsink. And railguns produced a _lot_ more waste heat than kinetic barriers did. Add on top of that the fact that you could strap a bigger heatsink into a hardsuit since it was worn on your body rather than carried like guns were, and the shift in the advantage of armor against weapons was nearly complete. It took several seconds of sustained fire just to breach someone's shields with the average rapid-fire weapon, after which one still needed to deal with the physical armor and any medigel.

Guns _were_ struggling to keep up. Especially at close range, just as Biotics could attest.

Meaning there _was_ a niche for a sword, even in the hands of a flesh and blood human being.

Kinetic barriers were set to work only against very high velocities, a slower-moving blade wouldn't necessarily even trigger them. Armor had to accommodate the movements of whoever wore it, meaning that there would still be weak-spots for a stiff and acute point to penetrate, just as it had during the age of plate-clad knights. And medical systems could easily replenish blood and numb injured body parts to allow someone to keep fighting on, but a critical hit could still down someone near-instantly. _A strong thrust to a visor, or below the chin where helmet seals are softest, could easily puncture into the brain._

"Well...?" she prompted, having noticed his thoughts.

_The range of motion of limbs means that it could be possible to cut ligaments, too. Or just using the sword as a lever itself—half-swording and entering into a grapple with the intention of breaking their arm and controlling their movements..._

Emiya grimaced. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made to him. Not as a primary weapon by any means. But as a short-range, last-ditch weapon of desperation used when a gun would take too long, it could be _very_ effective. If the right person taught someone the methods and principles behind such combat, anyhow.

"...I could teach you," he said, giving up.

She grinned at him. "Great, Doctor Chakwas kept telling me I'd have to work on rehabilitating my leg. This should work great."

Sighing, he nodded and turned his back to her. "We'll work out the details later."

That said, he went back to checking out how his body was holding up. So far, he felt quite good. Not enough to take on the entirety of Arcturus system, but more than enough to cause some mayhem if it came down to it.

* * *

;

* * *

In hindsight, running off to Captain Anderson had been pretty stupid.

She had wanted the refuge of authority, to be told that she hadn't been making mistakes all along, to know that she hadn't done a bad job. That she had been a good soldier. But that was exactly what had been stupid. It was obvious to her now that she was standing on the razor's edge, balancing between chaos and order; surfing on the wave to the most dangerous of frontiers of the galaxy.

In N-school she had been taught how to take control in a situation, how to become an authority herself and how to command and lead.

It was what had allowed her to turn the tide in the Skyllian Blitz so completely. The disparate civilians wouldn't have known what to do without her taking charge and telling them what to do. She was an expert and they could trust her judgment to make it through the crisis. And so she had thought that she should reach out to an expert of her own on how to deal with everything. She hadn't wanted to deal with the pressure, had been too scared and insecure to stick to her guns and grab the reins.

But that just didn't work.

Emiya had blown off the captain immediately and decided to handle things his usual way. On his own, without anyone else to help him out or hold him back. It didn't work, because the only expert and authority on Emiya Shirou—or Redhax, or whatever else the rest called him in the galaxy—was her; _Jane Shepard_.

It was a ridiculous and mind-boggling realization, but one she couldn't deny once she had told Emiya to stop... and he had _listened_.

It wasn't like with Benezia, who Emiya only dealt with grudgingly and whom he seemed to disdain on some level—even if he also seemed to quite like her at the same time—or the captain, who had almost completely bungled up their first meeting... Though much of the blame in that lay with her; she should have realized how he would have reacted to everything before she sprung it all on her captain. It came as something of a shock to her, to realize that she seemed like the only one who actually _got_ him.

And more than that, when she talked, Emiya would listen.

Really listen, rather than simply consider it for a moment and then dismiss it for his own designs. Sure, he was still quite stand-offish and sarcastic with her, but that was just who he was and she wouldn't change it for anything. She hadn't even realized how _much_ she had missed his dry wit and biting commentary until it was back in her life. Which meant that she had an immense responsibility by proxy, considering the sheer magnitude of matters he was dealing with. It was no molehill to claim that things on the galactic scale now hinged on what she did.

It was more than a little bit overwhelming.

But if he could do it, then...

She glanced at him.

"Hey, when we dock at Arcturus Station and I go to meet the AIA..." Shepard began, getting his attention. He lowered his sword with a dazzling flourish that he didn't even seem to realize he had done, before his gray eyes settled onto her. It was like being stared down by a hawk. "I'll take the lead, alright? Don't start doing anything too obvious before I say so, okay?"

Emiya raised a brow archly, his head leaning back so that he could stare at her down the length of his nose.

"Oh? Do you think you have anything to say that they will even bother to heed?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I want to try at least."

It wasn't _just_ the galaxy on her shoulders. I was _him,_ too. Her eyes were drawn to his hands again, the realization that he wasn't quite invincible after all replaying in her mind. He could get hurt. He _would_ get hurt if he kept this up. He would just keep on taking bigger and bigger challenges until he crashed headfirst into a wall he couldn't go through. She almost felt like he was already one foot in the grave, at times.

But she could do something about that; just as she had with Benezia and Anderson. She _could_ help him.

"Besides..." she continued, adopting some of his condescending mien. "What kind of ally to you would I be, if all I'm doing is dragging you down?"

He considered her words with a scowl, then shrugged with obvious annoyance. "Suit yourself."

Going back to his training though, she didn't miss the small half-smile on his face. He probably didn't even realize it himself, that whenever she got one up on him, immediately after his initial annoyed reaction he would start smiling. Maybe that was why he liked Benezia after all? The chance for some good banter, or maybe he just liked being talked down to by women?

Shepard chuffed at the thought, careful to keep from bothering him.

Regardless, his mood seemed much improved compared to the first days since their reunion. As was hers, if she was honest. It wasn't as if he was some whipping boy either, giving as good as he got.

Suddenly, the white sword in her lap vanished.

Blinking, she looked up and realized that so too had the black one that he had created earlier with that custom matter fabricator of his. She wondered if that was how he had made that clone body of his earlier, too. Was it some kind of drone-robot he could control like his body, to keep himself from getting hurt? It had seemed stronger than his actual body, too.

Shepard blinked in surprise.

"Did you suffer a concussion while I wasn't looking?" Emiya asked, snapping his fingers in front of her face, trying to get her attention. He was frowning, too.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said we're half an hour away from Arcturus Station. If you want to take point, you'd better be ready." Scoffing, he crossed his arms as he stood tall, looming over her. "If you were only just now thinking about your game plan, then I don't have much hope for you."

Rolling her eyes at his smirk, she waved away his concerns away.

"Of course I wasn't thinking about it only just now," she replied with a scoff. She had tried to think about what to say or do the whole trip and hadn't managed to come up with anything. What could she come up with now, with the time left to her? "You don't need to worry about me. You just worry about yourself, alright?"

If winging it worked for him half the time, then he couldn't exactly fault her for doing the exact same thing, right? Plus, if it came down to it, then having Emiya in her corner on standby was one hell of a Plan B, so she wasn't worried. About anything other than the ribbing she'd receive from him for messing up, anyhow.

She nodded at him and said: "It's fine, _trust_ me alright."

* * *

;

* * *

The cruiser drew nearer the great torus spinning in orbit around the burning red star.

And what he had seen through the long-range sensors and cameras when they had entered the system did not do it justice, nor had any of the research material or public documents presenting the space station. Now that he was standing on the bridge garbed in his full disguise beside the gruff captain, he could see with his own eyes through the bridge forward window.

It was quite something.

He had expected it to be orbiting around the first planet, Themis, as all the material he had read on the space station described its position in relation to the gas giant. He had imagined a great satellite, skimming the planet for fuel as necessary, all within spitting distance as it were. But instead, the great big doughnut was trailing behind the planet, following its orbit some sixty degrees, as if it was its own entity entirely. It wasn't like Hosin's Hangar, he realized as they began to draw nearer; large enough to maneuver itself to correct and adjust its position by itself. On top of that, there was the great mirror, floating above—or to the side, depending on your perspective—of the station, angled so as to collect the rays of the star and focus them.

If the station moved, so too would the mirror. No easy feat he imagined: to synchronize the movements of the massive two objects in the vacuum of space.

No, he realized as they continued to approach the center of the spinning wheel. This was something much greater than that. Something much more in the category of the Citadel, rather. Overwhelmingly vast; a world unto itself, built in the coldness of space.

A man-made habitat in the void, not something found or given, but something _humanity_ had _made_ for _itself_.

The craftsman in him could sense the sheer weight of this world, even this far out. It had a dormant mystical power all its own. Subtle and silent, nothing that would ever manage to enact itself in reality by itself. Yet undeniably there. How many thousands of lives have worked on this thing? How many hundreds and thousands and millions of hours went into erecting this foothold beyond Sol? _How much sweat, tears, and_ blood _? How many lives had this place consumed to be born?_

They continued to close in towards the center of the spinning wheel, where the spokes met and formed a cylindrical core. He could see numerous starships docked there, leaving and entering on clear flight paths, all in neat and stagnated queues.

Down by the front, an officer spoke: "Station Control, this is SSV Tokyo, requesting permission to land."

Emiya's attention was brought back and he furrowed his brows, shaking his head minutely.

"Are you ready?" Anderson asked beside him, then.

" _Stand-by for clearance, Tokyo._ "

Whether the captain was asking him about his condition, or Shepard's or both, Emiya didn't know. It was hard to get a read on the man when it came to this new arrangement. Normally, David Anderson would be a very predictable pawn on the great board. An honest man, sworn and loyal to his oaths, lacking any great vices or ambitions; he was very much someone Emiya thought he could handle. But Shepard had thrown a wrench into all of that, so far completely blowing his expectations and predictions for how the captain would react out of the water. _This is why I didn't want to get involved..._

It was his own presence, he figured. His loss of objectivity found in an outsider's position, and the inability to see how all the pieces reacted to his actions at the moment made it very difficult to keep complex plans in the works for any length of time.

"Who knows..." he replied, finally.

The captain twitched, making a low sound of disgruntlement. Perhaps Emiya hadn't been the only one trying to avoid the other recently, then.

" _Clearance granted. You may begin your approach, transferring you your operator and docking details now. Welcome to Arcturus Station._ "

"It's in Shepard's hands. For now, anyhow."

Anderson turned to stare at him and for just a moment, he wondered if he wasn't the only one feeling slightly out of his depth. Then, it passed and he scoffed confidently. He had a new image to maintain, after all. It was time to head out; the docking bay was just ahead. Reaching out, he willed for a notification to appear on Shepard's omnitool to meet him by the airlock.

Emiya stopped just shy of Shepard as he got there.

She looked over her shoulder at him and he crossed his arms. They exchanged a look, but neither said anything and as the inner door opened they entered as one.

As decontamination finished and the outer door opened, he uncrossed his arms. "Well then, see you around."

Shepard blinked, just as the airlock opened with a hiss, missing the exact moment his repaired invisibility cloak engaged and he vanished.

"Huh."

He walked past her as she tried to look around for any sign on him, but he was already well past the ship's hull and down the walkway before she finally decided to give up.

_Okay, play big_ , he reminded himself.

There had plenty of time to fix his stole cloak on the way to Arcturus Station, with the additional benefit of now having the geth cloaking technology for reference and comparison. As far as the visible spectrum went, he was nigh-on completely invisible now. But he, like the salarians and unlike the geth platforms, did not have the benefit of a synthetic body made out of materials that could handle a much greater variety of temperature for extended periods of time.

Meaning that camouflaging his thermal signature would be much more difficult.

The human body generated _a lot_ of waste heat, both when digesting food to store energy and when converting previously-stored energy into work, like contracting muscles and the like. The amount of energy 'wasted' as heat ranged somewhere between seventy and eighty percent, in fact. And while in cold temperatures this could be very useful for keeping the water in your body from freezing over, it also meant that in warm temperatures you needed the shed a lot more heat. Human organs _did not_ take very well to high temperatures. And trying to contain all of that heat coming from his body would be like swathing himself in thick winter clothes inside of a steam bath.

He had already tried it once before on the way and it hadn't been pleasant.

The bright idea of trying to use his magical energy to increase his resistance to the heat had only made it even worse, as his burning magic circuits just compounded the effect. Maybe if he had a very powerful and efficient heatsink into which he could gather and dump all of the excess heat, it would be possible to have perfect stealth. But there had been nothing like that on hand aboard the SSV Tokyo and he simply didn't have the know-how to make something like that.

Though he did have some ideas he could try out later, given the overlap with his pagoda. What was cooking with heat, but careful management of thermal energy, after all?

Thus the fact was that more advanced sensors could still pick him up, even if the naked eye had no chance.

The type of sensors which he suspected the heavily armed welcoming party by the elevators might have had with them. Fifteen Alliance marines all clad in fully sealed hardsuits by the looks of it. Though he suspected the four standing slightly behind and aside from the others weren't strictly speaking marines at all. _Probably AIA, or N-line specialists._

There was no other way out, the corridor around them still effectively just a tube out into space. The only way on the space station was the elevator up ahead.

One of them appeared to be an Engineer, as he raised his omnitool and tapped away with his other hand at the glowing interface. In response, four floating discs placed along the sides of the walkway from the docked starship began to quietly whirl in place in the air.

Reaching out with his cybernetics for anything to connect to, he frowned as there was nothing. All fifteen had either no connected computers or were running them all in complete isolation from the usual networks. Meaning that he wouldn't be able to hack them.

"I'm picking up something..." Emiya heard him say.

_Good thing I came prepared,_ he thought in response as he stopped.

Two things happened at once: a switch was flicked in his brain, thoroughly overriding his hypothalamus as at the same time the cloak around him _changed_. For a second it seemed to buzz against his skin and then, it began to grow warmer. Much, much warmer.

"...What the...? It's gone."

_Looks like its working._

Normally if he wanted to control his body temperature, he would have relied on his breathing as a means of affecting it. But that had its limits. He knew how to raise his body temperature quickly by raising his metabolic rate and how to cool down by exhaling heat. But neither of those was of any use here; he needed to slow down his metabolism. Something which he would need to sit down and effectively meditate to achieve. Even going to sleep would only slow it down by a tenth of its usual rate.

Hardly enough to keep him from cooking alive now that he had turned on the thermal containment on his cloak.

Which had been why he had directly manipulated his brain instead. His cybernetic implants were connected to his hypothalamus, which among other things controlled body temperature and metabolism. _Ugh, this doesn't feel good._ For most warm-blooded animals it is extremely dangerous for their internal temperature to dip suddenly, the range within which his internal organs could function being very specific and unforgiving, due to the numerous and complicated chemical reactions occurring at all times. He wasn't like a lizard, able to simply slow down as a result of being a little bit too cold. This kind of tampering with his body temperature was extremely dangerous, easily leading to hypothermia if he wasn't careful.

But with the absolute containment of heat provided by the cloaking field, he wasn't exactly going to be cold for long. He would be getting more comfortable soon as his temperature rose. And then it would start getting very uncomfortable again, wherein hyperthermia would become the danger. Regardless, now the only source of heat from his body that he needed to worry about would be his muscles, giving him some more time to work with. The more he moved, the more heat he would generate and have to withstand, putting something of a time-limit on this state.

Breathing lightly he advanced slowly and settled down next to the group, leaning against the wall.

Shepard rolled out from the airlock now, coming into view of the group.

"Forget about it. Look sharp, lieutenant," someone chided the grumbling and confounded engineer.

One of the four _others_ moved ahead, coming to meet her halfway down. Then, with a suspicious glance at everyone who had remained by the elevator, he spoke quietly to Shepard. A pair of code names and security phrases were exchanged, but Emiya paid it little mind. Another few seconds passed and then they both began approaching the rest of them.

"You two," the man said. "Search the ship. Don't allow anyone else off." Then, turning to Shepard again he continued. "Let's go. Right this way."

The elevator doors opened and four marines walked inside, followed by Shepard and the man, along with the last of the four _others_. And Emiya, of course. Luckily, it wasn't a tight fit and there was little danger of being brushed against or noticed, allowing him to remain stationary and minimize his heat generation. No one spoke as they began to descend down, but it seemed as if the marines did not feel very tense judging by their postures. Even the two unknown personnel appeared only vigilant, rather than expectant or nervous.

Had the AIA expected him not to get this far? Or was there something else at play? _Doesn't matter._

They came to a stop and the doors opened, allowing everyone except Emiya to file out.

Moving slowly and timing his movements just right, he passed through the closing doors with all the alacrity and haste of a sloth. Only his eyes moved about, taking everything in and poring every detail of his surroundings. Reaching out with his cybernetics again—wincing a little at the increase in heat that it resulted—he quickly found the central security networks, tapping into the systems as he began to follow Shepard's entourage while remaining behind.

_No heat monitoring beyond ambient temperature, no vibration sensors, no additional security measures in place..._ He considered for a moment the possibility of mobile sensors. Other Engineers roaming about and looking for any infiltrators and the like. But the docking tower's control center hadn't been notified of any additional measures regarding the docked vessel. _Can't be too sure. I could think of a dozen ways this could go wrong..._

Then again, all Alliance Intelligence needed to do to know that he was here was ask anyone on board of the SSV Tokyo, as his presence had been no secret during to anyone during the voyage back. Still, getting into Arcturus Station itself undetected would give him a lot more wiggle room. Or would it? If he stayed by the docking towers, he would be within immediate distance of numerous starships and he wouldn't need to move around too much.

_Well, whatever._

He sat down against the wall and closed his eyes.

Shepard was still being escorted, he observed through a security feed. She was currently on an elevator down into the torus-section of the station. It would still take at least another minute before the elevator reached the ring, leaving him with plenty of time to snoop around in the various networks and systems within his cybernetic reach.

It was more than he had expected.

Arcturus Station wasn't even a fraction of the size of any of Thessia's major cities—much less the Citadel—but in terms of information traffic, it was punching way above what he had expected. It seemed like every building and facility in the torus-section was plugged in with fiber-optic cables into a tightbeam communication unit, all transmitting and receiving data at a relentless pace. Still waiting on Shepard to start moving again, Emiya decided to take a peek at some of the comms.

_It's all corporations._ Half a hundred ventures into various new markets later, he decided he had seen enough. _I guess business never sleeps._ Mayhaps there was some sort of boom he wasn't aware of?

The elevator stopped and Shepard was moving again.

Something to investigate later; expanding markets always seemed to cause problems. For now, he had other concerns: a team of marines came running past him, wholly unaware and in an apparent rush as they swept the room, before moving on again.

_There was nothing on the security center comms about that. Hmm..._

For now, it seemed like staying put was the right call.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard wasn't nervous as the door closed behind her, leaving her alone in a dark room.

Mostly she just felt annoyed that they had jerked her around and taken an obviously extra-long route just to get here. She had been to the Alliance headquarters before and she had recognized the general area; if they had taken the nearest elevator for this quarter of the ring, they could have saved at least half an hour.

Were they trying to mess with her? Or just trying to catch Emiya if he was following her?

_Yeah, good luck with that._

A beam of light lit up just ahead, at the center of the room she supposed.

"Lieutenant Jane Shepard."

She frowned, looking around and seeing no one in the darkness. She couldn't even place where the voice had come from, as it sounded like the person was walking around her. Had been behind her, where there was nothing but the closed door.

Nonetheless, she responded: "Present."

As nothing else happened, she sighed and began to roll there until she was in the center of the light.

"Right here," she said, fighting the urge to cross her arms.

Yet, still. Nothing happened. Had Emiya done something already? She frowned at the thought, before wiping her expression neutral, lest whoever was observing her thought that she was acting out of line. In theory, this was supposed to be a hearing, but so far it seemed like nothing was according to the book.

Another minute passed and still, _nothing._

Shepard was starting to get annoyed.

She hadn't actually expected an actual hearing, suspecting the Agency's motive for initially accepting her as she now did. But she had at least hoped that there would be some kind of attempt at... _something,_ here. Not _this_ , whatever it was.

_What am I? Immediately irrelevant when they think Emiya is around?_

"Fine, I guess we're doing this the hard way," she grumbled and allowed herself to show her frustration. Arms crossed, she leaned back in her wheelchair. Then, she asked: "Found Emiya yet?"

The response was immediate.

"So, he _did_ return with you."

She snorted. "Oh, are we finally talking?"

The voice ignored her. "Where is he?"

"Beats me." She shrugged, then leaned back with a smirk. "Don't tell me, you lost him?"

The lack of any reply made her chuckle. She had them there.

"This is no time for joking, Lieutenant Shepard. The man you are hiding is a wanted terrorist and a traitor to the Systems Alliance. By your own admission, you have aided and abetted a deserter. You would do well the treat this matter more seriously."

Again, she snorted. It was a good thing she hadn't come in here with a plan.

"It appears to me that _you're_ the ones not taking this seriously." Then she looked to the side, a thought occurring to her suddenly. "Then again, you just might be that incompetent. It's hard to tell, you know, with _who_ you're trying to antagonize." She paused and shook her head, trying to calm down a little. Her temper was getting the better of her. Continuing, she said: "All the rules, regulations, and laws don't mean a damn thing right now. Did you guys even see what he did on the asari homeworld?"

It didn't seem to make sense. She couldn't see their end goal with all this.

Then again, she _didn't_ know what they were thinking. Or even who she was dealing with and where he stood on the grand scale of things. For all she knew she was talking to the guy who refilled the water coolers around here.

"That does not matter to you. There is nowhere for him to go, with the entire First Fleet present he cannot escape. We already know he was onboard the Tokyo and that he departed with you. Now tell me, where is he hiding and what is he planning?"

Shepard rolled her eyes. _Hmm, maybe this guy should_ _be refilling water coolers._

"And then what are you going to do?"

"That is of no consequence to you, lieutenant." Came the brusque reply. "You are cut-off, this room has been sealed off. All of the elevators on Arcturus Station have mass sensors. We already know he's here and it is only a matter of time before we find him." The voice paused as if to let the words sink in. "If you wish to tell me where he is, now would be the time."

_Somehow I don't think this guy even knows why he's supposed to catch Emiya._ It did make sense; she didn't know why she had been told to do half of what she had done during her time working for— _with_ —the intelligence agency. If everyone of importance was off chasing Emiya, then who did that leave to nanny over her? _Is it always just about him...?_

"Okay... Then how about I talk to someone _of_ consequence?" she asked, growing increasingly testy. "Because to me, it seems like you have no idea what you're doing." She waited for a reply and sighed wearily when there was nothing. "Okay, this isn't going anywhere."

Shepard looked up, unwinding her hands from her chest as she sat up straighter in the chair. It was eerie how similar it was, she realized, to the gangs she had had to deal with back when she had still been on Earth. Before all of this. It wasn't like dealing with individuals, where they had agendas and preferences. To these groups, it was as much about power as it was actually accomplishing their goals.

The power to dictate terms and the power to do whatever they wanted. And so, like back then, she knew that the only thing they responded to was just that. _Power._

Unfortunately, that was something she was not possessing in excess of.

"Alright, I give up," she said, throwing her hands up.

"Excellent, then—"

"Really?" Emiya cut in and at the same time, the lights in the room came back on. "Because I'm still just going through their databases. If you want another couple of hours, I've got enough to read."

Shepard snorted. "It just wasn't working out, and I didn't feel like wasting any more time."

"Cut the line, cut the line right now...!" shouted the man who had been speaking to her until now, in obvious panic. As expected, she was alone in the empty room, accompanied only by the set of speakers and a few cameras.

The quality of sound was unexpectedly great. It really sounded like someone had been in the room with her until now.

"I would say that at least you tried, but I'm honestly a bit disappointed," Emiya opined dismissively, but he also sounded amused. "You could have tried to take a hostage if you wanted their attention. The lieutenant commander who escorted you here could have gotten a discussion rolling."

She blinked, the thought not even having occurred to her. Shaking her head, she said: "If you haven't noticed, I'm in a _wheelchair_."

Emiya scoffed. "Hah. We both know you're only in that thing by choice."

"How is he doing this?" the voice of her nanny spoke, confused and overwhelmed in the far corner of the room. "Cut the connection already!"

"What, you thought that by staying on the dreadnought you would be out of reach and harm's way? Honestly, you would have been better of on Arcturus Station," Emiya said, his mocking tone of voice merciless, as if he was stalking the voice through the room.

Shepard frowned. They really had made her take the long way for nothing. She shook her head, focusing on the matter at hand. "Well, now that we have their attention, we can actually get this talk going."

"Sounds good," Emiya said and the door behind her opened. "Why don't you get back to the docking bay. I'll send someone to pick you up."

She almost didn't want to know what he was planning, his playfulness promising nothing good.

"Sir, it's moving on its own!" Came a quiet, new voice from where she supposed her nanny had been talking to her from, the now continuously open line hiding nothing. "The dreadnought is moving on its own and the helm can't stop it!"

Oh. Well, that explained Emiya's apparent good cheer.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya stepped out of the shuttle and into the Everest-class dreadnought Mt Fuji looking around with interest at everything, Shepard rolling out after him.

"Hmm..." He couldn't help the impressed sound as he took in the vessel.

It was by far the biggest starship he had been aboard until now, dwarfing even the freighter he had used to get to the Citadel years back. Hacking into the ship's computer and knowing the specs on paper was one thing, but actually stepping onboard it was something else. Just the mass effect fields used to generate the artificial gravity put a tingle down his spine.

Emiya almost wanted to try out the spinal railgun, just to see how far-off a target he could hit with it.

_Enough playing around,_ he told himself. Getting carried away was no good; taking over the dreadnought was a calculated move. Overt enough to panic those in charge, but still low-key enough that it could still reasonably covered up once an agreement had been reached. The point wasn't to upset the entire structure, simply to cow the leadership into backing off while giving them just enough to maintain face.

This _wasn't_ going to be a repeat of Thessia—in _any_ regard, if he could help it—and the Citadel wasn't going to be hearing about this anytime soon.

He made certain not to stray too far ahead since he was relying on her as his 'daisy chain'. Sure, he would probably be fine even if they were separated by hundreds of meters, given the speeds at which he was operating right now, but it paid to be careful. A single moment of inattention could well be the end of her, given how little he still trusted their hosts if worst came to worst. And the longer the distance, the greater the pauses would become. Right now, the short moments of stillness were still essentially non-existent, barely more than a stutter in-between steps every five to ten seconds. Even Shepard hadn't seemed to notice them. But that was no reason to push it.

Even having her actually come here was a risk. One he had calculated and weighed, but one nonetheless. _Of course, she wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I tried to exclude her,_ he thought ruefully.

Just up ahead there were several obviously annoyed Alliance officers who turned to and glanced at them with obvious interest. They were obviously out of place even with Shepard in uniform. Not enough for the palpable annoyance and resentment in the air, just at the edge of his awareness, to be aimed at them. Not yet anyhow. He couldn't really fault the officers; they were the obvious odd nail sticking out, now that the Alliance Intelligence Agency had _suddenly—_ without asking anyone for permission—and completely commandeered the First Fleet's flagship. A flagrant overreach of their mandate, if they had ever seen one. Who the hell did they think they were, anyway? Surely, Alliance Intelligence couldn't simply take over and supersede the entire chain of command on a whim?

Right?

They couldn't, of course.

The Alliance wasn't stupid. It was all only possible through his spirit hacking crossing normally uncrossable wires, bypassing hundreds of safety measures, dozens of checks and balances, and scores of highly-trained professionals in an utterly unimaginable manner. But the Navy did not know that. Hence the scuttlebutt when the unscheduled surprise shuttle from Arcturus Station docked.

"I can't believe they tried it. I mean... Just _Thessia,_ " Shepard commented then as she looked around, having noticed the prevailing suspense and tension aboard the Mt. Fuji. He hummed in reply, not really disagreeing. Then again, it wasn't entirely unexpected now that he had been rifling through their databases for a while.

"It's not really that surprising. The Citadel and the salarians covered it up for the most part and spread quite a bit of disinformation. I'm not sure who came up with the 'asari hacker gone rogue'-angle, but it's the one most of the Systems Alliance seems to believe was the case." He tilted his head, then, thoughtful. "They probably thought anything they couldn't confirm themselves was the actual disinfo, too."

A normally very reasonable measure. Had they known half of what Shepard did he was certain they wouldn't have tried any of this on Arcturus Station.

Still, all of that was only scratching the surface.

Even working with incomplete and intentionally misleading information, they had compiled a staggering amount of plans and contingencies for this meeting. Compared to Thessia, it was difficult to directly compare how well-proportioned those preparations were... But it was by no means a considerably lesser attempt. While the Alliance did not have any Spectres, there were fifteen N7-operatives other than Shepard present in Arcturus System, ranging from pure combat to electronic warfare specialists. Given that it was the Alliance capital, the number might not have seemed like much, but considering that the Torfan operation was still ongoing it was a very impressive number they had managed to round up on such short notice.

But this wasn't going to be a repeat of Thessia. Just the _once_ had been more than enough for Emiya. The decision to take over a dreadnought wasn't one he had reached willy-nilly; it had been the quickest and most efficient means of nipping this in the bud.

She nodded, not entirely sure about what he had said. "I guess..." Then, deciding to ignore it for now, she exhaled in a rush. "So what are we doing here? Delivering the terms of surrender or making friends?"

Shrugging, he replied: "Haven't really decided yet." He ignored her scoff as they walked on, heading for the meeting room where the director of the AIA was waiting for them. "But," he continued, as they arrived at the last door separating them from one of the heads of Alliance Intelligence. "Right now, I'm leaning towards ' _terms of surrender_ '."

The automatic door opened with a soft sigh, that almost concealed Shepard's sharp intake of breath, and he stepped through. There was just the table and chairs, along with a lone man sitting there, waiting for them. He did not stand up as they entered, merely shooting a measured glare at them.

Emiya didn't let it bother him, instead deciding on his approach.

If their reception was this cold, then he was going to be warm.

" _Kolkkonen—_ Juha! You don't mind if I call you Juha, right? Of course you don't—how good to finally meet you face to face," he said with false cheer, enjoying the startled moment of incomprehension in the other man's eyes. "I've been following your work. We _just_ missed each other on that party. The Presidium, five years ago? Great work, that." A spark of barely repressed antagonism. "Though, I'm surprised how well you've done for yourself, given how poorly that turned out for everyone involved. Well, excepting me, of course."

The man in question grit his teeth and for just a second there was a vein popping out from his temple.

Smirking viciously, Emiya noted the man's reaction. This was all to remind the Alliance Intelligence head of just how things would play out if they didn't come to some sort of accord here. _I'm_ t _wo for two; do you really want to try me a third time?_

"Indeed," the man replied evenly, managing to apparently calm himself down in the space of just that handful of seconds.

Quite surprising.

_Hooh, this guy could be trouble,_ Emiya thought even as he could feel Shepard's surprised gaze on his back, and he was glad that she managed to get it under control before Kolkkonen noticed. Not just her reaction to his change in attitude, but the underlying cause. They were very different conversationalists. The difference between his evasiveness and careful control of the dialogue clashed horribly with her frank and forward attitude. Things he wanted to keep quiet, she would raise up and smack on the table. Things he wanted to pursue, she might entirely miss and lose the cue for.

It was probably why she felt like a bull to his china shop, whenever they talked to each other.

Shepard, having tired of sticking behind him by the door rolled forward and past him towards the table. Just as Emiya had been waiting for her to do. Something Kolkkonen did not miss; she was not subservient to him. He followed her and then sat down, diagonally opposite the man. He had made a list of demands on the way here, but a certain intuition spoke to him in that moment as the situation and his needs clicked.

Shepard was the key, here.

With Benezia trying to control the conversation had been one thing, and he might have dismissed it given that he was certain she was in a league of her own. But with her ship's captain, it had been different and that had been obvious. As far as talking went, they would be hamstringing and tripping over one another with every step. And now it might completely screw them over. If this man's rise in rank, the fact that he had been chosen by the rest of the Alliance Intelligence to be here, and his apparent self-control were anything to go by. It was likely that this man would not just be able to notice that dissonance, but drive a wedge between their talking points, perhaps even upsetting it entirely. A good choice for meeting them.

These were by no means new revelations to him.

Obviously there would excellent negotiators among the Alliance brass and just obviously Shepard was more familiar with them after having served years in the organization. He had agreed to let her do the talking long before they had arrived. The problem was that she did not have any leverage. She had walked onto the station as a footnote to _his_ arrival, as far as the Alliance Intelligence was concerned. He had _power_ , but could not convince people — the result of a lifetime of never bothering with trying to talk to anyone, he reasoned. She, on the other hand, could make others listen but lacked the necessary purchase to get the first crack in.

What she needed was _authority._

But he was certain that merely stating 'she's my ambassador, agent, manager, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, talk to her' would just undermine both of them. She would be no different from the useless fellow who she had tried to talk to at first, while he would be all-but admitting his shortcomings.

If she needed _de facto_ -authority, then he would just have to generate it from nothing.

"Alright, here's the deal..." he began, drawling his words. "I _really_ don't _care_ about _any_ of _this_."

"I find that... a little bit difficult to believe," Kolkkonen replied, shifting in his seat and betraying his confusion.

This wasn't going like anyone here had been expecting it to and so for only Emiya was really aware of it. "That's alright. I don't really care whether you believe it or not, as long as you agree to my terms."

Kolkkonen stiffened just a little, the smallest cue to his sharpened interest. The man was still only listening and observing, probing for a way to handle this situation. It would only be after the Alliance Intelligence Head had a clear understanding that he would begin saying anything in return.

"Of _course_. And those would be...?" he asked Emiya, any attention he had been paying to Shepard now gone, while she was keeping quiet and observing, biding her time and in turn trying to figure out their plan.

Emiya gave the Alliance Intelligence Head of Internal Affairs a rueful grin, entirely put-upon for his benefit. " _Simple_. You have no idea I'm here. You don't get in my way. I get to do whatever I want while I'm staying here... and in return, hmm..." Crossing his hands now in an affectation of sudden consideration, he pondered. Time for the threat: "For starters, I won't tell anyone about that little VI development project you have going on the moon... The Citadel wouldn't be happy to hear that dear _Eliza_ might have a little brother on the way, and neither would you or the Alliance, I'm sure."

Kolkkonen's face stared back at him like sculpted stone, but his eyes were sparking shards of flint with their intensity.

It wasn't really a surprise that attempts at developing useful Artificial Intelligences had only been slowed down for a few years by the leak of the Eliza-project—the original reason he had managed to hitchhike a ride to the Citadel with the Cerberus operatives, years ago—but he really hadn't expected them to reel the attempts even closer to home. Or perhaps it wasn't so surprising after all.

Gagarin Station was much closer to the Charon Relay than Luna was. So deep in human territory, next to the much more bustling and populated Earth, it did make a certain amount of sense to hide away a new project there if they wanted to keep it hidden from the Citadel. They had had to start from scratch too, since all of the notes, material, and personnel from the original Eliza-project had been more or less scrubbed. At this point, it was little more than a highly advanced Virtual Intelligence, since the new project heads were being very careful. There was really no overlap, other than that both were nominally Alliance projects.

Not that it would mean anything if the Citadel were to find out since the aim was quite obvious — Artificial Intelligences as a military asset.

This whole thing had the smell of Cerberus all over it, even if he hadn't been able to find anything yet to prove it. Or anything else, regarding that subversive organization. They really had gone underground since he had blown open their operations. _Probably won't be able to find anything on Jack Harper in the next week..._

The journey to Arcturus Station had wasted some of his time, meaning that he only had about a week—give or take a day—before he had to head for Eden Prime. That was including any trip he would be making to the Moon Cell, a trip he did not feel secure in making in just his Servant body, spirit hacking dive through faster-than-light communication relays or no.

_This whole AI business really is just the excuse I've been looking for to head over there myself,_ he thought as he settled on his next words.

"In fact, I'll be making a trip down to Armstrong sometime soon," Emiya said, continuing without skipping a beat in the eyes of the others in the room. His eyes crinkled with amusement. "Just to... check the measures in place, of course."

Last time he had acted out within human territory, it had seemingly been because of the AI project of Gagarin Station. Playing up to that expectation, acting as if he was worried about any further research into Artificial Intelligences, would play into that and obfuscate his actual reasons for going to the moon. It might even stir up some of the Cerberus elements out of the woodwork when he did it, assuming the AIA couldn't keep it a secret. _Who am I kidding? They will probably just straight up leak it themselves._

" _Of course,_ " Kolkkonen repeated, his voice dripping with a barely restrained cocktail of contempt and acrimony.

It was a good threat. But not quite enough to shake the man. But that was okay, too. It was just a casual one, anyhow. The real one would be the one he wouldn't say out loud, right now.

"Good talk," Emiya stood up, extending a hand. "Shake on it?"

The man blinked, betraying his confusion again at the sudden change. This was by no means the conversation-ender anyone had expected. This was just the beginning, lacking any concrete details or room for negotiation. Nothing to grasp onto or leverage.

Emiya didn't hold a certain mercenary-cum-Omega in particularly high esteem, but there was a simple elegance to 'don't fuck with me' that could not be understated. It left very little room for letter-of-the-law arguments. Really why laws weren't written on the basis of perception in the first place. If he wanted to argue that he was being fucked with, then it was very difficult to prove otherwise.

"Hmm? Not a touchy-feely kind of guy?" Shrugging, Emiya retracted the hand. "That's alright." Turning to Shepard, he flashed a boyish grin that only she could hear beneath the helmet's opacity. "We still on for lunch? Alright, see you then."

And with that, he astralized and dispelled the hardsuit, helmet and all.

Kolkkonen jumped up, mouth agape as the man before him vanished into thin air, leaving absolutely nothing behind.

Still sitting on the floor by the docking station on Arcturus Station, Emiya inhaled slowly as he managed his excess heat under the cloak.

Projecting the hardsuit hadn't been difficult by any means, but constantly jumping back and forth between his body and the empty shell had been something of a hassle. He couldn't project any kind of omnitool either or bring a real one since it would be left behind, forcing him to use Shepard's instead. And having to make sure that the hardsuit was always balanced just right for the half-second he left it behind to reset his self-destruction timer, so that it didn't fall over, had also been a headache and a half.

But seeing the expression of sheer confusion, fear, and shock that it had allowed him to leave, it had definitely paid off. _As far as 'I am so completely and utterly beyond your league, so don't even think about it'-impressions go, that one was a solid 9 out of 10._ He could have rounded it up by adding in his ability to manipulate the mass relays, but that would have become too complicated for a good threat. Perhaps if they tried something, he would turn off all the relays in the Arcturus system and see how they liked that.

Turning on an inactive relay was quite easy. So long as the internal communication units still worked. Some so very easy for him to sabotage if he wanted to. As far as the Systems Alliance went, being cut off from Earth would be The End. As far as humanity as a whole went, on the other hand, it wouldn't even really matter much. Most of humanity still lived in the Sol system and were relatively self-sustaining. On top of that, if there was some form of great galactic calamity on its way, it might even protect them from it.

_And..._ it seemed like Shepard had finally caught on. It only took her a few seconds, luckily.

"Yeah... he, he does that sometimes," she said reaching up with a hand to rub the back of her neck, sounding just the right mixture of contrite and annoyed. Like it was the annoying habit of the brother she was ashamed off and nothing more.

_...now she has authority, as the only one who has any pull with me._

This approach wasn't so much 'good cop, bad cop', as 'good cop, unreasonable force of nature', but she seemed to figure it out on her own all the same. She knew most of the pertinent details already and she had been the one asking for a chance to prove herself, so she could hardly fault him for giving it to her now. Besides, he was more interested in just digging through their data right now, preparing for his meeting with Saren since he wouldn't bring her with there. He could just pay attention in the background and back her up if really necessary.

Back on the dreadnought, Kolkkonen let out of a huff of air as he collapsed into his chair, his previous stoic mien having completely vanished.

Shepard meanwhile looked like she was holding back laughter. _Good for her._

This now probably also meant that he didn't have to worry about the marines that had been on stand-by near the negotiation room, ready to charge in and take everyone down on a moment's notice. The Alliance had probably been banking on the negotiation distracting him enough that they could move in unnoticed, in case they wanted to make move in. They had even managed to plan it all out without using their computers or omnitools, keeping it all in meatspace. If he were a normal hacker, unable to keep an eye on it all at the same time, it might have even worked. It could have been dicey with him still 'there' if they did decide to jump him, since he would have to lock the doors and act at a distance while keeping Shepard alive, but it wouldn't have been a hopeless fight.

But with him just _gone_ , where did that leave them? What would be the point of taking down or capturing Shepard, when all it would do was annoy him?

_Play big_ , he had told himself. And he had.

And as far as he was concerned, demonstrating the ability to completely take over any of their warships while remaining utterly untouchable was about as big as he could make himself. This combined with the no doubt soon-to-be-revised reports from Thessia and Torfan would paint a very imposing picture. Every little thing they had dismissed and impossible or ridiculous would spring new wings. Attacking him would be impossible. Trying to hide anything from him would be meaningless. Everywhere and nowhere at once, hovering over them at all times even when he wasn't. When he didn't act, it was simply because he didn't care to.

Because _why should he?_

It was ridiculous, to the point where even despair would lose meaning. Hopefully.

And from the looks of it, he wasn't the only one now following the conversation from afar. He had been aware of the outgoing feed but hadn't bothered to follow it up until now, what with his constant back-and-forth hopping and keeping tabs on the immediate threats. The room where the feed was being directed lacked any surveillance beyond a terminal's face camera, but the layout was clearly spelled out on Arcturus Station and it was a face he recognized with relative ease from the news.

The Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance was wringing her fingers while watching Shepard negotiate with Kolkkonen, while advisors milled about just as nervously behind her.

_Oh._ He had intellectually somewhat realized that by doing this he would be more or less entering into interactions with the highest echelons of power, but he hadn't quite realized that it meant the democratically elected leader of humanity would be sweating in her seat because of him. It wasn't as if he was gunning for her or anything. Yet, anyhow _._

Should he check her background for any funny business, to see if there was a reason for her to be so worried about him? Or would that be needlessly destabilizing the Alliance? He wasn't beholden to them or sworn to uphold their authority, not like the Justicars or Spectres were. But if he was worried about the danger of indoctrination then taking down the until-now legitimate government was probably not the brightest move.

Not unless they proved themselves incompetent and he had a puppet government ready to put in place. _And do I really want to go there...?_

Then, should he go and directly talk to the Prime Minister and her advisors? The thought hadn't quite occurred to him, given how Shepard had focused on her meeting with the Alliance Intelligence as the crux. But now that he was aware of it, he could just skip straight to the top, and...

_No, that would be defeating the entire point of what I just did with Shepard._ It would undermine her newfound authority and negate his stated attitude of 'don't care, just don't fuck with me' if he cared enough to backtrack and then go have a talk with them in person after having already delivered his message. Additionally, if the Alliance leadership wanted to play proxy-games through Kolkkonen, believing that it granted them some measure of protection, then he had no issues with playing along.

If they made plans and he could listen in surreptitiously, Shepard would be all the better prepared for any future talks. _Just focus on Saren and the turians for now._

But even as he told himself that he noticed that he couldn't quite focus.

It was all very dry and technical, written in a language and manner he hadn't had to pore through since he had deserted from the Navy. By itself, that was nothing new. But the constant information traffic kept tugging at his virtual senses, like a buzzing crowd across the street from him. Even without paying attention to it and keeping an eye on Shepard, he kept catching bits and pieces.

How Thessia's Fall—as it was being called—was sending ripples through the galactic economy, allowing for smaller powers to gobble up old monopolies and incontestable markets, which had remained under asari control for hundreds of years. Salarians, human, volus and turian enterprises all were muscling in for a slice of the pie as the asari focused inward on Thessia to lick their wounds. It was an utter free-for-all, and Arcturus Station wasn't falling behind. Bekenstein was shifting production, hundreds of starships were being re-routed to Earth for additional workforce to fill the new shortages. Time was money, bandwidth was money, money was money.

Thoroughly distracted already, he sighed and let his thoughts run free.

Everyone wanted to solidify their new holds before Thessia began to wave around its endless stores of eezo again and reacquired those markets. Millionaires and billionaires were being born every hour at the moment.

Most of the hurry was utterly pointless, Emiya realized as he leaned back against the wall and set aside the Alliance Intelligence files. Certainly, everyone had to compete with everyone else going for the old asari territories, but there was no point worrying about the asari. They would get everything they wanted back once they set their minds to it.

Their stranglehold on the eezo supply was simply too strong.

That was simply a fact.

But that would be so far in the future that most of the people in a rush right now would be long dead by then. The asari were long-lived and in certainly no hurry. Those markets had been monopolized for two millennia and in another half, things would be back to how they had always been.

_Maybe I could start up a company and try selling the pagoda in all this chaos...?_ he thought almost leisurely. He had wanted to sell it back on Thessia, not just because of the capital it could generate, but because...

Emiya shook his head.

It was just a meaningless frivolity. Tinkering with household appliances during his downtime was fine, but he was on a schedule with a purpose. _Saren Arterius_ , he reminded himself.

And then, a _familiar name_ popped up in the background buzz of the electronic crowd. Following the chain down all the way to a business meeting the Alliance Navy was having at this moment—utterly unaware of all the suspense and drama he had been generating—he found the man in question. And the discovery came as an actual surprise.

"I thought he was _dead_ ," Emiya muttered, tuning in curiously. But apparently not. Then, he had to wonder, "Does Shepard know?"

But there was no answer from the empty hallway.

Then again, _lunch_ was coming up soon.

* * *

;

* * *

"—and through this cyclical function, the mass effect fields are capable of displacing up to 14% more powerful rounds. I believe with further funding and data from the field that this could be improved upon further, at least up to 20%."

The Rear Admiral nodded at the speaking man, eyes sharp. Then, he inquired: "And what of the costs?"

The man in the wheelchair smiled politely, his fingers under that table tapping against the haptic interface to bring up the relevant slide. "Less element zero will be required for these types of kinetic barriers, as you can see. Instead, it will require more powerful computing units and advanced sensor arrays, as you can see here. By striking a balance it is possible to maintain the same reliability as older generations of personal defense systems, even with less element zero."

This wasn't the complete set of relevant data, but the meeting wasn't entirely official either. Not yet, anyhow. The rough outline in preparation for whether or not the Alliance would move forward and begin inquiring into the matter.

"I see. Shifting some of the dependency from imported eezo to hardware that is possible to produce locally. Are you certain that Aldrin Labs is capable of picking up that kind of slack?"

"Of course." He nodded, changing slides again. "Our newest factories on Luna have just been opened and can provide the newest batch of recruits with refitted hardsuits by the end of the quarter. _And_ , as you can see, element zero prices are projected to rise by 300% within the next few months."

"It might not be enough to offset the rise in eezo costs, but if these projections are correct, then..." The impressed Alliance officer nodded, raising a hand to run along his beard in thought. "You mentioned a balance."

The man in the wheelchair nodded, already seeing where this was going. The Rear Admiral's greed was by now all too familiar to him.

"Then would it be possible to... scale down the costs by foregoing this balance?"

Was it possible to make hardsuits even cheaper by using even less element zero to power the kinetic barriers? Of course, it was. He wasn't the foremost expert on the exotic element for nothing, hired by Aldrin Labs right out of the gate as he entered civilian life. He could even overclock the kinetic barriers in such a manner that they would appear to work at 140% the expected efficiency at the cost of some reliability.

Doing something like that, it might be even possible to produce hardsuits at nominally the same performance level at a price that would have undercut the older generations, even without the rise in element zero prices.

_Starships on fire, dotting the blue sky — The dead and dying all around him — falling from the sky like so much refuse in the wind — the crack and numbness that followed as he was bleeding out — Four-eyed aliens, killing and being killed — The despair of watching the dying man beside him._

His back twinged with ghostly pain for a second, threatening to reveal his true loathing for this man through the expertly crafted salesman's smile for just an instant.

But kinetic barrier emitters like that would short out exactly when the soldiers wearing them would need them the most. Not in such numbers that would be possible to lay any blame on anyone; the _very_ _rigorous testing_ the hardsuits would go through would, of course, conclude that such errors were astronomically rare. Any deaths would be tragedies of war. Unaccountable accidents. Numbers on a dotted line being compared to just another number.

_Money talks, shit walks_.

There was no point in getting angry, just as there had been no point in staying in the uniform if he wanted to change things.

So he smiled instead.

"Of course." Another slide appeared.

He had come prepared for this, knowing that it would come up. In fact, it had been the real reason he had even come in the first place. A 14-20% increase in efficiency in existing technology was just the bait for this old fogey to bite onto. He was a dinosaur; a pre-First Contact War officer who had climbed in ranks through simply sticking around long enough. He didn't understand half of the realities of modern warfare, much less what would be proposed to him right now.

"A personal patent of mine," he said conspiratorially as if letting the Alliance officer in on a secret. The Rear Admiral nodded, something resembling understanding flashing through his eyes. "Combining kinetic barriers with the high-fidelity sensor arrays, it would be possible to _measure_ the exact strength of kinetic slugs and scale down the kinetic barrier to a level just below successfully stopping the slug."

Furrowed brows; incomprehension. _Dumb it down._

"A peashooter cannot punch through a hardsuit, even were the kinetic barriers turned off, yes?" he asked and seeing the nod continued, "Then, rather than attempt to stop the slug entirely with expensive kinetic barriers, why not instead sap just enough energy out of the slug so that it will not even scratch the hardsuit's surface?"

The division between hardsuit protection was far too rigid. Kinetic barriers. The hardsuit's physical exterior. Medigel and other healing systems. They were separate systems, almost as if they only existed when the previous level failed. The hardsuit's exterior could not stop more than a handful of full-power shots, just as the medical systems could not heal more than a few perforations without the combatant being incapacitated.

It all relied on the kinetic barriers far too much.

So why not instead combine these layers? Weaken the kinetic barriers just enough, so that bullets could harmlessly impact upon the hardsuit's exterior? It would save on batteries and capacitors, in theory allowing the complete personal defense system to operate much, much longer. The exterior could only handle one or two full-power slugs, but if one cut down the kinetic energy to a third then suddenly the amount of punishment the exterior could take would rise _exponentially_.

"How much would this cut down on costs?"

Of course, that didn't matter. What mattered was _money_.

"We could halve the amount of element zero in kinetic barriers emitters," he admitted truthfully. An admission the Rear Admiral very much liked to hear, judging by his expression.

Which was why nothing was said about _other costs._

Sensor arrays and computing units capable of handling something like that were not cheap by any means. They were cheaper than the element zero for comparable performance using the older generation hardsuits, but nearly by the margin that the previous proposition. Something, were the Rear Admiral to hear, would no doubt lead to the scrapping of the idea entirely.

"Your patent, you say?"

"Yes."

A knowing smile spread on the Alliance officer's face. The promise of a quid pro quo; the man was not _bought_ , per se, as he was agreeable to certain _understandings_. Accepting and pushing forward with this proposition, which would lead to a lot of credits rolling his way thanks to that patent, was a very subtle _give_.

One that would in the future, of course, be reciprocated in full.

"I see, I see. Yes, this does sound very promising. We'll have to schedule another meeting with the full board in the future."

He nodded at the Rear Admiral's suggestion, smiling in full. It required very little pretense this time around, the full satisfaction shining through as it reached his eyes. "That would be excellent. Shall we slot it in for the next week?"

"That would work quite well. Now then, how about lunch?"

Looking down at his omnitool, he shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm meeting someone flying in from the Citadel. Raincheck for next week? I'll buy of course, as an apology."

"Of course, of course," the Rear Admiral allowed easily. "Far be it for me to keep you from a lady friend."

He laughed lightly at how accurate the guess had been, even if there was nothing more to it, merely grateful for the out. They said their goodbyes and soon parted.

Rolling his way out of the Alliance's headquarters on Arcturus Station, the wheelchair-bound man exhaled. Starliner traffic to and from the Citadel had taken a nosedive due to the waves in galactic economy, meaning that this was the only public starship bound for human territories from the other territories for the next month or so.

Cerberus had been aware of the woman's return since yesterday and he had been tasked with feeling her out. Normally he wouldn't have been slated for this kind of work, given his importance to their research and development of element zero-related technologies.

But he was a former Alliance Navy special ops.

Even if he had given up the uniform he was still an N7, wheelchair or no.

Given the sheer level of fuck up she had been involved in, Cerberus couldn't send just anybody to meet her. Their last confirmed sighting of the woman was far too damning; she had been escaping the Citadel forces through Thessia relay along with the priority target. _He_ had escaped. She _hadn't_.

Rasa and Kai Leng were still stuck on Thessia at Trellani's compound, laying low for the moment and waiting for a chance to return. But their communiques and reports had been very clear at just how badly things had been fucked up. There was only one possible way for her to have gotten out.

She was working double-duty for the enemy.

It was his job now to feel her out. Where did her loyalties lie now? She had never exactly been a true believer, but her loyalty hadn't been in question until now. So why had she been let go and by who? How big of a threat did she present? Could she be turned into a triple agent? Or would he have to dispose of her? He was quite certain it was the end of the road for her here. After the events of five years ago—long before he had joined up with Cerberus himself—the organization had taken a very exacting stance on operational security.

The wheelchair continued to roll on its own towards the central elevators. He would ride up to the docking station to meet her right as she walked off the starliner, giving her as little time to prepare herself as possible. Whatever her fate, it would be decided within the hour.

His mind played out the possibilities and before he knew it, he was at the terminal waiting for the starliner's passengers to arrive.

Distantly he eyed the large viewports, curiously noting that one of the Alliance warships appeared to be awfully close to the station. He couldn't tell by eye just how far or large it was, but the shape suggested at it being one of the cruisers. Because surely the dreadnoughts wouldn't be flying this close to Arcturus Station.

One of the docking terminal elevators landed, not more than fifteen meters away from where he was waiting. Curiously, he checked the schedules before shaking his head. It was one of the smaller terminals. Some shuttle or another, not the starliner he was waiting on. It had nothing to do with him.

Except when the elevator doors opened, a familiar shock of red entered his field of vision. His heart froze for a second.

"Huh? Franco, I didn't know you were around. I would have sent a message."

"Shepard...?" he asked, blinking and very much confused. _What is she doing here?_

"Meeting with some Alliance people," she answered shrugging. "Just got back from Torfan a few hours ago, came with the other wounded."

Had he asked that out loud? Wait, why was she back? And...

Following his gaze to the wheelchair she was sitting in, she appeared a little sheepish. "Yeah, I got kinda busted up. You wouldn't believe by who. And what. It's been _crazy_ like you wouldn't believe. But hey, now I can race you fair and square."

The lame joke somehow managed to restart his brain and he realized this was _very bad_. The Cerberus Operative would be arriving at any moment and he did not want to have Shepard around when that happened. He had to call it off, no wait, he couldn't leave a loose end just—but it was Shepard, he couldn't just...?

Forcefully repressing his confusion, he hastily tried to cobble together a plan.

"That sounds like something I have to hear for myself. You up for some lunch over it?"

If he could get her out of here—send her ahead, down the elevator to some restaurant—he could just quickly handle the Cerberus business—a seat on the starliner was way back, the Cerberus Operative would be among the last out— _she shouldn't have anything with her on a civilian starliner, two shots from the heavy pistol and I can hide the body somewhere_ —and then meet with Shepard afterward to ensure she didn't have any problems... _No wait, there's cameras everywhere, oh shit, oh shit, this is bad..._

"Yeah, that could work..." Shepard began but then trailed off as her eyes shifted to look past him.

No, behind him. He could _feel_ a presence there, somehow. Like someone was radiating heat and a physical pressure. He couldn't move, frozen in place both mentally and physically.

A footstep, someone walking past him to stand beside him and Shepard's wheelchairs. Towering above them. And over them, tall and somehow terrifyingly familiar despite the off-white hair and tanned skin.

Grey eyes bored through him, nailing him in place.

"Cassani. Been a while," Emiya Shirou said, that still all-too-familiar half-smirk on his face.

"Oh shit," Franco Cassani whispered, all other thoughts utterly blown away.

* * *

;

* * *

Franco looked like he had seen a ghost, pale as a sheet and mouth hanging agape as he stared up at Emiya. She almost laughed at the reaction; it was by no means less dramatic than hers had been.

She had been suspicious when Emiya had showed up on the Mt. Fuji again, demanding her presence for lunch in the middle of the negotiations, incidentally scaring the pants off of Kolkkonen. But the smug glint in his eyes all but confirmed that it had been because he wanted her to run into Franco. And himself, apparently. She hadn't seen him since the funeral, but they had fallen back into the old ribbing easily enough, even with Rodriguez's death after Skyllian Blitz hanging over them.

It wasn't exactly the reunion she had expected or hoped for after so long, but she wasn't going to complain.

Shepard knew that he had been honorably discharged because of his crippling spinal injury and that he had gone to work for some big company through the mails the occasionally exchanged, but that had been the extent of their contact since then. But from the looks of things, he was doing good. Though at the moment, his mouth was only able to catch flies, still hanging open as he stared at Emiya.

Then again, she supposed his reaction was appropriate seeing as how he was looking at a dead man, back from beyond the grave. This would complicate things even more, but given how many people she had pulled into this mess already she supposed she couldn't fault Emiya for this little prank.

Besides, it was funny.

She looked around then, frowning with the realization that he hadn't been waiting for her. "Were you waiting for someone?"

Shepard thought she had seen a starliner arriving beside her shuttle.

"Uh... _No_ ," Cassani answered quickly, looking suddenly even more uncomfortable.

"Really? We can wait, if you want." Exchanging a curious look with Emiya, she shrugged. It wasn't as if they were in any hurry, given how royally spooked Emiya had left the Alliance Intelligence. "Maybe we should just locate the meeting here..."

She vaguely understood that she was keeping an entire dreadnought hanging just off of the station, waiting for her to get back from lunch, at that moment. Realizing she had missed entirely what Franco had said, she looked at him quizzically.

"What?"

But before he could repeat himself, another elevator door arrived from the docking tower with a loud _pling_.

"I have another meeting soon, so we should really have that lunch _now,_ " Franco said, repeating more insistently.

She nodded, not opposed to that. She and Emiya might not have a schedule, but he probably did if he was here for work. "Alright. Know any good places?"

"Uh..." Franco's eyes swam, his flustered state obvious. This was getting a little weird now, she realized.

But those thoughts were cut short as Emiya stiffened suddenly, catching her eye. She turned and noticed he was looking at the elevator. Following his gaze, she spotted the shock of familiar blue immediately. An asari had arrived on the starliner. The other passengers—humans one and all, by the looks of it—were obviously still curious by her arrival. While one of the most numerous and well-known of the Citadel races, any non-humans were still a curious thing in Alliance space.

The alien blinked, hesitating for just a moment before she squared her shoulders in a subtle way Shepard had seen Benezia do before, and the walked over to them through the crowd. No, to _Emiya_.

"Uh, we really should..." Cassani began but was interrupted.

"Why am I not surprised to see you here," the asari said, surprising Shepard with the sheer venom in her voice.

"Come for Mars, then?" Emiya asked, utterly unruffled as he rested a hand on his hip.

"Yes: there was not much left on Thessia for me, after everything you did."

Emiya only tilted his head, raising a lone brow at the words. Shrugging, he turned to Shepard and gestured with one hand to the alien. "Mind another one for lunch? Liara looks like she needs another chance at venting her frustrations at me." Appearing thoughtful, he added: "Not that I have a clue what I did this time..."

"Sure, I guess." Shepard shrugged and looked to Franco. "You alright with that?"

"Of course," he answered immediately with a strained smile, gesturing towards the nearest elevator down to the station ring as he began to move. He pressed the button and the elevator doors opened, allowing his immediate and hurried entry. "We should go before the rush starts."

She shrugged, glancing at Emiya and this 'Liara' who appeared to be engaging in a silent staredown at the moment. "It's nice to meet you, Liara."

The asari blinked, looking away from Emiya and suddenly her entire body language changed. It was as if the moment had caught up with her and she realized she had been acting very much unlike herself in the heat of whatever emotion that had taken her over. Flustered and a little bit overwhelmed, she nodded hesitantly at Shepard.

"Ah, y-yes. It is a pleasure to meet you as well. I hope I have not offended you, it is merely that..." she glanced at Emiya again. Then, what looked like tattooed brows furrowed in a very human expression of puzzlement.

Liara looked, eyes moving between her and Emiya curious and suspicious.

"Come on, the elevator will be full if we don't go now..." Franco said, sounding increasingly desperate.

Shepard turned to reassure him that they would be right there, when she noticed that his eyes had gone wide, looking right past her. She blinked, turning around to follow his gaze this time and spotted the raven-haired beauty stepping out of the elevator. But the immediate appearance of the woman aside, it was apparent that she was not feeling well; the stooping posture, tired steps, and gaunt look quite evident.

She had not noticed them yet. Had not noticed anyone around here as her eyes trailed only a few feet before herself.

"Miranda," Emiya said quietly, catching Shepard's notice with his astonishment.

The woman in question did not miss the utterance either, recognizing her name through the soft murmur and bustle of the arriving crowd around her. She looked up, eyes going wide at the sight of them a second later. A dozen emotions ran through her gaze, all a jumble. Jumping from face to face, the woman blinked before her icy-blue eyes narrowed and settled on one of them. The set in her shoulders straightened, her entire mien transforming in an instant.

Her entire being changed, growing resolved, and something else Shepard couldn't recognize in that instant. Stepping forward, a transformed woman strode to meet them.

Gaze still and unmoved from Emiya, she spoke.

"We meet again... Though I have to wonder, who are you today then? You've dyed your hair, so is it back to _Emil_ again?"

Shepard paused, staring alternatively at the two. The tone of the woman's voice was light, almost playful. But the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, as if she knew someone was a second away from death. Beside them, the asari seemed just as confused and taken aback, as she looked at the addressed man.

"Emil? I believed your name to be Saiga."

"Uh... Emiya?" Shepard asked, now too staring at him. She wasn't sure what was going on, but there was an indescribable emotion welling up at the realization that she might not actually know his real name, either.

He shrugged. "What can I say... I guess I'm just no one. Call me whatever you want."

Behind them, as if trying to shrink out of sight, she could hear Franco cursing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hah, this chapter was half fun, half utter chore. Emiya flexing to avert Thessia 2: Electric Bogaloo was fun, but setting up the AIA was boring because there's so little in canon to work with and I have no real use for them. Also, the chapter ending had been in the outlines since before we got to the Citadel :D


	39. Noodle Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OTM: Sorry for the delayed posting! This chapter sat as a preview instead of a published chapter in ao3, ahaha....

Emiya and Miranda continued looking at each other, long enough for Shepard and Liara both to begin growing curious, he noted. And it was curious, that she was here, _now._

He had left her at the salarians' tender mercies following their escape from Parnitha through the relay—leaving her to presumably be captured by one of the most feared and respected intelligence organizations in the galaxy. Yet here she was looking none the worse for wear, if a little haggard, free as a bird.

It was suspicious, to say the least.

Could she have escaped on her own? It _was_ conceivable, given how capable she was. But highly unlikely, bordering on impossible. It was much more probable that she had instead cut some kind of deal to be let loose. On its face, that wasn't really so difficult to believe. Except he had no idea _how_ they could keep any kind of control over her. Just by allowing her to leave and return to Alliance space gave her a thousand ways to slip any leash the Special Tasks Group might have yoked on her.

But unless they had managed some kind of foolproof method of keeping tabs on her and ensure her loyalty, there was no way in hell she would have been allowed to run free; her presence on Thessia and her connections and knowledge being simply too valuable to lose.

Had they done something to her? Emiya's mind raced with possibilities, poring over his experiences. It wasn't inconceivable that the salarians knew about Indoctrination and had managed to wrest it for their own purposes. _Was Benezia mistaken? Was Saren performing a routine clean up instead of only just discovering the threat it posed?_ Then what about the geth, how did they fit in all of this?

More questions for their second meeting. But for now, he had no way of confirming or denying that.

Then what else? The back of his neck tingled as he suddenly remembered the operation he had undergone on the Citadel. The Starliner had returned by way of the Citadel, too. If a graybox had been implanted in her brain, set to record everything she did and then transpond it back. He would have to check that out. Somehow. _But she won't risk sending a message while I'm here. Not unless she wants to get caught._

On top of that, there was still the matter of The Illusive Man. But that was a secondary priority compared to recuperating and preparing for his meeting with Saren. Well, unless he could manage to snag some information without wasting time, something that could be of use with the turian.

 _This is going to be a headache, isn't it?_ Emiya has figured that after cowing down the Systems Alliance thing would become much simpler, but apparently, there was more trouble in store for his stay in the human territories. _Oh well._

Miranda was the first to break the staredown, her calculating eyes glancing at everyone there and trying to figure out their relation to him. Shepard and Cassani, Hero and Butcher of the Skyllian Blitz respectively, and him: their former teammate from half a decade ago and now the galaxy's most wanted hacker. It wouldn't do to forget about Miranda either, mysterious secret agent and terrorist that she was. They made quite a crowd. Strange, how it was the visually most distinct of them; the asari, who stood out in this crowd with how apparently _normal_ she was. Something Miranda did not miss, as her eyes hovered on the archaeologist for a heartbeat longer, curious and weighing, but not malicious.

 _Of course, I suppose Liara's mother evens it all out. Surprising that Benezia didn't tell me anything about Liara coming here—or rather, did she nudge things to this happen in the first place?_ Emiya shook his head, not interested in trying to figure out what the ancient Matriarch might or might not have orchestrated. This definitely wasn't how he had expected this surprise lunch meeting to wind up and he had to marvel at the odds. The galaxy was a massive place and still, he had managed to run into so many familiar faces. Perhaps he should have bought a lottery ticket today, given how astronomical the odds of this reunion were.

He shook his head. _Liara shouldn't be a problem, but Miranda on the other hand..._

The raven-haired woman's eyes turned to Cassani one more time; piercing, unfathomable eyes swallowing the man whole for a long second before she offered him a pleased smile and Emiya had to wonder at that.

Did they know each other? The man seemed very much out of his depth here, despite easily being one of the most impressive among them, given the sheer number of patents attached to his name. Then again, Emiya wasn't surprised that the terrorist was familiar with both Shepard and Cassani, knowing how thorough she was and how... _motivated_ she had been when it came to him. There was no way she wouldn't have checked them out, given their shared time in the Alliance Navy and how the two of them had managed to make it all the way up to N7.

Around them, the last of the arriving people had found elevators down to the reception and check-in stations, leaving their mixed group standing in the otherwise plain and empty hall.

Any lingering surprise at her reception now long-gone, Miranda's eyes crinkled as she looked to him again. "To what do I owe this pleasure then, Emil? Not that I'm not flattered, of course."

 _Why is she calling me that, now? She called me Emiya back when we last worked together..._ Was she merely messing with him or had she forgotten? He had even made a point of her using that name, back on Thessia. His mind went back to the Indoctrination Protocols he had written; to the sections he had specifically outlined on faulty and failing memory.

Shrugging and ignoring the use of the name, for now, he answered, "To be quite honest I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon. Not for here, at least," he answered shaking his head. "Then again, it's not the first time you've defied my expectations."

She pursed her lips, not quite pouting at him as something changed behind her eyes; a barely tangible shift in her internal gears as she changed tack. "Hmm... You did leave me in quite a predicament, Shirou. This is quite a surprise for me as well. I was afraid you might have tired of me."

"Shirou?" Shepard repeated beside them, blinking.

 _Cold reading, or poisoning the well? Or both?_ He wouldn't put the talent past the woman, hoping only that his poker face would hold. "Like I said, call me whatever you want."

Miranda turned to face the other woman as she ignored him, now smiling as she gave the redhead another once-over, Had she achieved some goal with the use of the name? "Miranda Lawson," she said extending a hand, her eyes crinkling with an altogether different kind of amusement as she glanced at him. "We have worked together a few times, he and I."

Shepard glanced at him and he merely offered a scoff in return.

Miranda wasn't strictly speaking lying, but he had a gut-feeling anything he said at this point would just be twisted against him. She posed the same kind of threat that Matriarch Benezia, Captain Anderson, and Juha Kolkkonen did. He was almost starting to regret having been so open with Shepard before since it had opened him up to all these threats.

Before— _alone_ —he had been able to freely dismiss and ignore anything she said, confident that it wouldn't matter. But with Shepard and Cassani here, now... _Should I leverage the Alliance Intelligence to take her in? No, that would be even worse—combining the forces of my nearby enemies isn't going to help me in any way._

He had to say something, though.

"She gave me a ride to the Citadel a few years back," he answered simply, trusting that Shepard would make the connection, without giving Miranda too much in return. He had to consider Cassani, too. If he carelessly revealed Cerberus' existence, that could end up affecting those previously uninvolved. Liara's acquaintance with him on Thessia being the prime example of how out of control that could go.

"Oh, it was quite a bit more than that. In fact, I do recall you owing me a..." The Cerberus Operative continued, eyes twinkling as she looked at Cassani again. " _Private reveal_."

Emiya raised a brow, considering her.

Was she already setting up Cassani as some kind of collateral against him? And what was she talking about? What promise— _Oh, right. The eezo I made._ His eyes trailed off, considering how to best handle that. Honestly, he didn't feel like stringing her along to some fake mining site or laboratory, like had originally planned. It would just be a waste of time, especially now that he had cast off his veil of normalcy.

Glancing at Liara, he wondered if he could pull a repeat of his wall-trick again before he shook his head. That was pointless. _Play big_ , he reminded himself. It wasn't as if anyone outside their group was looking at them anymore, everyone all too happy to take the elevators down to the station proper. The cameras were irrelevant; he _could_ just hack them, but leaving them be and allowing the AIA to see it was probably the better option.

Besides, he wanted to wipe the smug expression off of her face.

"Private? I don't mind doing it in public. So," he said. '— _Trace, on'—begin projection,_ "here you go."

Miranda blinked, almost failing to react to the tossed chunk of pure, processed eezo, fumbling with it as she grabbed it out of the air with wide eyes. Shepard and Cassani both went bug-eyed at the feat—for different reasons—while Liara remained the only one among them to remain utterly unimpressed. She crossed her arms and he almost expected her to roll her eyes at him, as she looked at the others' reactions. Still, Miranda's smug mien had been completely blown away. And, best yet, he hadn't even needed to get shot at this time to achieve it.

 _I'm starting to like this 'big' stuff,_ Emiya thought with a scoff, crossing his arms. Miranda expected him to handle this delicately, the way he had handled things until now. So blowing that expectation completely out of the water should serve to make her wary of him.

And while she was completely out of sorts, he could wipe the slate clean of this promise business. "So, we're even? Good."

"Did, did you just fabricate element zero? No, wait—That's impossible; the heat and pressure necessary... Do you have some form of adjacent storage space?" Cassani asked, rolling forward to grab the piece straight out of Miranda's hands, the woman not even resisting as she merely looked at the eezo with surprise. "Using a divergent mass effect field, that could in theory..." He continued, trailing off.

Emiya noticed the flash something in the woman's expression, too unaware of his observation and amusement in her conflicted state. Worry. Anxiety. Panic? Just as quickly as it had surfaced it vanished, only her usual cool and collected comportment remaining. But brittler, somehow. Like she had just played her last card only to have turn out worthless.

"Emiya?" Shepard asked, not so much surprised by the act as by his willingness to do it so publicly. She glanced at Cassani, a hint of nervousness entering her eyes.

 _Right. Cassani now works for Aldrin Labs—guess that will work for devaluing the information._ When he had been trying to stay an unknown variable through stealth and subterfuge, any information others could glean would be valuable. But if he inflated the supply, the demand should in theory drop as well. The greater the number of people who knew about what he could do, the safer they would be. At least in theory.

Clearing his throat, he answered. "Something like that."

Technically speaking, Cassani wasn't that far off. Unlimited Blade Works did in theory function exactly like that; a divergent space within himself from which he could pull out objects. Just, not using any of the principles or laws of nature that anyone else would understand, since he did in fact manufacture the matter there.

Cassani's nodded before his wide eyes were drawn to the piece of near-perfect eezo in his hands, gleaming. "I had _theorized_ that it was possible to create a... pocket dimension of sorts, to store away objects in the same manner as the mass relays push mass into an adjacent space to avoid collisions... But to think the technology already exists. _Incredible_..."

Shepard looked at Emiya and he shrugged minutely, in return which she simply gave a defeated sigh. Liara still did not seem particularly impressed. Then again, after Thessia he wasn't sure what it would take to surprise Liara.

Miranda meanwhile, having lost her previous confidence looked around with only the thinnest veneer confidence, as if reaching for anything that would give her some leverage. _Thessia really did screw her over, too. So I can pretty much assume she had nothing to do with it, if her mission was to get my eezo source, or whatever._ But his demonstration had stolen the wind out of her sails, leaving her grasping again. Her eyes settled on Cassani, unreadable again.

Shepard noticed the gazing as she too eyed their old teammate, who was still lost in examining the eezo.

"So... Do you know her, Franco?" she asked to return his attention back up from the chunk in his lap, glancing at the woman who blinked at the question. They both turned to look at the wheelchair-bound man. "I mean, you were waiting on her here, weren't you?"

"Er..." It was Cassani's turn to be tongue-tied as he licked his lips, eyes meeting Miranda's. A whole conversation, completely silent and beyond the rest of them, passed in that moment. Seconds and myriad conflicting expressions passed.

"You two dating?" Shepard ventured.

"Yes," Miranda immediately asserted.

" _No,_ " Cassani vehemently denied just as quickly, his eyes bugging out again as he turned to look at Miranda with a betrayed expression. Their eyes met and they were lost in a conversation of their own again, private and unreachable to the rest of them despite it happening right in front of them.

They did know each other, _somehow_. Miranda must have approached the man before while investigating him, probably using any means at her disposal. Seduction, blackmail, extortion, there was little he would put past her. The man's flustered reaction combined with the cold calculation he could see in the woman's eyes painted a pretty uneven picture of their relationship, which reinforced that notion. _I hadn't expected her to try something like that. Was that what her earlier behavior was about?_

Trying to incite jealousy in Cassani, so that anything Emiya said about Miranda would immediately be taken the wrong way? A preemptive defense of sorts. He almost sighed, then. These kinds of interpersonal machinations really weren't his thing, the reason why he liked to stay out of the picture and why he hadn't been keen on interacting with Benezia.

Still, he couldn't exactly leave an acquaintance in Miranda's clutches.

While he didn't consider her a bad person _per se_ , she was definitely dangerous. He needed to consider this very carefully. Should he just tell it like it was, or try some roundabout method to probe the depth of their relationship first? Or try and take him to the side and explain it to him? _Well, I'll just start with something._

"Cassani," he began, meeting eyes with the sweating man. "You could do better than her."

A moment of utter stillness, they all looked at him askance.

"Emiya, what the fuck?"

It was Shepard who said that staring at him with an expression he couldn't quite decipher. He blinked twice, perplexed at her reaction. The woman shook her head as she realized how baffled he was. Exhaling loudly as she threw up her hands, she spoke to the two women, entering the elevator.

"Come on, Liara and Miranda. Let's just go."

When he tried to move to follow them into the elevator, her flat stare kept him from taking the last step inside. Blinking again, he could only watch as the doors closed and they began to descend without him and Cassani. _Huh... Well, Miranda isn't stupid and I've got a live feed on the security cameras. It should be fine..._

"What... just happened?" He looked down at the man in the wheelchair, who could only shrug helplessly at him. Clearing his throat, satisfied that he now had the man alone at least, Emiya tried again. "What I meant to say was, uh... Miranda isn't..." He struggled for words. "She's kind of dangerous. Not in general, but she probably has a grudge against me, so..."

Receiving a half-scoff, half-laugh, Emiya thought he had managed to get his point across without digging himself into another hole. Then, realizing that they were waiting on elevators that weren't coming back up, Emiya reached out and pushed the nearest button.

It was a silent and awkward minute as they waited. But eventually, with another _pling_ it arrived and they both stepped in. Muzak, much to Emiya's disappointment, had apparently not seen any great evolution since he had last been stuck in an elevator, doing nothing to help the mood.

"Right... Uh okay." Cassani swallowed audibly, gathering his courage. "She's with the organization Burnsfeldt was with, right?" Then, seeing Emiya's raised brow at the name, he clarified. "The N6 Engineer we met in Brazil? The one who invited us to the N-line?"

Emiya blinked, looking away as he suddenly vaguely remembered that there had been someone like that. Nodding absentmindedly at the question.

"Yeah, that's right. _Cerberus_."

If he knew that much already, then it was probably fine letting him know the situation. He and Shepard had apparently been pretty close, so she had probably shared some of the details already. No harm with some candor right about now. Besides Emiya wanted to see how he would react.

"Well, since you're already in this deep, might as well go the rest of the way," Emiya smirked, looking at Cassani. "I faked my death on Mars, ran off to get some cybernetic implants on the Citadel and I'm now a wanted interstellar cyber-terrorist. I'm trying to lay low for the moment, but I had to take that dreadnought parked outside the station hostage because Alliance Intelligence were too stubborn to talk to Shepard."

The seated man looked up at Emiya as if he was a grizzly bear, a second away from mauling him to death, swallowing heavily.

"I'm telling you this because Miranda has been gunning for me for a while now." Emiya looked up, his mind running through the vast array of possibilities of what she might try. Eyes settling back to Cassani, he continued. "She won't try to kill you— _probably_ , I mean she might do something stupid if she gets riled up—but keep your guard up anyhow."

"O, okay." Cassani swallowed again as he nodded, his eyes locking with the closed elevator doors again, deep in thought.

It was sort of strange how easy it was to talk about all of this. Not having to worry about everyone's safety, given how hot any information regarding him had been for a while now. He wasn't sure if this approach would have worked on the Citadel or Thessia, but it seemed to be working right now at least.

Which also reminded Emiya that the man beside him right now had been Shepard's colleague and teammate for a lot longer than he had. Through bootcamp all the way through most of the Villa—differing only slightly with his N7 Infiltrator designation from Shepard's Soldier training. If someone knew how and why she might have changed into the person she was today, wouldn't it be him? Grimacing, scowling, trying to think of how to bring up the subject, Emiya shook his head, all too aware of how sensitive a subject it was.

"Why... Why did you get Shepard involved?" Cassani suddenly asked, not looking up.

"Hmm?"

"It's been five years. I can't imagine you'd just come back from being dead all of a sudden for no reason," Cassani explained, shaking his head and sounding almost as if he wanted to apologize for prying. "So how— _what_ did Shepard do?"

It wasn't exactly something Emiya was trying to hide, so he shrugged and answered vaguely.

"We met on Torfan. I was trying to keep the Alliance operation from becoming a complete catastrophe and she somehow found me." Chuckling, he added, "She tried to kill me at first."

"Oh," Cassani said, looking up at Emiya then nodded once more before returning his gaze to the elevator doors, brows furrowed as muzak continued playing. Then, as if remembering something, he looked up again. "Can I keep this?" Cassani asked holding the chunk of eezo still in his lap.

Emiya shrugged. He had half-intended to dispel it if Miranda tried to run off with it, but seeing as how she had lost all interest in it, he didn't particularly care what happened to the chunk.

"Sure."

The rest of the way down was quiet, a definite contrast to the apparent girl talk Shepard was managing. Somehow she had managed to become fast friends with Liara in the space of the few minutes they had had, which wasn't all that surprising given her apparent affinity with all the asari on Torfan. Miranda in contrast seemed to be brooding, offering very little to the conversation the two others were having.

Of course, that had been during the elevator ride down. As soon as they stepped out and into the immigration and customs booths, things had bogged down.

Given the sheer amount of traffic to and from Arcturus Station, it seemed that the checkpoints for entering the station ring were located in the ring itself, allowing for the central hub—where space was at a much greater premium and where it was easiest to dock starships—to remain undigested by the constant flow of people and goods. Depending on where you wanted to go and what your business was, you would be guided to the specific sections of the ring.

Liara as it turned out, did not have any kind of visa or visitation papers in order and the station personnel were debating whether or not to take the asari in for questioning, or even into holding. It wasn't as if aliens simply came as tourists to visit humanity, given the considerable starliner fares involved in the long trip. _Hmm, she was a bit of a hothead, but did she really jump on the first starliner to Arcturus, through the Citadel from Thessia?_

He had half-expected the asari to come with everything ready, considering who her mother was. But looking through, he found nothing. Following the discussion remotely and ignoring Cassani who was intently studying the projected eezo, Emiya frowned at what he was hearing.

 _She definitely came for the Mars ruins, but how does she expect them to let her there? She won't even be able to buy a ticket to Sol at this rate..._ The Maiden did not even have a doctorate or title to rely on to get her foot in the door. _Did she really leave without graduating? I thought she was already nearly done with everything?_ How did she even expect to get inside the Mars facility?

"It's hard to believe they're related," Emiya muttered as he crossed his arms.

"Who?"

"Nothing, just talking to myself," he said and Cassani nodded hesitantly.

Somehow it felt like she had left everything behind. Had Baliya's death affected her that greatly? What about Tyra, then? Sure they had only been roommates, but given everything that had happened since and what he had learned about Ardat Yakshi, he had half-expected the two to remain together to support each other. _Did Tyra stay behind?_

He considered looking her up for a moment but then shook his head. He could just ask Liara about it if it came up.

Whatever the asari was planning, he certainly was curious enough to accommodate her. The flick of a mental switch, a few changes in databases here and there and _presto_ , suddenly Liara's stay in the Systems Alliance territories had been greenlit.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, allowing Emiya to take in the view.

They were on the inner side—or top of, depending on your point of view again—of the spinning doughnut-shaped station. Great windows lined the reception area beyond rows and rows of seats and the booths living the far wall, giving a perfect view of the great ring's insides; the torus' outer edge below lush and sparkling with plantlife and man's works, curving upwards and out of sight further into the rest of the ring, with the expansive and breathtaking vista of the darkness of space and the great, blindingly bright mirror hanging far above like the manmade-facsimile of the Sun it was. In-between, numerous small crafts flew along, people moving along their daily rituals and schedules, wholly uncaring of the great wonder they lived in.

Heaven and Earth as one, floating along in the nothingness of space.

Emiya swallowed again, somehow feeling overwhelmed again. The amount of work and skill and time and everything imaginable necessary for something like this hitting home again. He couldn't understand why it was so much more potent than what he had seen before. Certainly, the Citadel and the mass relays hadn't been built by any still-extant species—probably—but hadn't he seen similar works by the asari?

It couldn't just be because it had been made by humans. Certainly, his Structural Analysis did not work completely with alien crafts and works, but it still told him enough and he could intellectually understand how much went into such things. Or was it the same distance as work as had made him originally dismiss Arcturus Station until he had seen it for himself? He didn't quite understand what it was, but it seemed like he should focus on that. Understand _why_ his reactions had differed so greatly when seeing the real thing.

Shaking off his wonder, for now, he moved to follow after Cassani who had entered one of the booths.

Or rather, holding cells. Locking the doors into the rest of the station and back from where you had come, it ensured that everyone coming and going was properly screened. Reaching out with his cybernetics, he halfheartedly followed as Cassani presented his identity to the Virtual Intelligence receptionist. No human beings were actually physically manning the immigration and customs booths here, as Virtual Intelligences handled the routine.

Everything was of course being monitored from afar; he could trace down the security camera feeds down to a facility down in the station ring that coordinated and overlooked all of the numerous elevators between the central docking stations and the station ring. He could also tell that Alliance Intelligence was also monitoring them, but didn't think much of it. The previously mobilized marines and operatives had been recalled long since and he couldn't find anything else at works at the moment.

They were just looking.

Which would probably bring a lot of attention to his company. Shepard had already signed up for it, of course, but what of Cassani? Liara was another case again, but seeing as how he had already reached out on her behalf it only seemed proper he see it through. And finally Miranda...

He almost snorted. Well, it wasn't _really_ his problem.

Cassani passed through the booth, the door in front of him opening up and allowing him access to the rest of the station. Shepard and the rest were still there, apparently waiting on them.

Stepping into the booth, the door behind him closed and boxed him in. It was just large enough not to be claustrophobic, but only just. Polished and clean surfaces, not quite hard and utilitarian lines, but a touch of some futuristic artstyle he could not name, hinting at opulence. In front of him, there was a flat-screen with the human avatar of the Virtual Intelligence appeared. _Not quite on the Citadel's level there,_ he thought, vaguely remembering the holographic projections in use there and on Thessia for similar functions.

" _Welcome to Arcturus Station, please present your identification to the scanner below,_ " the VI spoke, not quite managing to sound human despite its best effort, skirting the uncanny valley.

"I don't have any," Emiya replied.

That wasn't true, he could just scrounge up the fake identitag he had made on the Citadel and it would probably pass inspection by a VI. Or he could just force his way through with his spirit hacking. But Alliance Intelligence was watching. And they had made a deal. Now he wanted to see how they would interpret it.

Would they intervene and let him pass to avoid getting in his way?

Or would they instead allow him to get tangled up here like a normal person would, in the name of not getting in his way.

He wanted to know how they would approach this new relationship and see how they reacted. He knew they were watching and were aware, and they should know that he knew that they were watching, so it was also something of a powerplay. Would they admit that they had been trying to keep tabs on him and give up that last vestige of power? Because if they thought they could watch and plot with impunity, then that would just lead to more headaches in the future.

" _Please present your identification to the scanner below,_ " the VI repeated. " _Failure to do so will result in Arcturus Station Customs and Immigration personnel being notified of your failure to comply._ "

Emiya shrugged. "Alright."

" _Please hold, station personnel are being notified. Thank you for your patience, now connecting you to the local office._ "

The VI vanished from the screen and was replaced by a man in a simple uniform. Not Alliance military, but still official-looking. The man's eyes looked off-screen for just a second before he cleared his throat.

" _Welcome to Arcturus Station, sir. You appear to not have any identification, is that correct?_ "

Emiya nodded, crossing his arms and looking at the flustered man with more than a little amusement.

It was obvious the man had no idea who he was, but that someone was pressuring him off-screen to deal with it from the way his eyes flickered above the screen every few seconds. Or at least to play along. Emiya hadn't noticed any AIA messages, so it had probably been an actual messenger, now standing by and instructing the man quietly.

" _Normally we don't allow anyone on station without at least a valid identitag, but..._ " A slight hesitation, as eyes looked up again. Emiya thought he could _just_ see the silhouette of someone reflected in those eyes, doing a frantic 'cut it' hand-signal across their throat. Frowning and clearing his throat, he continued. " _But, uh, I can make you a temporary visitation visa, if that would work?_ "

"That'd be great, thanks." Emiya nodded, smirking at the man who did not seem to know who he should be answering to; Emiya or whoever was in his office just out of sight.

" _Right, uh, okay. I'll, uh, get it done right away. Enjoy your stay on Arcturus Station, sir._ "

The booth doors opened and Emiya nodded, walking on through. He did feel a little bit bad for bullying someone just doing their job, but he suspected he would be receiving a bonus sometime soon. And knowing that the AIA would grease things for him was good to know. That they preferred avoiding any trouble with him, if at all possible for the time being, gave him a means of predicting their future actions.

On the other side, Shepard and the rest of the group were still waiting. None had left, somewhat surprisingly. But that was Shepard for you, he supposed.

"What took you?" Shepard asked, more curious than worried. At least whatever annoyance or aggrievance he had previously caused didn't seem to be a problem anymore.

He shrugged, glancing at Cassani who was standing beside her, staying away from Miranda. _Looks like I don't have to worry about him, then._ Finally, there was Liara.

"Must just be something with customs and immigration today, huh?"

The asari's eyes narrowed and then there was a spark of realization. But she said nothing, refusing to acknowledge that she had been found out. Or alternatively, that she might owe him something. Not that he was going to let this stone lie unturned. Now that she was here and heading for Mars to continue what he had started five years ago, he might as well sponsor her directly to cut through all the red tape.

Alliance brass would probably think Liara showing up when she had would just be another of his machinations by the time they realized what he was going to help her with.

"So, lunch?"

* * *

;

* * *

Liara had to fight back from scowling. It wouldn't do to display hostility, not when she was so alone and defenseless now. The stranger in an even stranger land; the outsider among this group of humans.

"Any suggestion, Franco?"

The asari demurely glanced at the redhead as she asked that of the other seated human. It was slightly strange seeing humans like this; their female sex appeared even more like the asari than their males did. Or at least, she thought she could differentiate between the males and the females. It was too early to tell.

She had always felt that she was an outsider, even among her own people. Her mother was a very powerful individual and the expectations placed on her had always been weighing on her, even though she wanted nothing to do with that life. It had been part of why she had struck out on her own and decided to study what she had, and where.

But that was completely different from this.

Humans everywhere, so alien and terrifying. Looking at her. Whispering and pointing. No one approaching her or talking to her, but always aware of her. She had thought that Saiga—Emiya, Emil, Redhax, _whoever_ he was—had been difficult when they had first met on Thessia through Tyra. But somehow she was realizing she preferred the man's casual and blunt mannerisms to humanity in general. At least so far.

"There are a few restaurants, but, I think we might have some trouble getting in. Usually, you need a reservation..." the man in the wheelchair replied.

Liara decided that he had to be a man, given how similar his voice and body were to Saiga's— _Emiya's_ , and how much shorter and neater his fur was. It was a strange inversion; the turian males had longer crests than their females did, with the asari cartilage-crest being usually somewhere in between.

It was a small observation, but one she felt was a solid first step towards getting used to interacting with humans.

She hadn't felt so alone ever before. Even back when she had been the odd asari out in a crowd, or when she had spent months on her solo dig-sites on Dretirop, it hadn't quite felt so difficult. It was something about how humans stared at her. She couldn't quite figure out what they thought and what they wanted.

So far Shepard has seemed very interested in her, but Liara hadn't known what to say or how to react to the human. The elevator ride had been incredibly tense but at least the human hadn't yet been offended by anything she did. And then after all the difficulty she had had with getting through immigration — knowing she hadn't secured any kind of visa or permit before arriving, it had only grown worse as the redhead kept insistently inquiring as to what had happened, to which Liara honestly had had no real answers.

Not until _he_ had rejoined and made it obvious to her, anyhow.

Liara didn't know how long he had stayed on Thessia but she was fairly certain that he had been manipulating records and databases and computers and who knew what, to enable his continued and unnoticed stay in Serrice. So it was obvious that he could simply wave his hands and make all of her problems disappear if wanted to.

Well, most of them anyhow.

"What do you think, Liara? Anything specific you'd like to try? I assume you're pretty new to human grub," Shepard asked as the humans had continued to converse, interrupting Liara's thoughts.

Flustered and confused, she made to reply but managed only to bite her tongue. _What is grub? It doesn't sound very safe. Oh no, is there some ritual before eating?_ Flushing a deep purple she looked away. Even the notorious hacker and doom slash savior of Thessia couldn't possibly help her overcome her social anxiety.

Even if Shepard didn't seem particularly bad.

The other woman— _Miranda_ —was worrying, though; they might have shared an animosity for a certain troublesome man due to past dealings, but she couldn't help but feel there was something _off_ about the dark-haired woman. Like she was holding herself back, plotting and judging them all, measuring how to best use and discard them for her own benefit. Or perhaps that was just Emiya's wariness affecting Liara. So far the woman hadn't done anything, content to stand quietly and listlessly by the side.

"Well, okay, if you're fine with anything, then." Shepard shrugged. "I've never had anything outside the officer's club at Alliance HQ... You have any recommendations, Franco?"

"Ah well, you usually need a reservation ahead of time. I do have a standing reservation at one place for the rest of the week, but it's just for a table of two..." The man in the wheelchair explained, trailing off.

"A reservation?" Liara asked quietly.

"This isn't like on a planet, or a moon, or even like the Citadel. Owning a business on Arcturus Station is quite expensive," the raven-haired woman answered. "And in high demand. Most places are booked full, with catering to nearby businesses besides." She shrugged, running a hand through her hair as she closed her eyes. "That, or they're privately owned, serving only at their owner's whims. Not the kind of place one simply waltzes into, unannounced."

Liara blinked, hesitating in her gratitude. The woman hadn't spoken a word for a long while now and the asari couldn't help but feel trepidatious. Not even noticing her or her hesitation, Miranda looked to Emiya instead with a slight curl of her lips and a raised brow: an expression Liara couldn't quite comprehend or decipher.

"The rent on a place here must be quite something," Emiya observed.

The raven-haired woman scoffed disdainfully. "You do not _rent_ anything on Arcturus Station. You either own it, or you are _owned._ "

"...I see," he hesitated in answering, Liara noticed.

"Still," Miranda began. "It is not as if everyone who owns anything lives here all the time. Surely there must be someplace left empty while the owners are away, behind lock and code." Saying that she turned to eye Emiya. " _Of course_ , I'm sure that wouldn't exactly be a problem for you."

The white-haired man scoffed, hiding his amusement. "So in the end, it's all up to me then?"

Miranda had been challenging him, Liara realized.

"You're gonna cook again?" Shepard asked, her voice rising in volume, alarming the asari. Was something wrong? Was cooking somehow bad? Liara couldn't deny the hint of excitement she felt at the prospect of Emiya's cooking again. For all his faults, an inability to prepare succulent food was not one of them.

But Emiya only raised his arms in a relaxed shrug, deflating the red-haired woman's—and Liara's—burgeoning excitement. "Breaking in and taking over a kitchen, huh? Sorry, I'm afraid even I have _some_ manners and will have to pass on that."

Liara knew she was missing some context, recognizing the joking tone of his voice. But Shepard apparently did, nervous—or perhaps apprehensive—as she exhaled loudly and rolled her eyes as salarians did when they felt worried. Should she, too, be worried? She wasn't quite sure what the social standing of this woman and the other seated human was, but she was assuming that they were of a higher status than the others were as Emiya's behavior towards them was noticeably more polite and respectful than it was towards the standing woman, or herself for that matter.

Were their seats some form of ceremonial palanquin, denoting their higher standing? She hadn't heard anything about this before... Liara glanced at the white-haired man, noting how deferential he appeared towards them; or rather, as deferential as someone as brusque as he could be. The change in his body language since they had last seen on Thessia was shocking. If it weren't for the fact that she couldn't understand the other three humans at all, she might have suspected that she had only gotten better at reading humans. Meaning there had to be some reason for the drastic change in the white-haired man's body language, some greater meaning to telling her that these two were different.

She would have to be careful not to antagonize either.

"How about we walk around? If we find someplace that looks good I can check if they've got enough room for us? I'm sure I can get us in, thanks to our new friends," he suggested then, gesturing with his open palm, making Liara realize he wasn't talking about anyone present but rather someone he had met earlier.

"Oh, you think they'll do that?" Shepard asked, challenging him as she crossed her arms and leaned back to look at him down the length of her nose, in that way he did quite often as well.

He chuckled, shrugging easily again.

Liara was beginning to realize that this wasn't really a strict relationship and that Emiya wasn't beholden to either of them, rather he was simply relaxed and joking around. His calm manner and crooked smile were putting some of the actions of the others into context, but Liara still felt very hesitant to speak up and take part in the conversation herself. That and he did seem to be brooding a lot, the meaning of which she couldn't place yet in the conversations.

"That sounds alright to me. Franco?" Shepard said, mirroring Emiya's expression and mannerism again, as Liara subconsciously did so minutely as well as she tagged the motions in her mind.

"Sure, that sounds alright. If we can get in, I mean."

The last member of their group: the raven-haired woman, blinked as she realized they were all staring at her now. Then, she nodded and smiled without showing teeth, shaking her head slightly.

"Alright, that settles it. Let's go... This way?" Shepard said and took the lead with her wheelchair.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya held back the scowl as they continued looking.

They had piled into an auto-shuttle to cab them around since they had two wheelchair-bound among them. But the more they looked around the more obvious it became it wouldn't be so easy to find a place for a quick bite. Not without earlier reservation anyhow. Just as Miranda had said.

Four places they had found and four places had been packed to the gills with customers who had made early reservations. It wasn't even just about getting through the door, as the amount of food prepared was carefully calculated and a group of their size simply hadn't been factored in in any of the places they had checked out. In fact, he could find a caloric table where each customer's dietary needs had been carefully laid out in most of the places he looked through, with exact measurements for how much of what they should eat and with comparisons to how much they usually did eat. Fitting in five more people at this point wouldn't be so easy.

It had already been half an hour since they had started looking around and since then they had explored a full third of the station ring for a place with little to show for it.

But that wasn't what really bothered him.

_There's no working or lower class here._

Gleaming villas and tall spires of alloy and crystal, beautiful vistas of carefully groomed and arranged parks, efficient and careful design that lay just beneath the surface and telling of just how much thought had been put into this place. It had all blinded him at first, to the simple fact that this wasn't something new as far as humanity went.

Not really.

He could still remember the first thing he saw as he opened his eyes for the first time in this new body, years back on Earth. Back then he had awoken collapsed next to refuse and surrounded by poverty and disrepair, looking into the distance where seemingly boundless riches and luxury were on full display. Here there was no such dissonance; there was no working or lower, or even middle class here, as the wonders of automation and Virtual Intelligences had removed the last dregs of even the service industry in this society. It was obvious now, looking at all the prices of the places they had gone over. The restaurants and culinary establishments here were all top of the line; five stars experiences par excellence, the kind where the chefs bordered on artists in their craft, rather than being mere cooks.

Certainly, not all jobs could be handled by machines as maintenance and oversight still required a human touch. But those people were few and far between, and so the layout of Arcturus Station reflected that. There were no casual diners, no fast-food restaurants, no lunch buffets, and no street food culture. To live on the station meant that you could just afford to have whatever you wanted shipped in, or simply hire a personal chef to do it for you, and thus eating out had to become something special to compensate for that gap.

It wasn't like the Citadel, staffed by the strange Keepers—a mystery all their own—or expansive beyond any right, so large that it could easily fit the richest of at least half a dozen worlds in just the Presidium ring, leaving plenty of room for even the bottom feeders of society to move in, creating a more recognizable world.

What had he thought of this place as mere hours before?

The new throne from which humanity could rule the galaxy before they had stumbled upon other sapient life? That had turned out to have been a more apt description than he had realized at first. This was the walled garden where only the chosen ones may reside. Nothing had changed since his time alive.

No, that wasn't quite right. He had changed. He had distanced himself from people these past few years; it was obvious now that he had been confronted by Shepard and all that had followed. Predictions and mental models turning out wrong as he interacted in person with people. If his opinion of Arcturus Station could shift so many times, simply based on his resolution of observation...

What else had he missed all these years by relying solely on his newfound hacking prowess?

"Hey, stop brooding. I'm hungry, too," Shepard said as she playfully hit his shoulder.

Emiya glanced at her, expression going neutral, objection at her characterization of his having been 'brooding' just on his lips. But he scoffed instead, biting back the complaint. Instead, he said: "I did find something."

"Oh?" She sounded surprised. "Some super-secret place you found through your super hacking skills?"

He wasn't sure if she was asking that seriously or in jest, but he nodded regardless. There were two places with the capacity to take them in: one a quarter, and another two-and-a-half quarters of the ring away from where they were right now. Still, they weren't expected and using Alliance Intelligence to bully some chefs into letting them in didn't seem quite right. That kind of drama could shake up a professional's confidence completely, so unless he felt they were in need of a lesson, it was a method he loathed to use. Or rather, something he reserved for special occasions. Instead, he thought of another place he had found.

These people all knew him—more or less—and surely expected something _spectacular_. Well, he had never been one for being predictable.

Lips quirking into a small smirk, he looked at Shepard. "Something like that... I doubt most people even know about it on the station, much less could get in."

"Alright!" She fist-pumped.

Taking Shepard's excitability as his cue, he took over the shuttle's autopilot to re-route it toward the place he had found. Five minutes and two normally-closed access doors that he hacked later, the rest of the group was starting to grow slightly apprehensive as they followed him.

Coming to a stop in what looked like a break room, he turned around. "Here we are."

"Uh... And where is here?"

"This looks like the break room of station personnel. I think." Cassani was of course right. The closest thing this place had to a middle class was the Alliance personnel, all of them commissioned officers and career military. His eyes came to rest on the machines lining the far wall. "...Is that a vending machine?"

"A _cup noodle_ vending machine." Emiya nodded.

Shepard groaned. "This is the best you could find?"

Emiya didn't deign that with a reply, instead mentally forking over the necessary credits to one of the machines which promptly began to heat up and prepare a cupful of hot noodles for him. Food was food, as far as he was concerned, even if he did prefer to usually eat something healthier. Still, there was something about junk food and carbs that couldn't be understated.

Especially in a place as tightly regulated and segregated as this.

"You can't be serious," she tried again, seeing his expression and looking at the others for support.

Cassani didn't seem too bothered and Liara seemed even a little intrigued, leaving only Miranda as her ally. The two women shared a _look_ with one another before turning to him as one, eerily synchronized. But he didn't let it bother him, instead reaching out for his steaming hot cup and chopsticks.

Ignoring them, he took to trying the noodles with a loud slurp, almost reveling in the look of disgust that crossed their faces, well aware of how the act was seen outside of Japan. But noodles were meant to be slurped and that was that.

"Hmm..."

A lot better than he had expected. He had half-expected to find the noodles made out of some modern-day replacement, or some base component of the ingredients having been changed due to health or cost reasons. But the texture of the noodles, the smell of the broth, the tang of monosodium glutamate... It was all there; so incredibly familiar and nostalgic in all its junk food glory.

This was an unexpectedly good find, he would have to look up the company supplying the station vending machines. Satisfied, he went for one of the empty tables and sat down.

Noticing the stares, he looked up and nodded. "What? Never used a vending machine before?"

"No, just... Noodles? Really?" Shepard asked, glancing at the others as she rubbed the back of her neck. "Noodles are kind-off, how do I put this..."

" _Gauche_."

They both looked at Miranda, who shook her hair and crossed her arms challengingly, and while Shepard had no idea what the word meant she nodded at the tone of voice. "Yeah, that."

Emiya shrugged, not particularly caring with most of his good mood having well and evaporated by now. Though he did note that some of Miranda's spunk had returned. Or rather, her instinctive reaction had reverted her to a more unguarded state.

Not that he had had any particular intention to cheer her up, or anything. Rather, he should focus on splitting this group up as soon as possible. Individually, none of them were a problem, and apart he could keep on eye on them. Shepard and Cassani would stay here, Liara was undoubtedly heading for Mars and Miranda... Well, he had already warned Cassani, and he could warn Shepard over the comms.

So.

"Liara, eat up. We're heading to Sol as soon as I've found a starship and we're not eating until we're there."

That got everyone's attention, especially Liara's.

"O-oh." She bore a conflicted expression, at the same time aware that she had no means of her own at the moment and a rather tight budget, but also less than thrilled about getting pulled along again. After a few seconds, the asari nodded and hesitantly approached one of the machines, mirroring his earlier actions with some confusion until she realized she needed to pay with the omnitool first.

"You're leaving already? What about..." Shepard paused as she looked at the others.

"There are some things I have to take care of that way, as I said before. No point in wasting time." Turning to look at Shepard, he exhaled. "Besides, this was mostly about you, wasn't it? I don't have any real business here."

"I guess not," she said after a moment. "You're heading to the moon immediately, then?"

"The moon? You're leaving for Luna?" Cassani perked up, still not having taken anything from any of the vendors. "There aren't any starliners heading that way for another two days, that I know."

Emiya nodded, glancing down at his now empty cup. "I was thinking I could buy a starship." He could take another cup since he would probably be looking around for a ride to buy for a while. "Something small and fast. There are a few used models on sale within the Arcturus system."

"I hope this will not be a repeat of Serrice," Liara whispered quietly, as she received her steaming hot cup from the vendor. "Yet somehow I suspect it will."

Seeing Shepard's interested expression, Emiya preempted the question.

"She and her roommate were with me when the STG and the Spectres showed up to siege my apartment. It was a complete mess." Emiya chuckled before he remembered something that had utterly slipped his mind. "Speaking of, what of Tyra?"

Tyra's condition had originally triggered some kind of seizure, which he hadn't had enough time to look into in any great detail at the time, having figured that his physical body's adverse reaction was simply an inconvenience. But now with his run-in with Henell and seeing what could happen, he felt a certain unease for the girl. There was no reason to assume she was in any more danger than she had been since he had left, being at no greater risk of being Indoctrination than anyone else at this time.

But still, keeping tabs on the asari might be wise.

"You did not know?" Liara looked up, quite astonished by his question. "She was taken away by the Justicar due to..." Glancing at the gathered humans listening in, she prevaricated. "Her _condition_. She will not be free to leave for at least a decade, or so I was told before I made for the Citadel." Whatever memory had been brought back to mind, it darkened the asari's expression as she turned to her cup again, saying no more.

Judging by Liara's reaction, it seemed like Tyra was fine. That went with what Benezia had hinted at; that it was a well-known and hidden condition, something that asari as a whole took great pains to hide and handle in private.

Something to look into later, given what could happen if a number of asari on the Ardat Yakshi spectrum were to become Indoctrinated.

"So you were with Emiya on Thessia? What was that like?" Shepard asked, finding an opening and not recognizing the asari's sullen state. "And who's Tyra? You met a Justicar, too? I thought they were pretty rare."

Somewhat taken aback by the blunt questions and unflinching gaze, Liara flushed under the redhead's gaze. "I, that is, well..."

Cassani took this moment to clear his throat, getting Emiya's attention back from Shepard and Liara. "If you are headed for Luna, perhaps I could be of help. I was just here for a meeting and now I'm headed back to Armstrong."

"You have your own starship?" Emiya asked. While he could buy one on a whim, that by no means meant that it was something just anyone could afford.

"It's on a 6-month lease through my work," Cassani answered, shaking his head. "But it's a fast ship and the fuel has already been paid by my company. If you are headed that way, then..."

"Hmm? Really?" Emiya considered it. "Alright. Just don't be surprised if Alliance Intelligence comes asking questions later."

The man in the wheelchair hesitated only for a second before he nodded. "We can leave as soon as you want." There was only the slightest tick that clued Emiya in on the man's nerves, as Emiya nodded. He wasn't in a hurry yet, since he had to figure out what to do with Miranda first.

Next to them, the woman in question sat down with a cup of coffee, abstaining entirely from the noodles. "You're going back to Luna?" she asked, posing languidly by resting one elbow on the break room's table. Cassani hesitated and looked to Emiya.

 _She's fishing for information._ Question was, would she want to come along or stay here to report making contact with him? _Can I afford to let her out of my sight?_ If she did report to the STG about his presence here, would they come charging in and demanding the Alliance hand him over. But on the other hand, if she was transmitting information back somehow, did he want to bring her along? Going to the moon to check up on the combat VI research program wasn't actually all that important, especially if he already had a better lead on tracking down Cerberus in the form of Miranda, so he could just forego it.

But Liara was heading for Mars and he still needed to visit the Moon Cell.

"You're headed back to Armstrong? I'm surprised you have a place there, considering the last time," Emiya said, probing in turn. The Cerberus facilities should have been raided and completely uprooted that time, but five years was a long time.

"Nothing quite like when you last visited, but..." There was a pause, as she considered something. A slight glimmer beneath those blue pools as her brows furrowed. "But there are a few places you might be interested in seeing." Did she figure out he was looking for Cerberus just by this much? "If nothing else, there are a few places with good food. Better than _this_ anyhow," she said finally with a sniff as she glared at the empty cups and sipped at her coffee.

Emiya hummed in thought.

It wasn't really a problem as long as she didn't realize he was specifically looking for The Illusive Man. In fact, laying himself out as bait along with the eezo they had shown interest in might even draw the man out. Though he would have to drop by the Moon Cell first.

Turning to Cassani to see what the man thought of that. It was his ship they were talking about—or on his lease, anyhow. There was a healthy glint of wariness in the man's eyes, but he nodded nonetheless after a second. Speaking in a tone that betrayed none of his feelings, he said: "That's no problem."

"So you're just leaving me behind to deal with the mess you made?" Shepard asked, crossing her arms as she stared, giving Liara a well-deserved break from the interrogation.

"Call me if you need anything," he answered without bothering to look at her, a smirk tugging at his lips. She scoffed and shook her head, before going back to pestering Liara. He ignored the asari's attempt at surreptitiously requesting relief from Shepard with no small amusement. It was good for young asari to get in over their heads every once in a while.

Satisfied that he had secured a ride back to the moon and was keeping Shepard out of yet another mess, Emiya began to pull back the various queries regarding buying used starships he had put out. No point in leaving a trail. Maybe he could take another look later, but for now, they could leave as soon as Liara was done eating, so—A tightbeamed request for medical assistance to the center of Arcturus Station caught Emiya's interest. An accident, a hull breach of some kind, numerous wounded and exposed to vacuum.

Interestingly, or perhaps annoyingly, there wasn't anything else on the other end for him to reach for. Just the tightbeam comm unit, suggesting that it wasn't a starship or station with any kind of central mainframe. But, there were people in danger and he was just sitting around, so...

Emiya leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes as if to take a short nap and then slumped.

Tightbeam jumps still worried him, but when it came to saving people that was simply a calculated risk he was willing to take. Besides, this wasn't that far off, just a few light minutes out from the station itself. Barely anything from his point of view. Opening his eyes as he popped out of the comm unit, astralized and invisible, he took in his surroundings.

Rough walls—or floor and ceiling?—with no real sense of up or down. Blaring lights, debris, and people floating around, but no sound.

_Huh, vacuum. Right._

It took him another second to realize that he was inside an asteroid, surrounded by miners. _Hollowers? Space miners?_ Shaking his head, he located the breach. One of the walls had collapsed and the pressurized insides seemed to have been sucked out. There were at least four who were already dead from exposure and two who were bleeding, but they were already receiving first aid with some medigel. That didn't seem to be what was causing the people here to panic, as there were at least four still lingering around the breach, pointing outwards and flailing around, probably shouting to each other. _Weird that my cybernetics aren't picking it up. Some older generation of comms, or walkie talkies?_

He would have to be mindful of that. The advantage high tech could give you could be negated by going sufficiently low-tech if you weren't careful.

Moving up behind them, past the rows of prefab buildings bolted onto the inside walls of the asteroid, he looked out into the abyss and peered. It took him a few seconds to spot what had happened. At least seven people were flying away at a steady pace through the void, without any means of propulsion to slow down or reversing their course. They must have been caught in the out-stream of air and were now floating off from the asteroid.

There wasn't a starship parked around, either, he noted. _Probably a waste to keep a starship parked around while you're hollowing out an asteroid for valuable minerals._ It was hard to say if there were any starships nearby capable of picking the stragglers off, given that he didn't know how much air they had. _Only have four seconds left. Better jump back and then act on my turn._

Opening his eyes and noticing that none of them were looking at him. Inhaling, he closed his eyes and jumped back through the tightbeam onto the asteroid.

There was no point in overthinking the problem since they were still all in his range. Materializing next to the asteroid miners staring out into the vacuum of space, he ignored their gawking and projected his bow. Inhaling slowly—completely ignoring the fact that there was no air even with his projected helmet hiding his features—he lined up the bow and eyed the seven people still floating away at a constant velocity.

Seven arrows, he decided. No need for fletchings; replace it with something to attach a long wire to instead. Piercing through their hardsuits would kill them through exposure, so switch heads to man-catcher heads with openings just large enough to permit a limb.

 _No gravity or air resistance; direct line of fire. Arrows will actually fly straight for once,_ he reminded himself and let loose the first arrow. Then another and another, when he was certain the first would hit. It took a mere second for all seven arrows to be loosed, so he dispelled the bow and minded the seven loops of thin wire around his right arm. They were offering just enough resistance as they spooled out behind the arrows that the projectiles were slowing down; if they hit the miners too hard it would damage them, non-lethal heads or not, but if they were too slow the arrows wouldn't catch up.

As the first man-catcher latched onto a limb, Emiya smirked and began to tighten his grip around that particular wire to slow the man down. Then the second, third, and fourth. As he had all of them, he began to slow down the spooling wires. It wouldn't do to bring them to a sudden stop. It was like fishing; if you jerked the fish too hard, the line would snap and the fish would escape, he supposed. Or rather than a line snapping, one of their limbs would break. So he allowed the spooled wires to slow them down relatively easily while he kept one foot locked onto the asteroid to keep himself from being pulled out by their greater combined mass.

"Right, that does it," he said and began to pull them back. He had about three seconds left on his clock.

Turning around to the nearest gawking miner, he handed him the wires. He had already given them enough of a tug to reverse their acceleration, but bringing them back in gently enough that they didn't splatter against the asteroid would take too long. No point in sticking around. Giving the rest of the miners a jaunty wave, he waved them a two-finger salute and astralized, jumping back to Arcturus Station.

"Hmm. So that's where they were," Emiya said as he opened his eyes. Noticing Cassani's curious look, he shrugged. "The working class, that is. I didn't know they lived on hollowed-out asteroids."

"What?" The man looked confused for a second by the non-sequitur, only having a vague understanding of what Emiya was talking about, before nodding hesitantly as if understanding something. "The... working class?"

 _Hmm, could it be that those terms have fallen out of use?_ It seemed like a strange idea, given how familiar so much of everything seemed despite the obvious technological advances. _A sign of the divide, perhaps._

"Right, spacers? It's different than on Earth. Getting off-world is expensive unless you're joining the Alliance or get scouted by one of the larger corporations..." Cassani glanced at Miranda quickly, before looking away. "Either you _own_ a way off-world, or you are _owned_ off-world." He looked down to his lap, interlacing his fingers and clutching at something invisible there.

 _The Systems Alliance had an effective monopoly on spaceflight since the First Contact War, but they wouldn't be able to populate planets on their own... So some corporations would have had to step in to fill that gap._ Which explained their omnipresence on Arcturus Station.

"Sometimes it seems like the divide between the top and bottom just keeps growing every day..."

"Doesn't seem like much has changed there," Emiya muttered in reply.

He wasn't sure what to think about that. This stark divide.

This was why he kept himself out of economics and matters on the large-scale as much as possible. Things tended to get muddied up and lose their nuance, erasing the space within justice could exist. The exact reason why Justicars were suborned to their local governments.

Which was why he had kept his head well and clear of such things until there was an obvious evil to cut down. But right now...

Didn't he have the means to handle such problems without resorting to violence?

Emiya grimaced at this line of thought.

It was one thing to act to stop something in progress and something completely different to act to prevent something before it had even happened. Hadn't he placed that limitation on himself for that exact reason? A hero of justice only saved people after the disaster had already begun. Especially when it came to human beings. Else, if he simply sought to prevent all tragedies by means most efficient, all he would be doing would be killing people before they had even done anything.

A fact he had to bear in mind right now more than ever before as he held the System Alliance in the palm of his hand.

Besides, what had changed? Walled neighborhoods and highly stratified societies had existed nearly as long as civilization itself had. The more wealth there was to be had the greater that gap would become, as those with more could continue to accrue more and more, while those without would remain left behind. The Pareto principle working at exponential rates of growth inevitably led to that wealth disparity.

Which, in turn, led to discontent and desperation.

Or rather a 'reversion' to an earlier mode of existence. To something more basic and primal. Instinctive, even. Civilization only worked so long as it _worked_. The moment it was no longer in the apparent interests of enough people and conditions grew intolerable, there would be nothing holding people back from becoming as beasts once more; the charade ending, the curtain coming to a close equalling to an atavistic call from somewhere far beneath and beyond the rational to destroy everything and begin anew. It was akin to a constant in the universe. Trees grew great and blotted out the sun from everything else beneath them until finally a fire would burn away and all that would remain would be ash for new growths. Matter gathered into few places until they began to burn under their own pressing mass, expanding, pulsating, cooling and finally collapsing into singularities than then in turn depleted back into disparate parts.

A continuous cycle. Life and death.

Of course, predation in the wild and predation in civilization bore little resemblance at first glance. Killing and devouring someone was usually a messier affair than just robbing someone, after all.

But it was the same in his eyes; profiting through the deprivation of others.

In that sense, the more desperate people were the more likely they were to commit injustices of every kind. That much had been obvious to him since long ago as he had traveled the world. The greater the catastrophe and the harsher a tribulation, the more likely people were to wrong one another. If the nominal rules for how to advance and better your lot in life obviously weren't true, then just as obviously there was no reason to follow such norms. Why work hard when it would never surmount to even a fraction of another's results? Especially if that truth was continually flaunted in your face.

Gleaming spires and beautiful mansions with squalid slums and wretched poverty at their base, barely a stone's toss away.

Hand-wrought worlds in the void with barely-habitable rocks spinning far and away, out of sight and out of mind.

He could neither judge nor praise either. Was it better to separate them so? Was it better for there to be a gulf of billions of kilometers of the nothingness in-between, than for those walled gardens to be right next door?

Emiya couldn't help but think back to Thessia again as he shook his head at his thoughts.

The Matriarchs of Thessia had all those advantages and more, allowing them to endlessly gather wealth while barring all others from their world making it impossible for any other race to directly compete with them. It had taken an unforeseeable disaster on the scale of endangering nearly all life on Thessia for that scale to be tipped back into the other side's favor. And even then, only for a while.

He almost hesitated to think it, but large-scale violent upheavals—which this distance made more difficult—might well be a natural process for civilizations. A release valve of internal pressures, allowing tensions to reset while reaping and spreading the bounties of the now-deposed and oft-decapitated wealthy. The late Bronze Age and Egypt's Old Kingdom's collapses, the fall of west and east Rome, Britain, the French Revolution, the Russian Empire and the subsequent Soviet Union, and the countless countless kingdoms in-between that had been forgotten and lost to time... How much had been lost and how much had been gained with each attempt?

Humanity's history was one of rise and of collapse as they progressed towards... _something._

Perhaps civilizations themselves were becoming more adept at preventing those collapses. Like a memetic gestalt lifeform of its own; the logos itself learning and adapting, slowly becoming more capable and skilled at staving off its own destruction, learning the many ways in which it could come to pass and resisting. ' _People don't have ideas. Ideas have people.' Or however it went._

In that same sense, wasn't he trying to bring something dead back to life?

Emiya shook his head again. _Enough._ This was why he didn't want to think about these things and tried to keep himself to simpler definitions of justice. It was so much simpler to save seven astrominers from being spaced away than it was to ensure that they had a fair and just chance at life.

"You're _brooding_ again," Shepard complained at him and he rolled his eyes at her. She was right, but that didn't mean that she had to point it out. "I figured you'd act a little different, given it was a reunion, but apparently you never change."

She said that half in jest, scoffing at him as if she was exasperated, but he didn't react knowing that if he tried to explain himself it would only get her more worked up.

So instead, he cooly shrugged and went to get more noodles from the vending salt and fat and carbohydrates would wash away his funk. It reminded him of simpler times, back when he would keep a serving or two of dry noodles in his pack and eat it after whatever disaster he had been in the middle of had blown over. He couldn't really remember why he used to carry such things with him, but it had probably something to do with his youth. It seemed like the thing he would have had to eat as a kid, given the level of cooking ability among his family back then.

"Was that why you enlisted back then?" Cassani asked suddenly and Emiya had to frown, trying to decipher his meaning and brought back from his musings. _At least I wasn't brooding_ , he thought.

Thinking back, he shrugged and said, "Something like that."

Cassani eyed him intently, but then accepted the non-answer with a silent nod. Miranda was listening intently but quietly by the side. For now, she was simply going to tag along and observe him.

"Emiya had Mars in his sights from the start," Shepard chimed in. "Right?"

Liara made a small sound, slight enough that only Emiya recognized it as the polite request for a chance to speak, one that none of the others noticed or understood. Meeting her eyes, he raised a brow to say, _Go on._

"The original Prothean cache that humanity discovered was on Mars. Was that not you told me?" Liara asked and when he nodded, she continued. "I had hoped to investigate that second ruin, the one where you claimed to have found the relic." Miranda and Cassani perked up at one of those words. "The relic, _which_ , as so it happens, vanished without a trace."

Emiya tilted his head at that, meeting her accusing stare evenly.

Had he dispelled the projection? That hadn't been his intention, but with the falling orbital station, Rho Aias, and his damaged spiritual core, that could have easily happened. Combined with Baliya's death and Tyra being whisked away by the Justicars, it was little wonder Liara had left Thessia behind. If the only remaining lead on the mystery of the Prothean 7th age was on Mars he doubted even Benezia would have been able to stop Liara. _Well, what's done is done._

"Well, it must have been lost during your run-in with the Spectre. Anyhow, as far as the ruins go... You won't find it. It's connected to the one that was found earlier, but I doubt they would even let you in. Much less start looking for it."

She broke eye-contact, displeasure obvious to not just him. "I had assumed as much, given the response I had received earlier when I queried into the matter."

He nodded. "Alright. Would you like to see it?"

Miranda and Cassani almost jumped out of their seats as one before realizing what they had done and sharing a wary glance with one another. A whole conversation seemed to occur between them in the space of a second, but it was Shepard who demanded Emiya's attention following the question.

"Wait, wait. You're going to the Mars ruins?" Shepard asked indignantly. "The same one you were going to last time?" Seeing his nonplussed stare she threw up her hands. "Well... _screw staying behind then_. I'm coming along!"

Emiya blinked and almost retorted about the Alliance Intelligence and Systems Alliance, before opting to keep his mouth shut instead. _Well, there goes the plan of splitting everyone up._ Glancing at Cassani, who blinked and realized that he was being stared at—as if having forgotten that it was his ship again—before nodding solemnly. That was that, then.

Emiya shrugged. "Alright, I guess we're all heading to Mars then." Everyone rose up, turning towards the door almost as one, causing Emiya to blink. "What, no one else wants more noodles?"

Seeing their stares, he sighed. _Guess not._

Well, he could always order noodles some other time now that he had the supplier's name down.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard glanced at the back of the raven-haired woman who was sashaying in the middle of the group, obviously keeping herself constantly apace at Emiya's blindspot— _not that such tricks would work on him_ , Shepard thought with a scoff—as they entered Franco's rental.

It wasn't such a clear-cut relationship as she had originally figured, after all.

If she wasn't certain that Emiya quite enjoyed the woman's company, Shepard would be pretty sure that they were enemies. Of course, Emiya hadn't appeared to realize the fact that he didn't dislike the woman, either. It somewhat reminded Shepard of how he had been back in basic with _her_. Not the specific actions he took or words he used, but the way he positioned himself adversarially, yet without hostility, in relation to her.

It was another niggling piece of the puzzle that made up the friend she had made so long ago.

Still, that was only what _Emiya_ thought.

It was plain to see that a lot had happened between them, just as a lot had happened between herseöf and Emiya. But where Shepard thought her life had taken a generally positive upswing following their friendship, she wasn't so sure the same could be said for how Miranda perceived her encounters with the man.

Because while Emiya appeared to quite like the woman, Franco was completely on edge around her, despite the fact that he had been waiting for her to arrive. What could possibly worry _him_ —a former N7 combat specialist—so? Suddenly dealing with the entirety of the Systems Alliance didn't seem like such a pressing matter any longer,

Besides...

The Mars ruins Emiya had joined the Alliance Navy to see. The one reason which had led to their meeting and which had then propelled him to turn on his back to everything he had done, overturning and confounding pretty much the entire solar system in the process.

What was it he had found there?

She _had to_ see it _._

Would seeing it for herself allow her to put every piece in place in the puzzle? Probably not. But even so, she had a presentiment that this was something important like it had been a turning point for him which.

"We have clearance for take-off," Emiya announced suddenly and Franco appeared confused for a moment before he nodded in understanding.

She had seen him do his "hands-free" trick several times by now so it didn't surprise her any longer, but she had expected more of a reaction from Franco. Emiya must have told him while they had been separated, she figured.

"Right, I'll..."

But the starship was already starting up despite there being no one at the helm. The only one who appeared the least bit surprised was Liara, who was looking between them with wide, unblinking eyes.

"We'll full burn the whole way. No point in waiting around."

Cassani eyed Emiya before turning to Shepard, who could only shrug.

"Umm, I do not presume to know how such things are handled among humans, but among asari I believe that this would not be taken lightly..."

Liara was right, of course.

Flying at full burn meant being pretty reckless; it wasn't like the emptiness between various star systems where there were no speed limits. Flight plans had to be announced and transmitted, such that any nearby flight control could verify your point of origin and your starting burn because the moment you entered superluminal speeds, any means of tracking a ship in realtime became sketchy at best.

Something that always left people rather _nervous_.

As far as she knew, most of the approved flight plans involved as much utilization of gravity wells for slingshotting to minimize fuel consumption and avoiding the heliospheric current sheet, as they did making sure that there was nothing the ship could hit, even if it wanted to. Once you hit a certain velocity, there was only so much you could "turn" within the confines of a mere star system when moving at faster-than-light speeds. Of course, with mass effect technology, making a turn wasn't that difficult, even without dropping out of FTL. But that meant losing out on kinetic energy, and more importantly, _momentum_. The trick to turning a starship into an impromptu anti-planet warhead lay in maintaining FTL while slowly scaling back on the mass effect lightening field and raising the ship's mass. The reason disruptor torpedos and other kinetic barrier breakers were so slow was precisely because they needed to maximize their mass to punch through kinetic barrier and armor.

A very small starship at full speed and at minimal mass might not even penetrate through the atmosphere of a planet due to its buoyancy; it would be like throwing a helium balloon into a swimming pool.

The trick was to get enough distance to build sufficient kinetic energy, getting as close to normal mass as possible, and then slamming the eezo core's full output into the kinetic barriers and raising mass the moment you reached your target. Much of the theory was the same as with disruptor torpedos; when trying to break them, a planet's atmosphere and a dreadnought's kinetic barrier weren't all that different.

This was something she had been drilled in as a part of N7. Both the basics of starship combat and how to theoretically utilize any spacefaring vessel as an improvised missile. Now, in theory, again, the kinds of hard targets something like that could actually hit were limited to extremely large—and also usually _habitable_ and full of _civilians_ —targets, meaning it was the kind of stuff that you weren't really supposed to do. The best way to get on the rest of the galaxy's shitlist was to orbital bombard a habitation.

So it was good that all of it had been under the guise of how to prevent such occurrences, right? It seemed like skirting the line with what the Citadel considered good conventions was something of a habit for the Systems Alliance if she had understood the talk of AI right earlier.

As far as she knew, those protocols had been re-worked and tightened up immensely a few years ago, following Emiya's last trip to Mars. And now, following Thessia tensions would undoubtedly be running high. She hoped he knew what the hell he was doing.

"Hmm."

Emiya grunted neutrally, only furthering the asari's confusion.

Shepard cleared her throat and spoke. "Are you just messing with, uh, _them_ , again?"

To her, it seemed like he was testing his boundaries. Seeing how far they would let him go and how they reacted to his antics. That sort of thing.

"Something like that," he answered without looking, attention entirely elsewhere. "Also, we're approaching the relay now. Four minutes until the approach run." Turning towards Cassani he flashed a smirk. "We're burning a lot more fuel than the specs suggest we should. Rather interesting, no?"

"...It's a company firmware prototype," the seated man admitted, looking away.

Emiya grunted approvingly, eyes returning to look at nothing— _and everything_ , Shepard supposed.

"It's shaved off nearly a minute from the flight plan. I'm impressed."

"Yes, well... Would you like to sit down? There's a lounge near the cockpit, just up ahead..."

They following after Cassani, eyeing each other and Emiya, who despite his reticence and far-off attention, had no trouble navigating after them.

As they approached the mass relay, Shepard inhaled slowly. This was it; if the Systems Alliance wanted to turn on Emiya, this was the single best chance they had. A starship in FTL was next to impossible to find, much less destroy. But any vessel exiting a relay jump would be stuck and completely vulnerable the moment it exited the jump.

Gripping the wheelchair, she repeated the earlier thought.

_I hope you know what you're doing, Emiya..._

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya inhaled and tried to relax.

The starship popped back into normal speeds, some two lightyears short of the relay as he overrode the standard jump protocols. There was a minimal loss of charge in the galactic relay system but in return, he hadn't been parked right beside the Charon Relay.

Statistically, it was the most dangerous place to be as far as intentional attacks went, as over half of all ship-to-ship engagements were launched at ships coming just through. Emiya had decided not to chance it, but just to observe how he would be welcomed at the edge of the solar system. Within the confines of Arcturus System, the Systems Alliance's control was water-tight, but much of the FTL communications were routed back to Earth, making it impossible to screen all and find out who was saying what.

So if someone did want to take this chance to remove him from the picture, that would be the moment. _So_ , he was quite curious to see who was in place to do such a thing and just who would be looking on. Because based on what he had found on Arcturus Station, there were at least half a dozen apparently independent parties who had an interest in his arrival.

Well, it was just another layer he had to pay attention to now.

Keeping the transponder shut off he accelerated while still unnoticed as he approached the Charon Relay. His initial plan was to drop back on the radar just outside of Mars and then head to the ruins directly to avoid any hassle. So long as he remained in FTL, he would remain completely invisible, right? Well, that wasn't actually true at all. Rather, no one would have time to react as he would be arriving before the information—the light reflecting off of this starship—did.

That was how he had made it from Mars to the Moon the last time he had been here, so no reason it wouldn't work again, right?

But there was a snag, in that _something_ had obviously improved since.

His jaunt through the Systems Alliance files back on Arcturus Station had been pretty clear on how much beefier security was now. The routes along which travel was permitted were much stricter and any vessel discovered outside these interplanetary roads would become of immediate interest. And even if he remained in FTL, that wouldn't keep him hidden, as there were hundreds—if not thousands—of small satellites and observation vessels, all equipped with FTL tightbeam communications, ensuring that any observations would be immediately forwarded.

Even if they could see him coming if they were told he was on his way and on which heading, that wouldn't really matter.

And by the looks of it, there wasn't just one system in place, either. It wouldn't be enough that he hacked the Systems Alliance's Solar System Flight Control Station if another, independent system could just pass the same information on along another, unnoticed vector.

Still, it wasn't as if they were the only ones who had learned new tricks since five years ago.

"You might want to secure yourself, it might get a little bit rough," Emiya said as he strapped himself in as he ignored their questions.

He was pretty sure this would work, but it sure as hell wouldn't be a comfortable ride.

In the distance, the Charon Relay began powering up again despite no starship having prepared for a jump to Arcturus.

Normally in a jump, two relays worked together: one pitched the starship forward while the other caught it, slowing it down gently and absorbing the excess electrical charge before it could do any damage to the vessel or its crew. It was pretty much exactly how in biotiball two biotics would make a pass, sans the static charge, to avoid another player intercepting the ball in flight. So just like a skilled asari player could intercept and re-direct a thrown ball at a distance, without even physically touching it, couldn't a mass relay do the same?

The starship shuddered as Emiya's manual handling of the relay caught it.

It was like an arm had extended out from the massive and ancient construct, wrapping its tendrils around the hull and pulling it back towards the relay. _Kinetic barriers are holding,_ he thought as he shut off everything else on the starship, plunging even the room he was sitting in into darkness, feeding the kinetic barriers.

He was fairly certain he heard a shriek, but he ignored it as they passed by the relay, still accelerating as the 'arm' began to extend again. _Now, here comes the hard part..._ he thought as they passed Saturn at speeds impossible to reach without the mass relays. The 'arm' changed and became akin to a tendril, or a bungee cord, slowing down the starship and raising its mass. But it didn't last; the ad hoc method with which he was making all of this happen far too imprecise, only possible because of the sheer overwhelming overkill of the eezo core and base hardware. The equivalent of a hundred thousand normal jumps' charge worth had already been lost to make this happen, as the tendril he had been riding snapped like a wet noodle and released the starship.

The starship shuddered again and Emiya noted several 'small' impacts against the kinetic barrier—the shunting effect of the relay jump beginning to disappear due to the unusual way of the relay being operated, fading with every thousand kilometers they traveled. Another two seconds passed and then he exhaled, restarting the non-essential systems he had been holding back.

As the lights came on, Emiya opened his eyes and exhaled again.

Everyone else looked a little frazzled, so he smiled and routed one of the cameras to a screen in the room.

"Welcome to Mars."

All in all, the trip across the solar system hadn't taken more than a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, but _well_... The times have been waaaay too interesting. 2020 is a fucking hoot and I haven't wanted to miss a thing. Also, funny thing, I wrote that section with Emiya musing about civilizations inevitably collapsing like a month before, _well_ , current events. Or actually, not funny. Precipitous and ominous? Hmm...
> 
> As usual, too many breaks also really cut into my productivity. I've spent more time looking over my notes and trying to figure out where I was going than actually writing, only to get interrupted again forcing me to start over again, and as a result, it ended up being a lot more info-dumpy than I'd prefer. But well, progress is progress, I _hope._ I'd have preferred some more character interactions, but in my mind none of the actors wanted to play along, being far too skittish and closed off for anything more to really occur yet, which is annoying.
> 
> Also, random stuff I've had to deal with: built a (tiny) sauna, repaired a car, a motorboat, a scooter, moved to a new apartment, sold half of my possessions to get rid of all the junk, had an ATV accident(was actually pretty fascinating, especially the part where standing up would cause so much pain that my vision would vanish, that "seeing stars" thing. Also, can confirm there is a "rushing river"-like noise that follows your head turning and is really confusing) and then I've been reading and playing a lot of VR. I'm pretty proud to say that I have managed to beat "Fit Beat" on Expert+ in Beat Saber. Now I just want to get back in shape so that I can record myself doing it :S


	40. Shedding Light

"Wait— _already?_ " Shepard exclaimed, clearly confused as she wheeled around to follow the standing Emiya.

He nodded distracted, more focused on connecting to the facilities below them on top of the Prothean ruins. Using the facility's tightbeam communicators, he reached out to the Lowell City's Flight Control and to the nearby satellites, keeping track of starship traffic in the area.

So far no one had noticed their arrival, it seemed. _Let's see how long it takes for them to react._..

"So _this_ is how you escaped through the Thessia relay," Miranda said and stood up, eyeing him calculatingly before throwing the others in the group a glance. "No wonder worrying over a little eezo isn't worth your time."

He eyed her for a second before smirking and nodding towards Mars, deciding that distracting her was the best bet.

"Just wait till you see what's down _there_."

Even as he said that some of the Systems Alliance's fleet stationed near Earth had taken a heading for Mars, as while Mars' Lowell Control hadn't noticed him, apparently something else had. He suspected satellites orbiting Earth or the moon, but it was hard to tell given just how many systems were in play all at once, overlapping and criss-crossing through the numerous relays. That, or then it was the Prothean Archives whom he had just contacted that had sent for them, as the sudden increase in tightbeam traffic suggested.

 _Well, that was quick. And it seems like they haven't been informed about me. This could get dicey..._ If the people on Arcturus Station had kept the lid his on presence and actions, that meant that the people who were reacting to him now wouldn't be aware of any deals he had made and would be reacting just as the standard protocol stated.

" _Unidentified starship, this is SSV Benjamin Davies of the Systems Alliance Navy. Ascend into a stable orbit at once and remain there until further notice, do you copy?_ "

Sighing and making a decision on the fly, Emiya reached through and uninstalled the hulking Carrier's flight drivers. It wasn't in any danger of falling into any nearby gravity well, nor would it affect any of the other functionalities of the warship, but it would keep them out of his hair for a while. At least he had managed to get them permission to land at the archives. Not that it would get them past the first airlock.

_Well, let's try it..._

Speaking for the benefit of everyone present, Emiya connected to the facility now just below them, speaking the first line of bullshit that sounded plausible that popped into his head.

"Mars Archives, this is a delegation from Arcturus Station, we're bringing in some... _experts_ from the Citadel for a tour of the facility. Please prepare a landing bay."

He couldn't do what he had with Shepard and the Systems Alliance again, not exactly anyhow.

The Mars Archives Prothean Research Facility wasn't strictly speaking a part of the Systems Alliance, but rather an independent organization that was theoretically only subordinate to the Systems Alliance as per some legalese that had been written up following the First Contact War by the Citadel's request, to ensure that any new Prothean discoveries would not be immediately absconded by the military for weapon's research. But it was not as if they were beholden to the Citadel, despite the generous research grant that they offered, either, due to still being within humanity's home system. Basically, humanity could keep anything they found, but they had to tell everyone else about it at least, at which point depending on what had been found the Citadel might begin pressuring them to share by cutting or threatening to cut that generous research grant.

Regardless, there was no easy way of pulling rank or forging credentials to get access here, nor was it certain that the AIA could exert any kind of meaningful pressure quickly.

Meaning he couldn't just go for a repeat performance of Arcturus Station if he wanted to get Liara inside, even if she had the same problem as Shepard had had earlier. Well, perhaps he could just wait until the AIA reacted and let them take care of it. At first they would make difficult, suspicious of his motives, but if he could attribute the discovery of the second ruin to Liara, then that should remedy the worst of it.

 _Or would that cause too many problems with that faction…?_ He wondered as he looked at Miranda, reminded of her shadowy organization. _No, this should be a joint effort._ And it couldn't be him at the helm, either. He suspected he had already become too different, and more importantly it would defeat the purpose of his delegating the Prothean research. _Okay, who do we have on staff…?_

" _Arcturus Delegation, this is Mars Archives. This is a restricted airspace, please vacate the immediate vicinity. This is your only warning._ "

Emiya hummed thoughtfully.

It looked like he would have to get creative here then. Though, he had to be mindful of his methods here, since the goal was long-term cooperation.

Miranda cleared her throat. "May I?"

He looked at her blankly and then shrugged, gesturing for her to go ahead.

Hesitating only a moment before deciding that speaking aloud should suffice for Emiya to transmit her, she cleared her throat light and then said:

"Mars Archives, please pass along a message to Dr. Ilsa Warren—"

" _Ma'am, there is no one by that name here. Cease your descent immediately, the Alliance Navy has been notified of your presence and are on their way._ "

She dismissed the attempt at communication, perhaps as much at the curt dismissal as at being called ma'am, and paused to consider how to continue. Meanwhile, he checked through the staff files for that name and indeed he found a researcher by the same name in the books. _So Cerberus already has someone inside?_

"Do you want to talk to her immediately?" he asked, and Miranda nodded.

Connecting to the omnitool of the woman in question directly, he motioned for her to go ahead.

"Doctor Warren?"

There was a sound of surprise. The woman was alone and startled in her office.

" _Who is this?_ " she asked cautiously.

"It's Miranda Lawson."

The woman on the other side of the call froze, remaining quiet for almost a full twenty seconds, and Emiya could see the thoughts running through her head as fretted.

" _How did you… No, never mind that. This is a—_ "

"This is a _Cerberus_ matter," Miranda said and as the doctor moved to refuse again, she continued. "With _Outis_ -priority."

Ilsa Warren froze, her mouth working silently for several seconds before she grimaced and looked away from her omnitool.

" _Are you insane?! This channel_ -"

"Is completely safe," Miranda stated confidently.

" _I… I see..."_

Emiya's brows rose as he eyed the raven-haired woman while the doctor sounded increasingly uncomfortable. He also put the curious priority level to memory, already guessing as to its purpose: _Outis, like Nemo or Anonymous. Meaning a high priority on secrecy?_ Shepard and Cassani were already frowning, no doubt putting pieces of the puzzle in place, as Liara appeared still very confused.

" _Very well, then. What do you need?"_

He didn't know exactly how Cerberus handled matters of operational security, but could guess that Miranda was doing the fieldcraft equivalent of shouting at the top of her lungs, leaving no room for plausible deniability. A perhaps doubly shocking move due to her invoking of Outis. Was she imitating his recent headstrong tactics?

"I have a VIP who needs entry into the Archives," she said with a small smirk as she crossed her arms in her seat. "Rest assured, we do not intend to blow your cover."

She sounded very sure but looked at him questioningly, to which he responded with a shrug. If this was a Cerberus operative on the inside, he supposed it would be useful to have her work with Liara. A little bit of give and take, if he couldn't track them down through Miranda or from the attendance list of his 'welcoming party' by Charon Relay.

" _Very well… When?_ " Warren replied again, resigned.

"We are ready to land right now."

" _...Oh, for the..._ _Fine, give me five minutes. I'll see what I can do._ "

"Excellent." Giving Emiya a smug smile, Miranda gestured with one hand, as if to say 'there you go'. "We will be there shortly."

* * *

;

* * *

Liara looked around curiously as they made their way out of the starship into the in-door docking bay.

While they obviously hadn't been expected, Emiya and the unnerving dark-haired woman had managed to secure them a way inside. She had half-expected things to begin escalating uncontrollably as they had in Serrice, but apparently that wasn't quite necessary here. All the while the two seated human's had remained quiet and detached, observing imperiously how things were progressing.

While a part of the young asari felt excited to be so near a mostly untouched Prothean site, a large part of her was still feeling the disquiet of her life falling apart. Following Baliya's announcement and subsequent death, she had been attacked from all sides; her—admittedly short—life's work had been torn to shreds following the backlash, and all the decades of effort she had put into chasing her own dreams had seemed to vanish as if they had never been anything more than a morning mirage over Usaru's seas. Even so... Perhaps it was only the adventurous nature of the foolish Maiden in her—but the decision to throw everything aside and seek out Mars on her own had been very liberating.

Was this her equivalent of joining a merc crew and working as an exotic dancer in some seedy corner of the galaxy? Glancing at _his_ back, she carefully hid her smile. She had arrived among humans with nothing except what she knew was true and the determination to see it through, no matter who or what stood in her way.

Yet she had almost immediately run into him again.

Had he been waiting for her? Or was it mere coincidence?

Regardless, the sense of adventure and fretful worry alike had vanished, replaced by a more familiar, slow expectation of disaster. She felt almost as resigned as the doctor Miranda had called had appeared to be.

"Oof," Liara grunted as she walked straight into someone.

Flushing with embarrassment at her carelessness, she looked up with an apology on her lips only to freeze as her eyes met gray. A white brow rose on his face for some reason as he looked at her with obvious amusement. A questioning gesture? No, rather something that drew attention to whatever emotion he was displaying. She had similar markings, too, just above her eyes. Perhaps with some practice...

"Well?" she asked.

Emiya crossed his arms, his amusement turning decidedly challenging.

"It's _your_ show now."

Liara hesitated, confused. She looked to the other humans only to realize they were all staring at her now as well, with Miranda in particular appearing somehow _hungry_.

"Did you not intend to lead us to the ruins you had found?" Liara asked him, deciding to remain cool.

He shrugged. "We're here. Just one kilometer down to go."

She grimaced, realizing that he was enjoying this.

"Do you not know the way down?"

"Oh, that way wouldn't work for us. I don't have any physical way to access the ruins." He smirked then. "Don't tell me you were expecting me to do everything?"

Temper flaring yet unable to find the words of spite and reproach, she glared at him.

A door behind him opened and a human woman stepped through, and somehow she knew that this was Ilsa Warren, the doctor they had spoken to through the comms earlier.

"Okay, we don't have a lot of time before someone will come and start asking questions. What's this about, Lawson? You know we don't do things like this anymore. This better be—"

Stepping past Emiya, Liara approached the woman who blinked at her, eyes jumping between her and the raven-haired woman who she had been addressing just now.

"Good day, Doctor Warren. I am Liara T'Soni."

"Uh… Hello?"

Liara put on her best human smile and extended a hand to her fellow doctor, though she could not use the title herself. Another point of anger. She had not managed to graduate due to recent events, but she had still already been on in all but name—had been an equal with the likes of Nirida Henell on that expedition—and if there was something she could hold pride in, it had been that. It was the strongest motivator she could name at the moment for her presence here; proving that Professor Haphia hadn't been wrong and to graduate on her own merits.

Ilsa Warren blinked, her brown eyes moving from Liara to Miranda again, then looking over the rest of the group, still hesitating over the handshake.

"Ah, I had not expected, or rather…"

The doctor blinked, and then her eyes widened upon some chance realization. Turning around slightly, Liara realized that the woman had recognized the two palanquin-borne figures and she mentally tallied another mark in favor of her theory there. They _were_ important, somehow.

Still, it would not do to be ignored. The asari cleared her throat, just the way she had observed now several times. It hurt more than she had expected, so she struggled not to wince and mess it up.

"I understand that you have been investigating the Prothean Archives here, yes?"

Warren blinked, her eyes whipping back. Frowning slightly, she nodded.

"Excellent," Liara breathed out in relief, now channeling her mother and—as much as she hated to admit it— _him_. "Then let us go to your office. I will access to your most accurate blueprints of the Archive, as well as any results of attempts to chart out the electrical power and other wiring, plumbing and ventilation systems."

The doctor hesitated, her eyes sliding to look past Liara. But she wasn't going to let that happen.

"Doctor Warren. We do not have all the time in the world and we are on a schedule."

"O-oh. Alright. Please follow me."

It was a short way to the woman's office. It was neither lavish nor spartan, but with six people inside it did feel more than a little cramped. Inside, Liara was already worrying over whether she had been too harsh, hesitating over her choice of words, how she had taken charge, how—But as Shepard had flashed her a toothy—almost _predatory—_ smile and a strange, surreptitious hand-sign with an extended digit—the short one on top of their hands—those worries had all been laid to rest.

So now that she had taken over the nervous-looking doctor's terminal, poring over the various schematics and documents, she forcibly suppressed all other thoughts save those that would serve her in discovering a way forward.

"You spoke of a collapsed elevator shaft?" she asked, meeting Emiya's eyes. "Were there more than one?"

He shrugged as if the matter had nothing to do with him. Grimacing, she thought back to what he had said. _He found only one shaft, then._ That suggested a bunker in the vein of those found in the Attican Traverse. Admittedly, there had only been two finds and neither had been been beneath _another_ ruin, but perhaps that was an avenue of research that she would have to investigate further at a later date. Who knew? Maybe there were dozens of hidden ruins like this around the galaxy? Assuming she managed to find something here and now, of course.

"How many of the various walls have been drilled for samples?" Liara asked, pointing at one section of text on the terminal. "It appears as if so far only two rooms have been investigated."

"Ah, due to worries over drilling through something vital, we have only sampled those two rooms which were deemed safe. To obtain samples of the material and to date the construction of the Archives…" Doctor Warren explained.

Liara nodded, having expected as much. Without detailed knowledge of how the electrical wiring had been lain out, she only had the blueprints to go with. Staring at the various rooms and hallways displayed, she began mentally tallying through likely places. No place on the schematic had been marked as collapsed or ruined, meaning the elevator would have been deliberately hidden.

That left…

Fifteen possibilities. Too many.

 _Seventh era. Hidden bunker. Weapons…_ She looked at Emiya, weighing what little he had told her. He had never mentioned what exactly had been down there, but if it was anything more than just a few dusty old barracks and some minor facilities down there, then the elevator couldn't be small. Protheans themselves weren't a particularly large people—or so it was commonly believed, based on the numerous finds and tools found throughout the galaxy—but their computers and furnishings did tend to err on the larger side, as did their common containers and boxes. Rather similarly to the asari; a common—perhaps a touch _fanciful and romantic_ —theory being that they were almost all biotics and as such could carry even very large containers with ease the way asari could. Regardless, theories were only theories, and whether it was really for aesthetic or practical reasons, Liara did not know.

But she _did_ know that it meant the elevator would have to exceed specific dimensions to accommodate those sizes.

As did the hallways leading _to_ the elevator.

Bringing out the various entrances to the Archives, Liara trailed with her mind's eye how the various rooms and hallways shrank and stretched, noting and striking out any obvious bottlenecks. This cut the possibilities down to seven possibilities—still too many. But with the information available to her here, it would be difficult to narrow it down any further.

Even this was assuming what she had known prior to meeting _that man_ still held true, and that the Protheans did not possess any... _pocket dimensions_ as apparently _he_ did. The thought that there existed technology that the Protheans had not discovered or could not have developed themselves still somehow rankled Liara.

But even if she was shook, she would not give up. Even if she had to guess and blindly find her way forward, she wouldn't give up.

Standing up from the terminal, she cleared her throat and almost coughed instinctively.

Annoyed, she spoke tersely. "I would like to walk the Archives."

Doctor Warren hesitated again, but with a glance to the quiet group, she nodded. They walked for the next twenty minutes, all the while Liara kept her eyes on the floor and walls.

Suddenly, she stopped.

Walking back and ignoring the inquisitive looks of everyone else, she traced the walls up to the ceiling, opposite wall and then back down to the floor. _This. It's here, somewhere._ She didn't know how she knew, but she knew that she knew. But there was nothing on the walls; no panel, no markings, nothing to indicate or control the hidden elevator door.

But if she had to gamble... It was here.

So how to open it, then? _It must be controlled by the mainframe—that will necessitate a supercomputer to crack the code key._ The main reason Prothean research required so much money was the need for extremely powerful computers to operate even the simplest of their technology. Time and money.

Neither of which she was in excess of at the moment.

Alternatively, with the right tools they could image beneath the surface and then drill out the mechanism, opening it through brute force. But that was assuming the structure would hold and they didn't destroy something important in the process; a delicate procedure at the best of times. Professor Henell had also been capable of using her biotics to feel out how certain, hidden-from-view sections were made, but that kind of skill was quite literally a millennium beyond Liara.

But perhaps she had something better in stead—pained as she was to admit it.

Normally finding a hidden door like this would take months, if not years. Even after the discovery of its location, it could take a long, long while before it was opened. Carefully, cautiously, calmly. It would be a project seeing millions of credits and dozens of experts. It was a ridiculous that _he_ was forcing her to do it like this. Ridiculous, yet so very exciting.

If _he_ wanted immediate results...

"Well?" Liara turned around and asked.

They looked at her and then followed her gaze to him. He raised one insufferably smug brow, as if he had no idea what she wanted. She was stumped, but knew that he could be goaded into handling the rest properly, delicate and difficult as it was despite his seemingly cavalier attitude.

Liara place a hand on the wall, outlining a spot with her index finger.

"It is right here. So… Well?"

"I'm impressed you found it so quickly. How did you know?" he asked as he too placed a hand on the seemingly bare spot on the wall.

She shrugged—the gesture coming much more naturally to her already—and pointed back down the hallway they had come.

"The Protheans used prefabricated building materials, just as we do today. These pieces are slotted together, like a puzzle. Which means that _this_ —" she patted the wall. "—must be where the controls and door mechanism are located." Preempting the question, she shook her head. "Yes, of course it could also be _there_ or _there,_ if we only judged by where the mechanism for a hidden door could be, but those others preclude the necessary space for the elevator itself."

There was a sharp intake of breath from the rest of the group, but Liara had eyes only for Emiya.

"I guess so," he shrugged, and she knew he was mimicking her earlier gesture. Or _rather_ , correcting her. _Since when has he been doing that?_ She realized with a startle, already reviewing their previous interactions with alarm.

Oblivious to her sudden apprehension, Emiya nodded.

" _Well_ , if you so insist."

He drew back his hand, settling his feet slightly wider, squaring his shoulders and let the hand come to rest by his side. There was an intake of breath from everyone else, and then—it was like a rocket shot forward and exploded against the wall. Everyone flinched and Liara heard several shocked exclamations behind him as they saw his extended arm embedded in the wall, elbow-deep.

Exhaling, Emiya began to pull the arm out, straining slightly as he braced with his legs and put his free arm against the otherwise unmarred surface. Something moved behind the wall, rumbling and straining.

"H-how...?" Someone gasped.

A crack appeared in the wall beside them. Dust became loose as a fine split between two perfectly aligned slats grew wider and wider, revealing the hidden door with a chorus of gasps from the rest of their audience. Beneath the panels a more traditional elevator door became visible, but she could already tell from the wear that it would not be functional. She suspected it would be collapsed and would require a drilling team to open.

Not something that she could accomplish alone, nor something she suspected Emiya had the time or inclination for. Perhaps she would now be removed from the Archives, having served her purpose in one of his machinations.

But even so, Liara smiled.

This was a step forward.

* * *

;

* * *

_And now the ball is rolling,_ Emiya thought as he looked at Liara conversing with Ilsa Warren.

With this, he suspected he could leave Liara to handle digging out the deeper ruins. With his external clout with the Systems Alliance combined with Liara's discovery of the hidden elevator, there was no need for him to remain here.

Just as with Shepard, delegating had been the answer again.

He probably would have spent just as long looking for the entrance, scouring the walls and floors with his Structural Analysis, where she had managed to figure it out through prior experience. This was the kind of knowledge and instinct that rote learning could not impart, the kind of talent he had hoped to develop to unravel the Protheans. Though, looking at Liara's academic background, he suspected it would have taken years if not decades more on Thessia.

Time he no longer had.

 _That's what I get for trying to do everything, I suppose._ Had he lain low and avoided sticking his nose into everything, maybe things would have worked out differently. Not that there would have been anything he could have changed about what had happened to the rest of the Dretirop expedition on Torfan.

Glancing at Shepard, he exhaled. _No point in thinking about that._ Turning to look at the third woman of the group, his eyes narrowed slightly.

He had been somewhat apprehensive about relying on Miranda and Cerberus, but it appeared she was trying to work with him for whatever reason. The deliberate flippancy of his projection of eezo should keep them from trying anything too stupid for the moment, as indecision and incomplete information was wont to do. Assuming she wasn't trying to set him up again, then tracking down and checking those starships at Charon Relay might turn out to be completely unnecessary.

So, next was returning to the Moon Cell, and—"Hmm?"

Emiya hadn't been paying any specific attention to the rest of the galaxy beyond the local Fleet, but this was something he couldn't miss now that he was looking the Moon's way with his cybernetic 'eye'. Not with how the Navy was losing its mind; A military facility on the moon had gone silent, the last outbound transmission being an emergency declaration and a call for help. Especially as the facility in question was the one he had promised the AIA he would visit, the one that had been looking into Artificial Intelligence again.

 _Probably not a coincidence,_ he thought with some annoyance as he glanced at the group.

Just as one thing started working, something else popped up.

He didn't like just leaving them to their own devices, but it wasn't like he could take them with him to the Moon Cell either. Better to leave everyone here to be distracted by the Mars ruins until he could get back.

"Cassani, I'm borrowing your ship. I'll be back in a bit."

The man, who had remained in quiet observation until now, blinked as he realized he was being addressed. "Uh… Okay?"

"You're going somewhere?" Shepard asked, already gearing to follow.

Miranda and Liara were now staring at him intently as well, while Doctor Warren still only looked confused and overwhelmed. Hiding a grimace, he answered: "Something came up and I need to go take care of it. I'll be back in a half hour. An hour at most."

That should leave him enough time to pop by the Moon Cell and see if he couldn't get himself patched up and get back before anything else caught fire and exploded. And if he couldn't… well, that wouldn't change his plans much. Oblivion and all.

"Keep an eye on the kids," he said as he nodded Liara's and Miranda's way, gratified by the chortle Shepard graced the comment with, knowing she wouldn't argue further. He turned around and briskly returned to the parked starship.

Something about his arrival had set everything in motion.

Checking the timeline of events unfortunately confirmed his expectations. The facility had first reported something going on about two minutes after he had left the Alliance Carrier dead in the water. Right now it was completely quiet and the Fourth Fleet had stationed itself near the moon, but were doing nothing. _Are they hesitating because they think it's me?_

If the Systems Alliance thought it was the wrath of Redhax at work, would they simply sit back and give him free rein?

That was more than a little annoying. How far would that blanket extend? What if he attacked a civilian settlement? Would they do nothing and let it happen? _This is exactly why Shepard should have remained behind,_ he thought. So she could have urged them to react or to act as a venue for communication. _But would I have noticed it faster if she had remained behind?_ He suspected not; the problem was the Alliance freezing up and becoming paralyzed, compromising in its duties because of him.

Alternatively, they had set fire to their own project and were now waiting to see how he reacted so they could play the victim. Of course, given how many parties were at play, it was hard to say who exactly 'they' here was.

As Cassani's starship lifted off, Emiya tightbeamed the AIA through Lowell Control's comm buoy.

"Kolkkonen. What the hell do you think you're doing?" No point in messing around; even his persona should be annoyed and to-the-point about a place he had expressed interest in going quiet. If he gave the Alliance the impression that he was angry about their inaction, all the better.

The surprised man blinked, surprised and looking more than a little stressed.

" _Emiya…!_ " Something like hope passed through his tumultuous expression. " _This is not your doing?_ "

"My doing? Funny. _Somehow_ it feels like it's your doing—trying to cover it up before I can see what you've all been up to."

" _That_ …" Hesitation again, followed by straightforward resolve. _"On behalf of the Systems Alliance, I apologize: I cannot disprove that at this time, beyond assuring you that there was no attempt to sabotage, destroy, or hide anything on the lunar facility from you on our part._ "

A very _specific_ denial, but one Emiya thought he could believe.

Kolkkonen was adapting his political playbook to a softer form of plying leverage; the shift from sullen reticence to a nominally more honest, subtler approach something he had more or less expected. His gut feeling was that Kolkkonen's nervousness right now was due to apprehension and simply having no information or control on the situation, rather than due to worry over something he had done and being caught. The man had read the situation as retribution or chastisement for some ploy before just now, hesitating over how to react due to that. As much as Emiya loathed the paralysis, it was still preferable to duplicity here.

If course this did not mean someone else within the Systems Alliance hadn't acted without Kolkkonen's knowledge, giving them as a whole some measure of plausible deniability.

" _The Alliance fleet has been ordered to hold back and to keep anyone from entering or leaving the base,_ " Kolkkonen said, leaving the grudging request for an order unspoken. The more Kolkkonen knew about Emiya's intentions, the better he could salvage the situation from his end.

"I'm on my way there now, so clear a path for me," Emiya said and sent over the transponder details. For now, saving the base personnel and getting to the moon took priority. He could look into this mess on the System Alliance's end later.

" _Yes, of course. The Alliance Navy will be informed that an operative is on the way and to allow the starship through._ "

"Good. Oh, and while you're at it, give Liara T'Soni whatever clearance she needs in the Mars Archives Prothean Research Facility," Emiya said smirking. "I'm sure you'll be interested in with what she's already found."

The man's expression went carefully blank, but his eyes still shone with calculating curiosity. "... _Very well._ "

With that Emiya cut the comm-line and set to full burn towards the moon and the facility that had gone dark.

Scanners from orbit reported that there was still partial power and life-support on, but results were sporadic, as if someone was throwing the switches on and off at random. The blueprints and plans of the facility—which he nabbed from the Alliance warships in orbit—suggested a staff of 43 people in an underground facility, researching virtual intelligences and electronic warfare, especially as it pertained to coordinating and centrally controlling internal anti-personnel defenses. Both one's own and for subverting that of the enemies. There were three external prefabricated facilities as well, but those stood empty at the moment.

_Two more minutes._

Systems Alliance Navy vessels had attempted and continued to hail him, but he ignored them, trusting that Kolkkonen would come through and not screw him over here. Whatever was happening on the moon and the 'surprise' Emiya had left on Mars would keep the intelligence agency director on his toes for now.

Eyeing the pale orb steadily growing in size as the starship slowed down, Emiya exhaled and checked his gear; hardsuit, omnitool, no guns, magical energy topped up, civilian starship—good for transport, but not exactly a reliable back up or big gun—Alliance Navy keeping their distance, and the Moon Cell just beneath the surface. Regardless of what was happening, he had plenty of options on hand. Proportional to his goals, he even felt quite confident: rescuing the living personnel, containing the situation and finding out what had happened? Easy. Unless of course this was just another trap and the base would explode the moment he set foot inside. Well, even then, with the Moon Cell there, he was confident that he could survive.

He hoped that wasn't the case, though. He was getting tired of having to come up with bigger and more overt shows of power already.

* * *

;

* * *

Cassani kept quiet in his little corner of the room as all around him people moved about with frantic energy.

More and more it felt like he had been caught by a storm, torn from everything familiar and forced to stand very still and silent. Beset on all sides, he could only squirm and make himself as small as possible, lest something snatch an outstretched limb and pull him along back into the chaos of the storm. The archive's personnel were running around like headless chicken, dozens of experts and doctors from all over the facility having come to gawk and question the appearance of the mysterious elevator.

So far Doctor Warren had managed to keep things from boiling over and they had retreated back to her office.

"But, she's an _asari_. Surely the..." Warren said, eyeing the blue-skinned creature warily, uncertain of with how much candor she could speak in this company, and finally settling on discretion. " _Systems Alliance_ will not stand for her being the one who made the discovery?"

"Why not?" Shepard asked, eyeing the doctor speculatively.

Warren hesitated, looking around as shuffled in her chair, appearing both even more worried and also satisfied in having realized that not everyone in the room was 'in the know' of all affiliations. As far as the doctor knew, only Miranda was a part of Cerberus, but at the same time Lawson had cast aside all pretensions of subterfuge already. She had worried whether to assume that everyone in the room, human or not, knew about the pro-human organization and agenda?

Cassani too wondered at Shepard's question.

Even without Cerberus' agenda, worry over how the Systems Alliance would take to the discovery was legitimate. How had an asari maiden managed to make he way into the Prothean ruins and how had she been allowed to destroy a part of the facility? Prothean sites of any kind were priceless and jealously guarded.

Moreover, since when had Shepard been so comfortable with aliens? _What happened on Torfan? She had never been particularly interested in any aliens,_ batarians _aside._

"That is none of your concern—this goes over all of our heads, you understand?" Miranda replied, in effect keeping her options open and her hands clean, despite having been the one to strong-arm their way in. She had been a dead woman walking as soon as she stepped onto Arcturus Station, were it not for the quirk of running into present company. Already she had managed to step behind figures like Shepard and Outis, using them as sword and shield alike.

Warren glared at Miranda, biting her lip to keep quiet as she seemed to be shaking slightly.

"That is all very good for you to decide—I spent years to get here, and now this happens? Even if this is the find of the century, there is no way I will be able to come out of this still employed here...!"

Cassani ignored them and looked down to his omnitool, eyeing the seemingly mundane messages and automated notifications in his inbox; Cerberus was getting antsy since he hadn't reported back in regarding Operative Lawson. But he didn't dare reply, uncertain whether it would be safe. A skilled hacker did not need to be physically present to monitor someone, Cassani certainly didn't—who knew what _Redhax_ could do?

He glared at Lawson, who was only half paying attention to Warren. Their eyes met and for a moment he felt a sense of disquiet from the utter stillness. Then, the mask was back on and she appeared human again, smiling, _smirking_ back at him. He didn't say anything, merely looking away. Could he reveal that he, too, was working with Cerberus? If Miranda's presence hadn't been objectionable, then was there any point in hiding it so desperately now?

But something in him rebelled at the thought.

Shaking his head minutely, he convinced himself it was a better idea to keep his affiliations under wraps for now and maintain his current relationship with Outis. If and when Miranda thought it prudent to spring that fact... Well, he would have to deal with it then. He might not be Redhax, but he was quite skilled in his own right with omnitools; if she made the mistake to reporting to her new master, Cassani wouldn't hesitate to use that.

Seeking something else to think about he spotted the lone asari who had remained just as quiet as he had.

Only her quiescence had only begun with Outis' departure. It was not as if the Maiden had been a great social power, but she still keenly felt his absence, furtively glancing around the room and peeking at everyone when she thought they weren't looking. Where had the fire and fury she had had with Outis present vanished? For that matter, why _was_ she so hostile towards him, and why did Outis tolerate it?

"Don't worry about it. With how much things will be shaking up around here, no one will even notice." Shepard interjected, perhaps tiring of the arguing and turned to address the alien. "So, are you some kind of expert on Protheans?"

T'Soni made a show of panicked surprise, before woodenly nodding. "I have been studying the later era Protheans and their decline for years at the University of Usaru..."

There seemed to be something more the alien wanted to say, but she remained tight-lipped and avoided looking any of them in the eye.

"So did you and Emiya study together? Is that why you're here?" Shepard continued, already in the swing for her usual interrogations. "Before he had to leave. Were you there when it happened? In Serrice?"

"I-I, no, yes...?" The alien hesitated, looking away for a second to order her thoughts. "I only met him a few days before it happened. He was looking for a Professor. We..." Again the alien hesitated, looking around the room and weighing how much she could confess to them. "Argued over the Protheans quite... _heatedly._ "

"A professor?"

"Yes..." The asari looked down, her mourning plain to see despite her alien nature. "Professor Nirida Henell. She..."

Shepard winced, raising a hand to rub the back of her neck. "Henell didn't make it, I'm afraid."

The asari looked up and Cassani had to blink as he realized she was crying. He hadn't known asari could do that; they didn't have skin pores, so why would they have tear ducts? Yet in hindsight, the supposed conclusion felt shaky and he frowned away the thought.

"Y-you know what happened to her?" she asked.

Shepard nodded, explaining quietly: "She had been taken by the batarians and we—well, Emiya mostly—kind of saved her before they could fly off with her again. It's..." She winced with a sudden realization. "A lot of it is confidential, and I shouldn't be... But she made it to Matriarch Benezia's ship alive."

"Benezia...?!"

"Yeah. But, unfortunately Henell and her crew didn't make it. There wasn't anything anyone could do, it was just too late. I'm sorry."

"O-oh..." Liara said hesitantly. "Thank you for telling me."

"Were you close with her?"

Shaking her head and wiping away the tears, Liara answered. "We were only really teacher and student, perhaps colleagues towards the end, but not much more... but I respected her— _all of them_ greatly."

Shepard nodded quietly, refraining from any further questions. But Miranda did not care as much for the young asari's feelings.

"What did you two argue about?"

Liara looked up to the dark-haired woman, unable to immediately connect the question. "Argue?"

"On Thessia. The Protheans?" Miranda specified, leaning closer.

It was something Cassani wanted to know more about as well, but given his precarious position in the group, hadn't thought drawing attention to himself by asking about it to be worth it. Shepard, too, seemed curious, but refrained some saying anything, rather looking at Miranda critically.

"It is a complicated thing..." Liara began and glanced at Warren. "But ultimately, he did prove to have the right of it."

"Right about... what?" Miranda asked, eyes narrowed hungrily.

"That the Protheans didn't simply vanish fifty thousand years ago. That... That hey were _exterminated_."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya sighed, crossing his arms as he dispelled the largely unnecessary-until-now swords he had been wielding and looked at the large blue case before him.

Three people had died, five were still missing and much of the facility had broken down, though for the moment it didn't seem like there would be any more risk to either personnel or material, now that he had cut off the rampant Artificial Intelligence from the grid. The power was still on, everything was still running and the AI was surely still aware. But it was limited to just its run-time environment now.

In essence he had cut off its flailing limbs and torn out its all of its external senses, leaving it alone in the dark, completely cut off from the rest of the world.

For a human being it would be hell, but for an artificial intelligence... Who knew; maybe its internal sensors and diagnostics made a synthetic existence like that capable of living completely alone the way human being couldn't.

The two deaths had been accidents, had in no way that Emiya could imagine been intentional or desirable, as the AI had barely begun to understand that it was in fact conscious and could control the many external systems that were hooked up to it. Or at the very least, the concept of cause and effect extending into meatspace and the consequences upon human beings, and any possible moral implications still escaped the thing.

Which left him in the unenviable position of having to pass judgment on someone who did not particularly realize they had done wrong.

 _Rabid beasts are put down,_ Emiya reasoned. _But someone set it loose with the intention of causing as much chaos as possible. Should it be judged thus as a child instead? Something too innocent to know what it has done...?_

The drivers prepared by the researchers were meant to allow an AI to quickly and efficiently assume control of a system, giving them quick battlefield adaptability for a wide variety of hardware and duties without necessitating that the AI had to be capable of everything all at once, which could theoretically slow it down. Or make it too capable to be kept under control, a hard lock preventing another geth rising. In theory at least. This facility had been specifically researching and developing that, but that didn't mean that the half-finished projects were anything resembling functional yet. Someone—probably one or more of the missing staff—had cobbled together the disparate control drivers and then just tossed the connection into the blue boxes and prodded the AI to go wild.

He suspected someone had reacted to his arrival at Mars and had been trying to cover their tracks.

So could he blame the Artificial Intelligence for the resulting actions? This ' _Project Hannibal_ ', was so very primitive and child-like in comparison to the geth that it felt difficult to put it down so quickly.

Sighing again, Emiya tried to imagine how he would feel about similar circumstances, were the perpetrator something else. Something like an rampaging elephant or a young child? Thinking of it in those terms, he was inclined to be more merciful than not.

But that was hardly the whole of the matter.

The Citadel had banned the development of AI and the Systems Alliance had already once run afoul of that ban. Now—with lives lost and blood spilled—there was no circumstance under which it would be allowed to live. Continue to run. Process? _Exist. Its existence will end. They'll pull the plug and delete everything. There will be nothing left of this thing, whatever it is or could be._

Just mercy would not be enough.

More than that, he was presumably the only one in the entire galaxy who would even care to defend this thing. Was he going to assume responsibility for it now as well?

"...I should have cut down the first geth I saw and made it easy for myself..." Shaking his head, he connected with the blue box and immediately there was a response.

01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000 01001000 01000101 01001100 01010000

"And there it is," he sighed, translating it into a screaming plea for help. Just another victim in all this, _whatever_ it was, afraid and alone..

But that still didn't change the reality of the matter. This thing wasn't like the geth, able to hop to and from any moderately powerful computer at will; a 'conventional' Artificial Intelligence like this could only exist in a powerful quantum computer, commonly called a blue box. Even if he took the entire code that made up this being with him and installed it in another blue box, it wouldn't be the same Artificial Intelligence as far as he knew.

Should he just take the whole computer with him? Tear it out and carry it over his shoulder?

He was sure the Alliance wouldn't be able to say anything about it—even if they would surely have a lot to say—but what would be the point? Was he going to keep it as some form of pet, hiding it from the rest of the galaxy? What if he needed to suddenly hop to the other side of the galaxy and leave it unattended? For how long could he keep it? Would it continue to learn and grow? Then what? Would he have to grant it freedom, if and once it demanded such?

Would that be any different from death; his acting as eternal jailer?

 _That's just not going to work._ Which left him with just one option, though he had no idea whether and how it would even work. _Worth a shot, at least._

"Guess you're coming with me, then."

Placing a hand on the blue box, Emiya closed his eyes. As if grabbing a hold of the contents with his soul, he tethered the existence within onto himself and then fell through his own body, through the floor and through the white, lifeless dust and stone of the moon until he entered the Moon Cell, just as he had five years ago.

The sheer depth of reality staggered him on the first step, so very unlike the real world or other computers. So much more profound and nuanced in how it operated. Passing fully through the first layer which lacked virtually any protection, standing with doors wide open for any who knew where to find it, Emiya exhaled and released the Artificial Intelligence he had dragged along with him into the SERAPH—the internal world of the most powerful quantum supercomputer in existence that could observe and calculate countless timelines and realities all at once.

The serene blues and pulsating whites of the digital ocean remained as ever, untouched by the passing of mere decades and centuries.

Emiya let the AI loose, allowing it to get its bearings on its new environment.

In his time as a Guardian and five years ago when he had made his way back in from the surface using spirit hacking, he had observed that there were seven active layers or levels to the Serial Phantasms that constituted the cyber-reality within the Moon Cell. As far as he understood it, none of the SERAPH was actually the Moon Cell proper, but rather an expansion of the core like external memory drives in contemporary computers, though with each level outward the priority of the date stored sank as all important data was stored on the layers closest to the core.

That meant that the further out one remained, the less oversight there was.

It was almost like a wild west at the outermost layer, with dozens, perhaps hundreds of old and forgotten spaces in the process of slow decay and corruption, abandoned and discarded long ago by the Moon Cell, allowing them to run various rampant and questionable programs in isolation. And while he had to on occasion exterminate and clean up such territories, there wasn't really anything inherently dangerous for the whole of the Moon Cell within them. Beyond some errant programs and lost protocols, it was doubtful that anything at all really existed here.

Nothing on the level of a sapient instance, at least.

He looked down at the AI, still in the process of coalescing something resembling a cyber-frame based on its budding perception of self, shifting and trembling at the sheer vastness of its new surroundings. It would be relatively safe and free here, so long as it didn't do anything terribly stupid.

"Stay out of trouble, alright?"

It shuddered in response. Maybe it understood what he had said, maybe it hadn't. He had the impression of it being utterly overwhelmed and flabbergast, as far as it was capable of such things at this point.

Regardless, Emiya didn't have time to linger around much longer, given how damaged his spirit core was. He sank another level lower—this time passing through so expediently only by virtue of his spirit hacking. Even a Servant would be hard-pressed to find a path from the first layer to the second and after that it would be all but impossible, as the physical laws of reality gave way to ever-stranger and mutable permutations of unreality.

By the time he passed the fourth layer, he was beginning to worry, because nothing was happening.

He was a _Servant_ and more importantly, he had made a pact with the Moon Cell—had become a Guardian. As long as he was within the Moon Cell, there should be a constant connection there, something that could only be replaced—in theory, at least—by the existence of a Master. The role was the same; that of a stabilizing anchor and a fount for magical energy. And even if he had acquired a Master, there was no reason for the Moon Cell to be shunning him so.

It should have been repairing his spirit core, or at the very least stabilizing his existence.

Yet, nothing.

 _Two seconds until I vanish_ , he predicted grimly and pressed on into the sixth layer, falling through the floor and towards the bottom—and suddenly came to a total and complete halt in mid-air. No, rather, the world and reality around him ceased to function, forcing him to stop and leaving him stuck a half-meter off the ground.

"Hmm? What's this?"

_Impossible..._

A familiar voice, followed soon by a familiar face as a red shroud flared upon entry, landing on the floor in a perfect mirror of how Emiya had intended to fall. Black boots and body armor with white highlights, white hair and tan skin set with piercing gray eyes... Emiya would have blinked in surprise as he came face to face with Nameless, Kanshou and Bakuya already in hand and looking extremely wary, and Emiya tried to open his mouth to speak—but no words came out.

The world within his vicinity did allow for such, as if paradoxically only a part of time had been denied.

A fact which was the least of Emiya's worries.

Minutes passed as Nameless remained on wary guard, circling around the frozen zone with swords held at a loose ready as his gray hawk-eyes pored over Emiya's frozen form.

 _This... this is bad._ There could only be one instance of any one Servant spawned by the Moon Cell. Of that Emiya was absolutely certain as his time as a Guardian, for it had taught him and as his experience with other quantum computers had confirmed. It was a _fundamental law_ that there could not be perfect copies; no two sets of identical information. This wasn't like his Projection, which could be classified as imitations referring to a certain original, their very imperfect nature as replicated items making the exception possible and allowing them to exist. But that could not be the case with a Heroic Spirit—A Heroic Spirit was the thing unto itself, not merely a _reference,_ even as a Servant.

There _couldn't_ be two of him in the Moon Cell.

Yet here there was more than one. Or were there? He couldn't remember ever being summoned by the Moon Cell for anything like _this_ before—did it know that there were two of them? Was this a side-by-side comparison? His mind folded in on itself, swallowed by an overwhelming wave of confusion and doubt.

Then another presence arrived.

"What is it? I'm very busy, you fool. This better be important." Archimedes appeared just about ready to sling some more abusive words Nameless' way, when he froze as his wide eyes settled upon Emiya. "This... How did something like this manage to get so far within the Moon Cell?"

"Who knows? The Moon Cell itself caught it—I was merely summoned as a precaution until you could make it here," Nameless said drably, eyes running over Emiya once more. "Be careful. It's at least as strong as a Heroic Spirit."

 _So he's just as bewildered as I am,_ Emiya noted dryly from his own voice, managing to gain some semblance of stability from the humorous observation. _This isn't the time for breaking down. I, I need to get out of here._

"Spare me your concern," came the scathing reply from the mathematician.

Archimedes called forth a display of lights, a dozen beams convalescing and dancing around Emiya's still form. Then, perfectly in between the triangle formed by Nameless, Archimedes and Emiya, a fourth form began to appear as light pooled together and solidified into a body, starting from the legs and moving upward. By the time the hips had formed, Emiya realized that it was some kind of dummy or replica of himself.

_Oh. Oh..._

Lacking his red mantle following the geth firing squad and with the extension of the black body-armor up along his arms and head into a helmet, it might have been challenging to identify him as Nameless, even side-by-side with himself. But that wasn't all, was it? Had it been Thessia and the damage wrought to him thereafter? Or perhaps the battle against Henell and the scrambling of his soul against her Indoctrination? What about his repeated use of projection past his limits? Or perhaps it was him pushing himself so hard to penetrate the Moon Cell's depths in his weakened state.

Regardless, his body alone appeared burned and half-collapsed, fraying and falling apart at the edges already.

Beside the body, light swirled to portray other data.

"The base is that of a Servant, no doubt... But the Spirit Origin is hopelessly corrupted and damaged. Less than a percent of its graph is even anything I could call legible. How is this thing still able to exist? It should have self-destruct under its own conceptual weight ages ago _. Baffling._ "

"Perhaps the Moon Cell is keeping it from vanishing?" Nameless ventured as he eyed the frozen space, finally dispelling his swords and crossing his arms as he leaned back.

 _That... does sound like something the Moon Cell would do._ Cage and dissect anything that it didn't recognize or immediately understand. _But if they can't recognize me, then there's no reason the Moon Cell can either, is there...?_ Meaning there was nothing that would keep the Moon Cell from stopping once it was done with him. Was he on the brink of non-existence?

Archimedes scoffed. " _Obviously._ The causal filter acts like a prism, removing certain possibilities from actualized reality. But as I stated; it should have collapsed ages ago."

"I see. But then where did it come from and what is it doing here?" Nameless stared at Emiya, eyes piercing.

 _To hell with that._ Could he make it back to his body on the physical surface of the moon with so little time left? _Maybe, but those aren't odds I would normally take._

Normally. But was he even himself anymore?

"It appears to have come from the outer layers, passing through very quickly. Almost as if it had administrative access to the elevator functions. But that should not be possible."

Nameless frowned. "From above? Could there be more of them?"

Archimedes did not answer, leaving the Guardian hesitant as to whether he ought to remain or sally forth to investigate.

"I need to study it further, before it falls apart...The Moon Cell is maintaining it for now, but it won't for long," Archimedes declared and Nameless immediately whirled to look at the mathematician as if he had gone insane. "If we transport it the _Far Side_ , it can be contained more permanently, then with some time and effort I will be able to unravel this little quandary."

Nameless tensed at that, as would have Emiya.

He didn't know what exactly lay in the Far Side—the most ancient depths of the Moon Cell beside the core itself, but he knew at the very least of some ancient unspeakable evil had been sealed away there following an _end of the world_ -event during the Age of the Gods, over fourteen thousand years prior. Something so dangerous and powerful that even the Moon Cell hadn't been able to defeat or destroy it permanently.

Spirit hacking or no, he had no confidence that he could escape from a place like that, not if it was sufficient to contain existences beyond all the gods.

For all practical intents and purposes it was a parallel _world,_ as far-removed from this place as the one where he had originally been born and died on, inaccessible by regular means and inhospitable as could be. Even surviving within such a space was not guaranteed, even without considering that fact that he was mere seconds away from crumbling apart due to his spirit core's unraveling, as the rules that made up reality simply didn't exist there.

It would probably take require approaching full Divinity to be able to bear such a place.

He _needed_ to escape somehow _now_ , even if he couldn't make it back to his body as it was. He still had too much to do, too many things left unfinished. He couldn't—

Suddenly Emiya had a flash of dark inspiration; there was _one_ possibility. Something he wouldn't have thought of before having fought an ancient asari who fought by throwing the weight of her soul around at everyone around here—a blurring of selves; a melting of individuals; an _embrace_.

No, two perfect copies of the same data could exist here and their existence should negate or _overwrite_ each other, depending on the exact—he didn't have a word for the concept, for the exact right _pressure,_ perhaps?

Could he do it?

No, not if it was merely like his Projections. That simply did not act on a level where it could repair his broken spirit core.

But maybe the real thing was different?

At the very least with the right tantric ritual it would be possible. But he hardly had the time, or a willing participant for something as intricate and delicate as that. But he did have _himself_ to work with, a method with which to throw his soul at something, and a theory of self-possession. Weren't there shamans who could acquire skills by letting past selves possess themselves? Wasn't it possible through awakening one's origin to acquire skills engraved in the soul?

_Then..._

That would be the key, both to his continued existence and out of this predicament. Archimedes wouldn't be a problem, but predicting how he would react would be easy. After that, there would be a short window of opportunity to for escape, before more Servants appeared. Assuming of course that the Moon Cell would not simply freeze him in place anew. But he doubted that; regardless of what he did, there was no way he could put the Moon Cell itself in danger. Once its interest passed, it would all but completely forget about him.

Probably.

He just needed a single moment; the smallest opportunity.

"I doubt you'll be able to move it while the Moon Cell has a hold of it," Nameless said and Archimedes to which grumbled something unpleasant in return, but he continued as if he hadn't heard. "Or that you even have the authority to access that place without the Moon Cell's oversight."

"And what would you know of such things, _janitor_?"

Nameless turned slowly to face the logician and something shifted in the air.

"Try me."

" _Fine_ ," Archimedes spat and replied. "I won't risk destabilizing this level if you insist, even if there isn't anything of any real importance here. The ark of the stars will do just fine—the stasis protocols there will be more than suitable for the temporal containment necessary." Then he grumbled under his breath, listing off numbers at apparent random. "...To transport it, the causal filtration must be removed. For a moment only, of course, lest it hurt itself and vanish before I am through with it. It's too weak to fight or escape us, so _restrain it_ only, understood?"

Nameless scoffed but uncrossed his arms anyhow and let them to hang by his side at the ready, grasping still-immaterial blades in his ready position. "How long?"

"Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes."

If Emiya could have let out a shuddering laugh, he would have; that was his chance. He just had to wait. Minutes passed as the Moon Cell's hold did not weaken and doubt began to bloom, both over his current state of existence and of the validity of his plans.

It was only ruthless focus which allowed him to quell those thoughts and adopt his forced outer stillness into an inner stasis. He was merely the bow and the arrow; the course of action adopted already a certainty, which need only be loosed to be realized now.

Failure was death, hesitation was defeat.

Nameless too had adopted the same mantra, standing perfectly still with motionless breath, mirroring Emiya. The two sides of the same coin, reflected like the moon on the water.

And finally:

"Like so, and then..." Archimedes' fingers danced and then gave Nameless a satisfied smirk as he looked up and gave the final stroke. " _So._ "

The unreality snapped back into motion, the first instant— _NOW!_

Emiya's feet hit the floor and sensing the burgeoning code cast spun in place, throwing himself forward into a roll to dodge it and bringing him up on his feet just in front of Nameless, already poised with swords at the ready.

"Tch...!" The guardian surged forward, black blade flashing forward like a dark scythe for a crippling blow that would sever his spine at the waist.

_I'll take that blow—and in exchange, I'll have everything else!_

Nameless' eyes shot wide as he realized Emiya had been aiming to be struck from the very beginning, but with blade and body already in motion was unable to stop even as he knew something was _wrong_.

Quantum supercomputer—Eye of God—photon capturing crystal lattice—the Moon Cell.

Whatever the functioning principle was, it wasn't quite the same as physical reality. When two people—or any two solid objects for that matter—came into contact with another normally, they were stopped by each other. But in this case, _not so_. Perhaps he was in agony, perhaps there was a moment of release from the pains he had already gotten all-too used to. Regardless, for one second, parts of Emiya and Nameless occupied the _exact same space_ within the Moon Cell, and regardless of what Spirit Origins said they were still one and the same.

Dispersed, disparate photons recombined, averaging out their values as per the relative difference between them and then dispersed once more, almost ejecting away from each other.

"Aarrgg _ghhh...!_ " Guardian and hacker collapsed and rolled apart from each other, blinded by the sudden merging of qualia and souls and cores.

Emiya rolled with the pain and came to a halt on one foot and one knee, shaking his head as he tried to get a grip. Red. His mind was burning, his left eye could only see red— _No, wait._ His left arm was clad in the red shroud. Just his left arm, with the deep wound on his torso dripping into it and staining it dark. Looking up, he could see Nameless mirroring his stance, with a pained grimace of shock and confusion, sans the missing shroud from his left arm where they had passed through each other.

Where Emiya had gone through and exchanged broken parts of himself for some that _weren't_.

"What...!" Archimedes gaped. "What did you—"

But Emiya had no intention of explaining himself, or even sticking around for long enough to find out just how much Nameless had gotten from the exchange. His spirit core wasn't falling apart by the second now and he had been freed from stasis; even if he wasn't _quite_ whole or healthy, it was _more_ than enough for his needs.

" _Thanks_ ," he said in asari for the hell of it as he stood up, mouth running before his better sense could catch up and slap some sense into it. " _But I really should be going now_."

The incomprehension on their faces was a sweet prize though as he astralized and fell down through the floor into the seventh layer, intending to jump back up through at another place to force them to work against the Moon Cell's layered securities if they wished to catch him without spirit hacking. Jumping back up into the sixth layer at another fold, he exhaled and took stock of himself. The wound on his side from himself was already closing up normally now that his spirit was no longer leaking like a damn sieve the whole time.

In a fight it would have been a problem, but normally? It wasn't even enough to register as a hindrance.

 _Well, I'm not dying anymore. Now what?_ After all, he wasn't Nameless any longer, but— _Not yet. I need to get out first._

This wasn't the time or place for getting lost in his thoughts.

Even so, he _hesitated_.

If he just left the same way he had come, wouldn't that merely invite Archimedes' interest in the outside world? The worst-case scenario would be that he himself—or _not,_ as it _turned out_ —really would come chasing after him, the same way he had arrived five years before, not-so neatly mirroring how he had pretended to be chasing himself on Torfan. Or worse yet, other heroic spirits? What would happen if any one of the numerous legendary figures was allowed to roam the outside freely, when a second-rate like himself had already completely managed to up-end the galaxy?

He didn't know whether to shudder or shake his head at the mere idea.

"I should avoid _that_ , at least."

If he could so easily escape the bounds of his death, then surely so too could any other Heroic Spirit. It would be complete and utter chaos, far beyond even the worst he could intentionally inflict. The world of the living was for the _living_ , not for the dead to dictate.

As far as rationalizations went it wasn't very good, the glaring hypocrisy obvious immediately.

But what else could he tell himself? That if Archimedes hadn't cared for the galaxy and humanity five years ago, then why would he or anyone else right now? That he had already been struggling to keep things in hand without who knew how many heroic spirits coming out to just mess around? That he couldn't simply rely on Shepard or someone else to keep them in line? That the danger of indoctrination was simply too great, that he could not trust anyone his equal or superior in strength, that could not resist the corruption as he could—or had thought he could, as the Moon Cell had already demonstrated otherwise, though to unknown extents—or that if he already himself was too far gone because of his contact, then he needed to limit its effects solely to himself, trusting that he could eradicate himself, or how it would undo everything he had already built up and...

Emiya breathed deeply, already drowning in his thoughts.

His reason was simple.

They would simply _interfere_ with the process outlined by Archimedes back then, when Emiya had made the decision to step out a second time. The intrusion of others would ruin that.

He laughed weakly; at himself more than anything else.

_Was I always this selfish...?_

Already he was making discoveries of himself. Or perhaps re-discovering things that had been rusted over. _This_ was why everyone had left him during his life, regardless of how many allies he managed to make. His refusal to compromise or to lose anything, or to accept others if it meant dividing himself between aims.

Anything that endangered his becoming a hero of justice simply had to go.

 _But isn't this just perfect?_ he thought with a sarcastic bite at his own inclinations.

Back then he had become utterly alone and so in the end had died standing without anyone by his side, unremembered and unmourned by anyone. So wasn't it appropriate that this time, too, he would have no one and nothing by his side? Did the Moon Cell's rejection of him not play perfectly into his twisted desire?

"Enough brooding. _Move_ ," he reminded himself and shook himself back into action. But how to accomplish that without leaving a trail they could follow?

* * *

;

* * *

_So, Emiya was right,_ Shepard thought as she nodded. _And he was preparing all this time to fight them again._

Her face crinkled, trying to process the thought.

Somehow when she put it like that, it sounded like a terrible action vid. Bad, in the sense of being so terrible that it just barely became worthwhile to watch. The kind so stupid you couldn't help but nod along and get excited to see where it would go from there; how wreck could only get worse from here.

And here she was, in the middle of it all.

_Huh, doesn't that put a completely different spin on Emiya, too?_

The straight-man way over his head, beset on all sides by insanity. She had to fight the smile threatening to crack through, most of her previous annoyance drained by the effort and absurdity of it all.

"You cannot be serious?" Doctor Warren asked, and when no one joined her in her incredulity, she scowled. "You people _actually believe_ her?"

Miranda and Franco exchanged another set of stony-faced glances, neither quite speaking up to say anything one way or the other.

"I cannot believe I have to explain this, and to an _asari_ of all people; your people are the staunchest in combating these, these _baseless_ hoaxes and unscientific fairy tales," Warren continued, shaking her head and throwing up her arms. "You're speaking for the stuff of _bad vid tales_ and _conspiracy theories!_ " She raised a hand to her forehead, shaking her head helplessly. "I can't believe we're even having this conversation..."

Liara looked very weary and small then.

"I could not believe it either... When he first questioned—Well, _everything_ they had ever taught me about the Protheans."

"Did Emiya specifically say that he believed that the Protheans had been... _exterminated_?" Miranda asked before Warren could continue with her ranting. The human expert on the Protheans scoffed, throwing up her hands aside as if she giving up on being the voice of reason on the topic.

"...No, but," Liara answered.

"I see," Miranda interjected before the asari could further explain, appearing satisfied with just that answer as she turned to Warren. "We will have to carefully scrub her involvement in the unearthing of the elevator. The political climate is perilous enough without—"

"Did he say who or what he thought was behind the extinction?" Shepard asked.

"No. I believe," Liara hesitated, glancing at Warren and Miranda quickly. "I believe he intentionally spoke only of tangential matters—things which could prove his suspicions, evidence that would disprove the commonly accepted truths—certain that I would not listen a word if he spoke of his true beliefs."

The asari shook her head, not quite sideways but in a manner that shook the tips of her crest, returning her gaze to her hands on her knees.

"As it was, I could scarcely hear a word he said given—given I reacted very much like Doctor Warren."

"No, don't you pull me into your little fantasies here, asari."

Liara looked ready to bolt at the look she was receiving from the doctor.

 _She's so much more timid when Emiya isn't around... But at the same time, it's not as if she seems to like or even trust him._ Shepard couldn't quite place a finger on the young asari.

"So he has not shared more of his beliefs or suspicions with you, then?" Surprisingly, this time it was Franco who was asking, and he pointedly ignored Shepard's curious gaze.

"That is right."

"Then, do you have any reason to believe that he is trying to convince you that he is holding such beliefs? Any motive at all to fool you?"

Liara's nose crinkled and the painted 'eyebrows' on her brow did a very good approximation of a frown. "No, no... None that I could conceive, at least."

Now Miranda and Warren were eyeing Franco, skeptically. But he didn't so much as acknowledge anyone other than Liara as he continued.

"Then what do _you_ believe was the cause behind the disappearance of the Protheans?"

The young asari inhaled slowly and looked down again.

"Truthfully, I do not know. But were my guess a must... The Metacon, perhaps." Seeing their confusion, even on the face of Warren, Liara opted to elaborate. "To explain what is known of the Protheans very succinctly, their history is divided into seven ages."

"Seven—" Warren objected, but a look from Franco and Shepard silenced her.

"These ages vary in duration and are more of a general classification based on what few trends and shifts we have been able to observe... The field of dating various finds and locations is a complicated science all on its own, not made any easier by the seemingly constant trade and travel. It is often more important to know where an item was made than how old it is, as no two planets—or space stations—are quite the same. Often seemingly very ancient structures—like the Mass Relays or the Citadel, appear so old as to have existed before the Protheans, but through other finds the relative date of their creations have been possible to confirm.

"The first age encompasses all of their history prior to developing interstellar capabilities. The second age, their first steps into the galaxy and their rapid expanse into dozens of systems. Of these two ages extremely little evidence or certainty remains—not even the name or location of their homeworld, truthfully. The third era began when the construction of the Citadel was completed and their many systems united under one rule—as some evidence suggests that, _ah_ never mind. It is the end of the third era and the events that marked the shift into the fourth era that really matter, I suspect."

Shepard nodded, gesturing for Liara to continue. "What happened?"

"We do not exactly know, but there was a great conflict of some kind. Theories range from large-scale internal conflict to a first contact war similar to the rachni, to a machine uprising like the geth... Regardless, it was likely a very bitter and long-fought struggle on a scale which would have dwarfed any war before or since—of a scale and duration far beyond the Rachni and Krogan conflicts, even at the conservative end of estimates—which ended up transforming Prothean society completely. I..." Liara's voice cracked, and she paused, swallowing heavily. "I had long believed this to be their greatest moment—when they rose to become the protectors of the galaxy and the many fledgling races they came into contact. Guides and saviors, spreading their teachings and technology... But... Now, I no longer know what to think."

The asari looked down to her hands, remaining quiet for a long moment and the others waited for her to continue. Finally, she shook her head and resumed.

"Perhaps they were benevolent teachers, or perhaps they were brutal subjugators. Regardless, the beginning of the fourth age marked a dramatic shift where they began to expand again into the galaxy at a truly staggering rate, as if they were trying to reach every corner and claim it for themselves as quickly as possible, to make sure no habitable system was beyond their reach. Even today it is not uncommon to find signs of fourth age expansion on newly found garden worlds and it is suspected that behind many dormant relays there would be countless finds more, as most of the Mass Relays' construction have been dated to this time period. But eventually of course this period of expansion ended, shifting eras to the next.

"The fifth age saw a period of stable rule during which many of the races that today hold them as gods were presumably in contact with the Protheans. The hanar in particular hold it as a canon that they were conceived by the Protheans during this era." Liara smiled a little at this.

The room was very quiet, everyone listening with rapt attention.

Noticing the intent eyes on her, the Asari Maiden flushed hotly and lowered her eyes before continuing in a quieter voice. "The sixth age marks their disappearance, for the cause of which there are countless theories, though few that are entertained by the exo-archaeological community with any real conviction."

"Wait, if they disappeared during the sixth age, then how can there be seven of them?" Shepard asked, frowning.

"There _can't_." Warren scoffed.

"...The second ruins, far beneath us, were built after the end of the sixth age. Possibly hundreds of years after their supposed fall," Liara declared hollowly. Warren stilled utterly, jaw hanging and eyes wide. She looked up at the wide eyes of the others and added: "Or so _he_ says, anyhow. I am only here to find whether there is any truth to that."

"Whoa..." Shepard leaned back, finding it all hard to process.

"Why is this... seventh age so taboo?" Franco asked, leaning forward with rapt attention.

Liara actually laughed before she shook her head.

"I have known for decades that it was a ridiculous notion, but now that I try to think _why_... I find myself unable to answer to my own satisfaction. It was simply something that was not acceptable to speak about, much less believe or investigate." She laughed again, this time more with remembrance of past amusement. "Not that it was made difficult to find ridiculous. It feels like every decade some great new vid spectacle about the Protheans, each more ridiculous and hyperbolic than the last, was made and we would have to barrage another wave of extranet experts who believed they had discovered the truth..."

The asari seemed to be almost fondly remembering such times, eyes distant and downcast.

Franco nodded. "And these ' _Metacon_ '?"

"The great enemy of the third age—or what is generally believed the enemy was called, based on the records unearthed from certain possible fringe civilizations which existed around the same time. If the Protheans were wary of them and sought to prepare for their return in the subsequent ages, it seems possible to me that they could in fact have eventually returned," Liara answered.

"And wipe out the Protheans as they did." Franco nodded with a grimace.

Shepard looked around to judge the reactions of the people in the room. Franco appeared mostly convinced and worried. Miranda wore a stony expression so smooth that nothing could be seen of her thoughts, her eyes cold and flinty.

As for the last woman in the room...

"And what possible proof could you have for _any_ of this nonsense?" Warren asked snippy, finally having regained herself enough to continue.

Liara gave a wan smile. "We had a Prothean pistol that we investigated in the University of Serrice's museum. The curator—Professor _Baliya Haphia_ —identified the materials of the gun to be from the legendary lost world of _Ilos_."

That shut the archive researcher up again, Shepard noted with no small amount of satisfaction.

"And it had been used and repaired after the end of the sixth age with very interesting materials..." It seemed Liara too could enjoy her verbal _coup de grâce_ , drawing it out. "Metals matching _this_ planet." She pointed below her feet. "If _that man_ is to be believed, then what we will find down there will rewrite galactic history."

The room fell quiet.

"Do you have any idea what these Metacon are or could be?" Franco asked seriously and Liara shook her head.

"No description of the Metacon have survived. Much of the evidence we do have—circumstantial evidence—points to some kind of internal schism. As if systems had suddenly been converted and Prothean ship turned on Prothean ship in the middle of great battles."

That sounded worryingly familiar.

_So, super ancient sex demon conspiracies out to destroy the galaxy confirmed?_

" _Fuck_ ," Shepard whispered as she ran a hand down her face.

* * *

;

* * *

_This has to be just about the worst idea I've ever had..._ Emiya thought and _wished_ he could spare the effort necessary for a grimace.

If he had been thrown into the Far Side without reference to the real and subsequently become unable to escape because of the Far Sides' innate nature, then surely a voluntary jaunt through the Far Side would be just the thing to erase his tracks, right? Even Nameless had been leery of the place, and _he worked here_ for a living—unliving? _After-living_.—just as Emiya had years ago.

The utter departure from real made it a sure-thing as far as being untraceable went.

Except, well, he had almost gotten swallowed whole immediately and ended up... _somewhere._

These were parts of the Moon Cell so ancient that they put the Prothean ruins and relics to shame, having existed for all that he could tell for ages beyond the records present and available even to the God's Eye. For all that the alien forerunners had built empires and collapsed eons before recorded living history, the strange quantum computer had shone down on and observed an Earth much longer still. None of its own records know how old it truly was, given that the cataclysm which wiped Earth's surface and began to decline of the Age of the Gods 14 millennia ago also forcefully rebooted the ancient structure after the terrible damage it suffered.

But if pressed for to answer, Emiya wouldn't have put millions of years past it, billions even. Therefore, the current iteration of its operative layers—the Serial Phantasm, or the Near Side of the Moon, where the light of reality shone within the photonic crystals that made up the Moon Cell—was only the surface.

And beneath it lay another side, just as, if not _more_ incomprehensibly vast known as the Far Side of the Moon. The shadow cast by the comprehensible, recorded and most importantly: real. Much like the magical—even mathematical—element of imaginary numbers. Though he had received a doubled education in the concept of imaginary numbers thanks to his Japanese and British educations, he had never quite understood what the concept meant until he had spent time diving into, getting more hands-on experience with, the more primitive quantum computers.

In comparison to the Moon Cell, anyhow.

The comparison between the two being akin to looking at the cogs of a bicycle to gain an understanding of the workings of a mechanical pocket watch; some of the working principles were the same, of course, but the scale and complexity simply could not be compared without ridicule.

Because simply put, nothing he had learned from man-made quantum computers explained a damn thing about the deeper workings of the Moon Cell. Why was there a Near and a Far Side, one defined as real and the other as imaginary? Was it some perverse reflection of the use of complex numbers—also formed of a real and an imaginary number—in calculating quantum mechanics? Surely not, as that was merely a happy coincidence similar to the use of imaginary numbers in electrical engineering.

Mathematics merely describes reality, but it categorically _is not_ reality. That had been Emiya's stance since before all this and he was sticking to it.

So where did that leave the Far Side?

Was it merely the 'trash bin' of the Moon? Or the place where data not merely discarded, but also deleted, overwritten and removed from all references and registries—effectively erasing it, past, present and future—went, thus existed as the wellspring of all potentialities not realized or which had been _refuted_ in this universe?

Emiya had no idea, and he suspected he did not want to stay long enough to know any better.

Regardless, if he hadn't accrued so much experience with spirit hacking and hadn't _ad hoc_ repaired his core back together mere minutes earlier, there was no way he could have survived in an environment like this. _Environment_ wasn't even the right word. On the Near Side of the Moon, the Serial Phantasm enforced a certain set of laws, much as reality as he knew it did. It wasn't just things like gravity, air and barometric pressure, enabling you to walk and talk—it had to enforce _everything_ from the metaphorical ground up. _If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe..._

Just the tiniest shift in the value of some universal constant would utterly skew everything, resulting in life as he knew becoming impossible.

He was vaguely aware that his understanding of the basics of reality were lacking—a sort of humbling realization, given that it was something of a specialty of his—as apparently no matter how he tried to define the four fundamental forces and their relative strengths, it kept spiraling out of control. With his foundation so shaky, nothing else really worked either. Though given that he was working with what he remembered from physics in high school and subsequently at London over a hundred years ago, perhaps he could cut himself some slack. He _had_ always been a third-rate magus.

Were his soul any less dense, his unraveling would have been immediate. Or potential and therefore immediate? Because time did not flow quite right here at all. Or rather, _at all_.

So if he wished to do something, he needed to enforce time on himself as a constant. At least entropy was easy to understand and implement. Though extremely strenuous magically—he was burning through his reserves at a rather alarming pace.

 _At least I can be sure that I won't be found after this,_ he thought, tracks now thoroughly muddied and untraceable as he could barely make sense of his own movements, predetermined though they were.

Emiya had briefly entertained actually heading for the Zero Dark, the sealed 'crater' where the thing that had almost destroyed the Moon Cell had been sealed, but given that it existed in the Far Side, he literally had no idea where to even begin looking and thus had given up on it. Just this little dip into the imaginary number space had been enough for a lifetime.

Luckily he was nearing the end of his escape from the Moon Cell, the connection to his unconscious body on the surface of the Moon practically within reach. The ascent back to the real world through the virtual felt like a balloon released underwater, popping forcefully up almost by itself.

"Guh...?"

The overflow of sensory information, both from his spiritual core and his body, left him senseless and dazed. Unable to quite understand where he was or what he was doing, Emiya shook his head and stumbled around for a few more moments. Somehow he could now _taste_ the rate at which time flowed and _hear_ the constant which defined the speed of light among a number of other, nonsensical sensations and thoughts.

He shook his head.

"...This better not be permanent."

Who knows how his cooking would suffer if he had to learn how to ignore the taste of something like that. Grimacing, he stood up gingerly. He was still by the quantum computer from where he had nabbed the Artificial Intelligence earlier. The facility lay still and the blue box sat silent, the whir of its coolers and power supply gone.

Now what?

A question he had asked himself so many times already just today.

There had been a feeling of hurry until now, pressing down on him from all sides; entrapping him, forcing him to keep abreast and ahead of the walls closing in, always moving... Partly that had been due to his condition.

But now...

He wasn't even Nameless anymore, was he? He was more or less Emiya Shirou again, in truth and full. For all intents and purposes, he had been erased and reborn—freed from his contract with the Moon Cell and loosed on the world, free of all restraints and restrictions.

He could do anything he wanted.

_That's..._

Who had it been that had described anxiety as the dizziness of freedom?

Somehow that description felt _right,_ as if he was standing on the precipice of a sheer drop, one step away from his doom. Wasn't this exactly how he had been before, back in life? Alone and facing the unknown again, with only his ideals to guide him?

Inhaling slowly a shuddering breath and allowing himself to accustom to the wash of reality against him, Emiya tallied up his options and plans once more, now that he had effectively recovered. Certainly there was the matter of the damage to his body... but with his spirit core effectively stabilized—at least, _for now_ —he didn't have to worry about it quite so much anymore.

Worst-case scenario, he could simply 'hospitalize' himself and keep his body around as an anchor now that he could count on his spiritual body again.

 _What matters for now... is keeping a lid on my recent actions._ He was new to playing in the big leagues, and his efforts to intimidate and bully around his opponents could easily backfire if he wasn't careful. _So, meeting and getting Saren's support will be key._ If he could work together with the turian Spectre, then that should pacify the majority of the Citadel interests. Which just left all of humanity to handle.

Reasonable enough.

Given the Moon Cell's interest and Archimedes' intel five years ago, it was probably safe to assume they were effectively blind to the world beyond SERAPH's borders, but even so it wouldn't do to tempt fate. Additionally, until he could ensure that the Citadel wouldn't mistake his presence here in the Local Cluster as complicity on the Systems Alliance, he couldn't exactly risk going public either.

So...

"Don't make any waves, just for a few weeks until I meet Saren again..."

He could do that. Probably. And after that...? Well, he would have to see then. For now, he had a borrowed starship to hand back. And after that, maybe get some more noodles? Hopefully, the taste thing had passed by then.

Emiya had boarded the starship before he even realized that everyone was still running around headless and panicking because of the rampant AI. After everything again, it felt weird to have to use the cybernetic implants to connect to and operate other computers, like he was trying to work something delicate through a hole barely large enough to fit two fingers.

He removed the helmet, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter, feeling stifling and heavy.

It took him a few moments to figure out again how to get the starship running and call Kolkkonen for an update, but Emiya somehow managed as he collapsed on a lounge chair and closed his eyes, a hand running through his hair as the back of his went over the top of the back of the chair.

Lids opened a smidgen, eyes peering at the ceiling.

Somehow it all still felt so unreal, yet that too, felt familiar.

"Colors look all wrong again..." he chuckled and closed his eyes again.

* * *

;

* * *

Shepard perked up as her omnitool beeped.

It flashed to life as she expected the familiar name on the incoming call, thus leaving her decidedly disappointed with the name she instead saw. Figuring that leaving the office was too much of a hassle with her chair, she routed the audio to an earpiece she had and answered.

"Shepard."

" _What the hell is happening over there? Where are you and where is he?_ "

"Mars and I don't know." The disgusted sigh on the other end would have ticked her off if she didn't—to some small degree—agree with the sentiment. "Did he say you about Liara T'Soni and Mars?"

" _...He just informed me, along with a whole host of other equally nonsensical demands. Why the hell is he interested in some asari and the ruins?_ "

Shepard looked at the others in the room, Doctor Warren exchanging heated but quiet words with Miranda in-between furtive glances at the lone asari in the room, who was sitting by the terminal in a state of deeply focus. The raven-haired woman noticed Shepard looking, and they held a momentary staring contest before she looked away.

"Well, we might want to ready a parade and inform the Citadel," she started. "Since we just discovered another, second ruin beneath the boring old first one."

The complete and utter silence lasting for a full twenty seconds made the redhead bite her lip to keep from laughing, keenly aware that she was definitely leaning back into bad habits due to her recent proximity to Emiya.

" _Understood. I... I will do that. Inform me when he..._ " A strangled sound of surprise sounding suspiciously like a certain name just preceded the line cutting off. " _Emi—!_ "

Shepard blinked and shrugged. It sounded like she wouldn't have to play secretary after all. Turning off the display of her omnitool, her eyes were drawn again to the two women. _Why did Miranda know what to say to get us in? I might have expected and let it slide if it was Emiya, but..._

She sighed and shook her head, running a hand through her hair. As if handling Emiya and the Systems Alliance wasn't enough for her plate already.

That aside there was still the matter of the young asari—Liara. The difference between the commandos she had met before and the young Prothean expert were somewhat difficult to reconcile, as the wonder and naivety stood in stark contrast with the worldly and measured poise she had already come to associate with the aliens.

Perhaps that was why Emiya so enjoyed riling her up; petty sort of payback?

Rolling forward with her wheelchair, pulling a spiffy almost-drift stop that she loved doing in the Mako, she came next to the blue-skinned alien. The woman stiffened slightly as the redhead peered over her shoulder, eyeing the high-resolution scans and diagrams of the Prothean ruin on display.

"You never did tell me how you met him."

Liara blinked.

"Emiya, I mean. It was on Thessia, wasn't it? He was looking into the Protheans there too, right?"

"Ah, umm, yes. Yes, I think so, but—"

"But then those Prothean experts started dying." Shepard nodded, not paying attention to the flagging asari. _Is it just a coincidence? If he knew about the ruins all this time, why wait until now to reveal them? And why make her be the one to make the discovery?_ Had he switched to a back-up plan now? "How did you two meet, anyway?"

Big blue eyes blinked before going wide, bringing color to her cheeks as she looked away.

"Ah, he... Tyra brought him, that is, my—she, we shared an apartment near our university—she met him and, well..." Liara rambled on.

"And?"

"And she must have forgotten that I was returning from Dretirop—I had simply wanted to finish and touch up the last bits of my thesis—when, he was just standing there, _naked_."

Shepard twitched.

"Ah."

"I thought Tyra had been... Well, it doesn't really matter. She wasn't, _they weren't_ , I mean," Liara added emphatically. Shaking her head, the train of thought seemed to meander away and off.

"Right, so, then?" Shepard urged.

"Well, then... Then we had an argument and then we were taken hostage by Tela Vasir—"

"Tela Vasir the _Spectre_?" Miranda suddenly interjected.

Liara perked up, nodding once.

The raven-haired woman frowned, scowled, turning pensive as she shifted her weight uneasily.

Shepard couldn't help but note how Liara was minutely mirroring Miranda's expression then, the beginnings of a frown making itself known.

"Wait, so a Spectre arrested you and Emiya? Was that how that whole Thessia thing kicked off?" Shepard asked, already imagining how that would turn out. It certainly had _escalated_ magnificently.

"No, well, it was Tyra and I—but then she convinced Tyra to help her in arresting, or perhaps framing him... It still doesn't all really make sense to me what happened there. A-anyhow," Liara continued, avoiding looking at anyone, distinctly aware that everyone was looking at her now. "She's dead now."

"Emiya killed her?" Miranda asked, surprised and keenly curious. "What did she do?"

Liara looked even more distinctly uncomfortable now.

"I, I do not want to talk about it."

The raven-haired woman stalked forward, slamming a hand on the desk between her and the asari. "That's not good enough!"

Shepard raised a brow, staring at the woman now practically growling at the startled alien, weighing whether or not to get out of her chair.

"Do you _even_ _understand how much is at stake here_? Under what _rock_ have you been hiding under, coming—"

"Lawson, calm down."

Surprisingly, it was Franco who spoke up first, his calm tone cutting through the tension and drawing the entire room's attention. The raven-haired woman regarded him icily behind a sneer. But it was enough for Liara to squeeze in a word.

"It was not him."

Miranda blinked, turning around, Franco forgotten as the cold fire that had been animating her died out with a flicker. Another myriad set of expression, leaving the raven-haired woman completely deadpan as she walked away, pacing restlessly.

 _She's really worried about Emiya and what he will do._ Much more than anyone else in the room. _Just what did he do to her?_ He hadn't been exactly hostile to her, but he had definitely been wary of what she would do, always keeping her in sight. Until whatever had pulled him away now, that was. Given how off-kilter Kolkkonen had sounded, she supposed it was bound to be something big, too. _Probably our jump halfway through the solar system. God, something like that practically invalidates all Mass Relay holding strategies. No doubt someone is losing their mind right about now._

Well, she would just ask him about the specifics once he returned.

And speaking of the devil...

The office door opened and in strode Emiya, striking Shepard immediately with how different he appeared. Nothing had changed outwardly, but somehow his entire presence had both mellowed out and intensified. As if he had shook off all excess and honed himself all at once, not casual but something altogether more worrying—something she couldn't place a finger on. He sauntered into the room and then looked around, seeing faces for the first time, memorizing and recognizing them for the first time.

"Did something happen?" Franco asked, the first in the spellbound room to acknowledge Emiya.

"—Yeah."

There was a moment's hesitation there, the border between a honest reply and a thought-through story. Shepard's curiosity had been piqued; and she wondered whether to wait for later or to simply ask him now.

"There was an incident on the moon. The Systems Alliance should have it under control now. It's..." The tall man shrugged casually before appearing to realize something. "Oh, _damn._ "

"What? What's wrong?"

Emiya shook his head, looking slightly... _contrite?_

"Nothing, just forgot to track down some people. And... it probably doesn't matter, I can make an educated guess anyhow." He turned, looking at Miranda who stiffened. "Tell your boss—or _whoever_ you're reporting to now—to keep the _practical jokes_ to a minimum for a few weeks."

She nodded stiffly, eyes locked onto his like a deer in the headlights.

Breaking the stare, he looked back to Liara, who had been observing the exchange curiously.

"Are you staying?"

Liara nodded, looking something between insulted and confused by the implication that she would be doing anything else.

Emiya nodded and continued. "Good. There should be word coming down the grapevine soon: you should probably get an official position here—"

"She will what...?!" Warren interrupted him.

Emiya's words trailed off as he regarded her for a moment, as if only just now remembering that she was even present at all.

"I can't pretend to understand even half of what has happened today. _But,_ don't think that you will simply get your way. This is not some—"

"Well, if that happens then Liara will be working through you, so get used to being ordered around. Anyway," Emiya smoothly continued, leaving the doctor gaping. "You don't have any money or a place to stay for now, right?"

"That is correct," Liara replied warily, sneaking a look at her fellow Prothean expert, fuming at being dismissed.

"Well, I'll buy you a starship. Something with the proper accommodations and rations for a few weeks at least."

The asari goggled, and she wasn't alone.

"E-excuse me?"

But he was already moving on. "Miranda. Tell Cerberus I want something: all their information on a turian Spectre called Saren."

The woman froze, nodding stiffly and licking her lips nervously after a long second.

"Specifically what a ' _Jack Harper_ ' would know. If they want a face-to-face meeting, that's fine, but through the extranet is fine too. Before the week is out."

She nodded again, more relaxed now but with brows furrowed. "How shall I contact you?"

Emiya paused, glancing at Shepard.

She shrugged, answering: "I'll give you my contact details, since it looks like I'm stuck playing secretary until I'm on my feet again."

"...Alright," Miranda answered, glancing in turn at Emiya and gauging his reaction.

But he was already moving on again, turning to the last person in the room expecting to be spoken to.

"Cassani."

Franco stiffened slightly, but unlike Miranda, he appeared more surprised than worried at being addressed.

"Your ship is where we left it before and no one shot at me this time, so I'll wire you the fuel costs."

"O-oh. Right, okay." He nodded, then shook his head. "No, that's hardly even worth caring about right now. Just, what are you planning? Why are you doing all this? This, this thing..." Franco glanced quickly at Shepard. "You _knew_ about this place already years ago. Why reveal it now? Why like this?"

Emiya shrugged.

The silence held for a long moment, seconds ticking by as no one said anything, the majority simply waiting with bated breath for any kind of explanation, even an excuse. But none were forthcoming as he switched his attention to the other wheelchair-bound human.

"Shepard," he began, turning to look to at her. "Do you need a ride back to Arcturus?"

She frowned, hesitated as there was a bunch of question she wanted to ask him, and then decided to wait until later, noticing Liara's curious big blue and Miranda's frosty eyes looking at her. She gave the asari a reassuring nod before turning to look at Emiya again.

"What about you? It doesn't sound like you plan on going back."

A flash of distaste accompanied a shake of head.

"No, I'll be staying in Armstrong for the time being."

"On Luna?" Franco perked up again.

The white-haired man nodded, a look of something flashing by so quickly that Shepard wasn't sure if she had merely imagined it.

It did make strategic sense, keeping him close to the human homeworld while also allowing him to remain much more mobile than descending into an atmosphere would. Alliance Intelligence would definitely read a threat in the vein of Thessia from it, regardless of Emiya's actual part in that catastrophe.

But she didn't get the feeling he was worried about them. Something else was on his mind and that worried her. And as if to put voice to her worries, he spoke.

"I need to keep an ear to ground for a little while, so to speak. So Armstrong it is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha sorry for the long wait, again. NOT SICK, apologies to anyone who I gave that impression to. But well, as usual a lot has been happening in my life.
> 
> Really it boils down to two things.
> 
> First, around the time I got down about 11k words in this chapter I went to my parents' place and met with my dad and he started doing his usual "I'm not gonna live past 65"-schtick along with some "Hahaha, I'm doubly in the risk group, so I might not make it I get sick", because he's overweight and lives a fairly sedentary life, and that he's tried a bunch of diets already and they don't work bla bla bla EXCUSES EXCUSES EXCUSES. Which I've frankly gotten sick of, so I told him "Fuck you asshole, we're both going on a diet _now_ ". So we did. Keto + intermittent fasting.
> 
> And, _uh_ , it definitely works.
> 
> I've lost 20kg at the time of writing this and while my dad hasn't quite kept pace he's lost some weight too. The problem here in terms of _writing_ is, that I cut out all of the sugar from my diet. Sugar, which has been my chief vice my entire life and which is massively important for the Big Think. So, as it turns out, it's really really hard to write when you're on a caloric deficit and you don't have all of that sugar and cafeine and taurine and all that other good stuff running through your veins to keep your energy levels artificially high. I write or edit stuff for 20 minutes and then run out of steam, where before I could sit for hours just in the zone. But well, my underwear have started falling off now, so I've got that going for me :V
> 
> The second problem was where I stopped writing the chapter, when Emiya encounters the Far Side of the Moon and I describe it, as I asked myself a few questions, like: "Why the fuck is there an imaginary number space in a quantum computer?" or "What does it even mean?" and "What the fuck does Nasu know even about quantum computing?" My original hypothesis was that Nasu is a chuuni little fuck who just went IMAGINARY NUMBERS SO COOL, but then I remembered that quantum mechanics is generally described using complex numbers, but then I also remembered that that's mostly because of convenience and that it's not some intrinsic reflection of reality and that you can do that stuff perfectly well with two real numbers. But having started that line of inquiry, I figured I should see it through aaaand down the rabbit hole I went.
> 
> In conclusion, I'm pretty sure Nasu just included it because of chuuni reasons and as a parallel to Sakura's affinity in FSN and nothing more. So time well wasted, eh? Anyhow, read a bunch of books on the matter, got more confused, gave up in disgust and then eventually got back to it.
> 
> Anyhow, _took a while_. Sorry :V


	41. Lazy Fare

Emiya sighed, shutting out another three news vid feeds.

It was just more sensationalism and repetition of what had been said two days ago, when the announcement of the second Mars ruin's discovery had been made. Just more useless noise distracting him from other things. The stillness of the empty apartment room soothed his throbbing temples as he closed his eyes and leaned back in the projected recliner.

Two days had passed since he had parted ways with Shepard and the others; the N7 returning to Arcturus Station to deal with the negotiations in person there, Liara having stayed on Mars in her shiny new luxury ship. Cassani apparently lived on Luna, near the Aldrin Labs' main facilities outside Armstrong, so they had shared the trip and only gone their separate ways afterwards.

As for Miranda...

She had rented a room on Mars in Lowell City and hadn't made any moves since. Either she was waiting for someone to contact her or she was trying to oust the level of surveillance she was under.

Emiya hadn't bothered to follow her more than her general location, though.

Outside the dimmed window he faintly heard laughter and jogging pairs of feet passing by, distracting him for a moment from his thoughts. After his jaunt in the Moon Cell, spirit hacking had felt off; a tangible difference between the real world and the... _other_ , of computers so stark that he wondered how he had been able to ignore it before.

He could see practically everywhere; even the smallest detail of the ongoings of the domed city on the moon within his reach and grasp. Where the last time visiting he had been worried about all the cameras and surveillance as he had been trying to enter this time it formed a walls and shields for him, making it that much harder for anything to pass his notice, though it had taken some setting up. Much like on Arcturus Station, most of all information traffic was still routed through physical cables, but there were still enough wireless signals for him to access at all times.

It had been a relatively simple matter to create backdoors for himself in all the systems he wanted to keep under watch, giving him unrestricted access to all the raw data from sixteen thousand and twelve cameras, fourteen thousand and thirty-four proximity sensors, two hundred high-resolution thermometers and over four dozen satellites at all times. In his current position, had no blind spots, save that of his own attention. Surrounded by so many civilians and companies vital humanity's economy, so deep in the heart of the Systems Alliance's territory, he was for all intents and purposes untouchable.

So he waited and rested—though with one eye always open.

_Doesn't look like anything is going to be coming out of the Moon Cell._

At least not on the moon's surface.

He had become aware of his presence outside the Moon Cell on Earth, possessing a suitable host body from the beginning. Even with all of his advantages, it simply was not possible for him to extend his awareness enough to bring all of Earth under surveillance. But most heroic spirits would probably not know anything about the outside world and thus stand out like sore thumbs, so he had monitored the news.

Efforts on Thessia to rebuild and figure out what to do now—two familiar-looking Spectres being awarded by the council of Matriarchs for their part in saving the asari homeworld from destruction by deploying a secret Citadel weapon—the continued push into the Attican Traverse by the Systems Alliance Navy after their mostly successful operation on Torfan—the meeting between the Asari Councilor and humanity's ambassador at the public hearing regarding the events of the Dreyn N'var...

The galaxy had been a very busy place in recent times, but even so he focused his attention on more local news. Even if it made him gag to listen to the garbage that qualified as news on Earth and Luna.

An endless stream of celebrities, meaningless drama and utter nonsense. It didn't help that Armstrong was the trendiest settlement within ten thousand light years, _apparently_. Within a walking distance he could count thirty influencers and media personalities all hard at work, churning out vapid vids and temperamental trends to their millions of viewers—very little of which Emiya could comprehend, the sheer wealth of shared background one was expected to know and understand so great, that it was like listening to a whole other language.

FTL-buoys used to propel information on the tightbeam communicators seemed completely clogged, straining beneath the constantly growing information output of humanity.

_And I used to think of smartphones as a frivolous distraction..._

It didn't help that a recent slew of rumors regarding the Mars ruins had popped up and begun to dominate the imagination of these people—a leak from the Archive staff being the original source—and within a day dozens of amateur investigators had embarked for the red planet in search of answers. Or rather, something interesting enough to generate clicks. At that point, a mere day after the discovery of the second ruins, the Archive staff made their official announcement of the matter in a video featuring everyone now officially involved.

After that, it hadn't taken more than a dozen hours for Liara to have been shot into the limelight.

The reaction had been very dry and academic at first; universities and experts abuzz with the announcement and its implications for the importance of Mars and the potential for more Prothean findings, but as soon as people began digging into the presence of the young asari beside the human doctor and realized no one had any idea who she was... Well, but then it was already all too late for Liara.

By now she was already dominating the interests and attentions of millions, always craving for the next big hit—and all this despite the fact that maiden in question had no idea about any of this occurring.

Of course the general public weren't the only ones in throes of a craze.

The Systems Alliance had been rampaging internally; acting like a hornets' nest kicked into a pond since his return. The suppression enacted by Alliance Intelligence had curtailed the worst of the spread, but too many people had seen too much. So people talked—or rather, whispered—and word went around about what had happened. Luckily for them, however, it seemed as if most people were too enamored with the news from Mars to pay any attention.

Emiya didn't particularly care, content with concluding that as long as it kept everyone else busy, he could get some shut-eye while he waited for Miranda or Shepard or Cassani—or _anyone_ , really—to get back to him with some real news. So far only Shepard had sent him periodic reports; quick updates and questions about some specific detail he hadn't considered or handled yet. She and Kolkkonen were coming over in another day or two for another face-to-face meeting, but for the moment he supposed that allowing the Systems Alliance to take a deep breath and relax was the smartest course of action.

He halfheartedly tracked down some of the starships that had been waiting for him by the Charon Relay and followed the Systems Alliance's clean-up operation of the AI disaster, noting who and when handled the blue box as it was removed from the site and taken in for analysis.

So far, no one obviously suspicious had popped up.

In fact, a command from Arcturus had come to allow no one access to the quantum computer for the time being until they could send their own analysts to take a look. It might be that he would have to track down everyone who got a copy of the official report to find the culprits, but at that point he doubted he would even be able to recognize them among the hundreds of officials, analysts, secretaries and technicians.

Really, his most pressing concern was his rapidly dwindling liquid assets. Liara's starship hadn't come cheap, and the cost of his current abode wasn't insubstantial either. Certainly, he had accrued a sizable fortune over the years on Thessia, but those were all hidden in various caches in Serrice, the Citadel and even one in Omega out in the Terminus systems. He had planned out for various eventualities—for having to make a run for some distant corner of the universe. But somehow the local cluster had never entered into the equation.

In a word, he was _broke_.

And the only thing keeping it that way were his remaining scruples about simply moving the decimal places on his accounts to conjure up some more credits. Even as someone who seemingly created something out of nothing, it didn't sit right with him to simply falsify money. His swords were forged from his blood and body; his very life-force burned to change the world. Equivalent exchange's importance as a principle had been hammered into his head for many years when he had studied magecraft.

Thus Emiya refrained.

After all, it wasn't as if he didn't know how to make money in other ways.

Of course, there were limitations to his usual methods at the moment. His occupation with news and keeping an eye out for any Servants kept him from doing his usual investigations into corruption and organized crime, from where he could usually quickly acquire liquid funds—besides which, he didn't know who was affiliated with Cerberus, and he was trying to play nice with them. At least for the moment.

Which meant he had to get slightly creative.

"Alright, 10 minutes this time."

Emiya's body relaxed, and he slipped out of his body, squeezing down the line of tightbeams and finally coming to a stop within a relatively low-powered mainframe for a starship. His awareness expanded, taking in the numerous sensor readings along with the feed of surveillance coming from Armstrong.

The starship—a small, already decommissioned design of surveyor vessel, slated for disassembly tomorrow afternoon—finished slowing down as it came to a relative standstill next to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Its sensors were limited, even compared to a simple shuttle, and it had been outdated for decades already. But it was small and extremely light, thus even with its tiny eezo core it had good fuel performance, and on top of that it had a good array of chemical thrusters making it capable of very delicate corrections around larger free-floating objects, be they other starships or asteroids.

Were he physically riding the ship, he would have been hard-pressed to keep his legs straight. But within the virtual space extending outwards inside the computer, that was hardly an issue.

"Let's try that one..." Emiya decided, accelerating forward to match the seemingly leisurely drifting great shadow of rock and ice. The surveyor slowed down, coming to a halt as it gently impacted against the side of the asteroid. "Tch, scuffed the paint..."

He exited the computer, returning to meatspace in his astralized form, as he passed through the side of the small vessel. Materializing between the two objects in his full regalia of black sans shroud, invisible in the shade in-between, he kept with one hand a grip on the bottom of the ship as he placed the other on the side of the asteroid, careful not to push either away in the Zero-G environment.

"—Trace, _on_ "— _begin synchronization,_

Magical energy thrummed and pulsed, pushing outwards and spreading like a spider's web through the rock and ice. A second passed, and then he withdrew his hand with a scoff.

"Nothing again, huh?"

Roughly speaking there were three types of notable asteroids in the main belt, which could be ranked quite easily in order of value: _m_ -types, _s_ -types and _c_ -types. The _m_ -types were the floating gold mines of the belt and also the rarest, containing immense amounts of valuable metals and minerals. They were relatively easy to identify thanks to their composition and thus had been the first to be targeted during the first mine rushes into the belt. After all the _m_ -types had been accounted for and staked, the smaller and more adventurous miners set their eyes on the much more common _s-_ types asteroids. Boasting only a tenth of the relative mass in valuable material of _m_ -types, those mining these asteroids had to consider their expenditures and think more strategically about how to extract the valuable contents if they wished to make a profit.

But eventually patterns began emerging, and it became possible to recognize which _s_ -types were profitable by correlating various datasets, such as their albedo, size and mass, rotational and orbital velocity and their location in the belt. Thus with a little bit of telescoping it was possible to make accurate predictions on how profitable each rock was.

This eventually led to mining coalitions and large corporations laying stakes on entire sections of the inner parts of the main belt, claiming all _s_ -type asteroids there as theirs to mine. The practice of sending out small crafts to take samples of other _s_ -type asteroids in the relative vicinity and hauling back valuable ones was also relatively common, with the exact lines for whichever territory remaining very fluid, leading to the popular image of devil-may-care _comet thieves_ pulling off daring heists and sticking it to the faceless, soulless, purely profit-driven corporations.

At least in a popular pre-First Contact War movie series, back when man still thought he was alone in the stars. Regardless, it wasn't the kind of exciting affair Emiya was looking for at the moment—he was perfectly fine going for the _c_ -type asteroids.

These were the dark strangers of the main belt's outer edge, consisting mostly of ice and dust, some rock and even mud. They were as common as grains of sand in a desert and thus usually ignored unless there was need of water, but they _could_ contain valuable minerals as well. Problem was that it took time and resources to investigate such asteroids. Too much time and resources for most people to make a profit out of the effort. But well, he wasn't most people.

Emiya pushed off the asteroid and returned to the surveyor's computer, setting absently an automatic course for the next closest asteroid before riding back with a tightbeam to Armstrong and his body.

Already he had gone over thirty _c_ -type asteroids and had found nothing of real value and had had to conclude that it was no wonder the business was so competitive. If he failed to find anything before the surveyor had to return, he would be taking a definite loss on just the fuel costs. In addition, if he would have had to factor in his own mass into the fuel costs, the equipment necessary for normal surveys and its mass, and then the supplies to stay out in the black the whole time and the mass of that, _too_...

For anyone else, it would have been a complete gamble.

Especially since the surveyor couldn't even extract or haul back anything it _did_ find.

Emiya opened his eyes and exhaled as he gave the news another cursory scan before sighing, having found nothing worth the effort. He reached for the floor and took up a handful of torn strips of red cloth; his signature sanctified shroud.

The switch, still flipped, permitted the magical energy to push out through his hands and into the frayed fibers. Slowly, ever so slowly, his mind's eye complete a picture of each hair, each tear, each piece and part. Then, carefully, ever so carefully, he imposed his will on the pieces. Joining them, mending the pieces into a larger, unbroken whole.

Sweat ran down his brow as his internal temperature steadily continued rising.

Reinforcement had always been more challenging for him than Projection, though the basic theory was essentially the same with his method; merely constrained by working on real material rather than idealized. Were it an original creation—using his Reinforcement in the stead of real tools to craft an item from scratch—it would also be necessary for him to forge a concept of creation and reason out the basic structure just as it would as if he were to do it by hand, but when repairing something he could simply work off of the original state as a blueprint. Still, the shroud's nature—that of rejecting the world—and own mystical mass did not particularly help.

It would take a long while and a lot of effort to fix it.

But, well, it was worth it. The shroud was more than a mere an armament.

Half an hour of work later he exhaled, practically steaming in the recliner. In his hand lay a piece of whole shroud the size of a napkin. He set it aside on a pile of others like it and then leaned back, breathing slowly as he focused on cooling down and confirming his condition.

_No problems so far._

Magical energy, circuits, spirit core and Servant body were all operating at acceptable levels. It was his physical body which was holding him back; the constant itching along his arms where the false skin met real flesh still a definite annoyance.

Through the cybernetics he glanced at the information he had gathered about various experimental treatments and the like, and again he felt a flare of annoyance. Two million credits for a new type of treatment using medigel custom-made for the recipient's genome. And again he felt the temptation to simply project valuable metals and sell it for a quick profit.

Emiya sighed, shaking his head.

_Maybe I should try that selling my mass effect field cooker here..._ he thought, enjoying the flight of fancy for a moment. He had always wanted to own his own brand of high-quality home appliances, to tailor them to the specific needs and problems he had had to deal with. Of course without any starting capital it was nothing more than a useless waste of time and energy. _Still, maybe I should file a few patents. That much shouldn't take long_.

Question was whether he wanted to file the patent under his own name or under someone else's. Perhaps Cassani would know, having retired from the military. He worked with eezo-based technology and their patents, after all.

Nothing new on the feeds, and the surveying vessel was only a third of the way to the next asteroid.

Emiya shrugged and closed his eyes, slipping out and through the virtual ocean once more.

* * *

;

* * *

Cassani rubbed at his brow, the sensation of sand beneath heavy eyelids unabating.

Another chunk of exotic-variant eezo, almost as large as the previous sample he had been able to acquire and better yet, completely pure and free of contaminants like natural eezo. He had been able to confirm as much through the tests that they had been able to devise after years of experimentation. Armed with this much EVE and the experience from before...

It would unleash Cerberus from all prior constraints.

_Except from the most important one_ , he reminded himself with a long exhale, slumping into a chair. _He_ was still their only source. Worse yet, it didn't seem like anyone had a real handle on what the man thought, wanted or was going to do.

Upon his return to the Aldrin Labs' offices, Cassani had been equally giddy with excitement over the prospects of more EVE as he had been troubled by the revelations on Mars. But he had thought that at least he would have time to mull it over and come to his own conclusions—could take his time and coming to grips with his new situation.

That had been over forty hours ago, and he hadn't slept a wink since.

First, Aldrin Labs' CEO had demanded to know what the hell was going on; informing the thoroughly confused Cassani of just how the company starship had appeared beside Mars, bypassing all known laws of how the Mass Relays and mass effect travel worked.

The rabbit-punch-revelation of just what had been right in front of him, and he had been completely oblivious to, had been staggering. He, better than most in the galaxy, knew how rigid starship doctrine for invading through Mass Relays was. How in the effectively infinite vastness of space, only a few things presented real strategic choke points, and thus positions where a smaller force could defeat a larger one. That 'flying the long way' was no alternative at all, and that there was no risk of being flanked.

Humanity's defense doctrine _all_ relied on the paradigm of the Mass Relays being immutable unknowns that simply worked equally for all.

Had it been another power-play? A show of force, announcing just how beyond them all _he_ was? It fit his memory of Shirou Emiya—the strange and solemn street urchin who took a twisted pleasure in outwitting and humiliating those who wronged him during their shared time in boot camp.

And as if the company having lost their head about what had happened hadn't been enough, within hours the Systems Alliance had come looking for him as well. He had told them the truth; after a fashion. It was pure coincidence that he had run into Shepard and Emiya; it was pure coincidence that it had been the starship he had been aboard. It was all pure coincidence, and he knew nothing, nothing at all about what had happened. Of course they hadn't believed a word of it, keeping him isolated and questioning him for hours, asking again and again about the events.

It was only when word came from above some tense twenty hours later that they had pulled back. He had no idea what was going on—only thankful that his connection to Cerberus hadn't come to light and that no one had thought to investigate the chunk of eezo in his office.

Thankfully, the Systems Alliance had told the Aldrin Labs people to shut up and put up with being mushrooms, giving Cassani just enough breathing space to slink off with his exotic-variant eezo to run the tests. That was just about all that he could do at the moment. Being effectively under house arrest in his own office, he hadn't even had any chances to contact Cerberus.

Not about Lawson, not about Emiya, not about EVE.

And that worried—no, terrified him. The political and consequential landscapes were shifting so rapidly that who knew what would happen if anyone acted on faulty information right now. He had already thrown in his lot with the human-supremacist organization—he was in much too deep to survive if they went under.

But what could he do—

"Wow. You look awful."

Cassani went rigid, his eyes shooting open.

He turned around slowly, blinking as he realized that _he_ was here. Just as he had apparently _teleported_ a starship halfway across the solar system, here he now stood clad in all black in the heart of a private facility. A shiver ran down his spine at the sight of the casual intruder; it was the same outfit as on the footage from Ares Station, missing only the featureless, blank helmet.

Licking his lips once and swallowing to wet his suddenly dry throat, Cassani spoke.

"Yeah."

Emiya wryly grinned. "Want me to make you a cup of tea?"

"...Sure?"

The white-haired man turned around and left the office, taking the right turn towards the office kitchenette without any hesitation, even as Cassani did. Shaking his head, he began wheeling after the stranger, more exasperated than anything by the sheer absurdity.

"How long have these been here?"

Blinking at the question as he rounded the last corner—already hearing the water boiler at work—he eyed the back of the man currently digging through the cabinets. In his right hand, raised over his shoulder, was a box of tea bags.

"I... have no idea." Cassani shook his head. "It's fine, you don't need to..."

The words trailed off as the black-clad man took out a tea bag and tore it open, spreading the dry leaves and dust on the kitchen counter. Bringing his face right next to the mess, he sniffed and then blew at the pile, causing some of the dust to fly off the counter.

"Hmm... Maybe I can work with this."

Saying that, a pair of metal mugs appeared in his hand—the kind that Cassani had seen bartenders use to mix drinks with.

Emiya ripped open five bags, pouring them all into one of the metal shaker before capping it shut with the other and starting to gently shake the leaves. Not fast, nor back and forth, but rather in a closing spiral motion that ended with him parting the shakers and separating them. He peered into one of the metal mugs and then into the other before allowing a small satisfied nod.

Had he separated the leaves by size and weight just now?

The water boiled snapped off the boil, rousing Cassani from his entranced state.

"The... water is done."

"Still too hot. Give it a minute," Emiya replied absently as he took a tentative sniff of the shaker's contents.

Cassani nodded slowly, and a pregnant silence descended.

He was too tired to think clearly, yet the sudden appearance of this chaos incarnate had left him too amped up and anxious to relax, all the exhaustion blown out of his head and instead piling up on his shoulders.

Anxiety arose, rearing its ugly head as he tried to figure out why the man was here. Had he been under surveillance the entire time? Had he screwed up somehow? Revealed Cerberus or said something he shouldn't have to the Systems Alliance? He swallowed heavily.

Even in the Navy—when his omnitool had been tracked every hour of the day—he hadn't felt this boxed in. That had been a known quantity; something he could reason with and something he could even to an extent fight back against, if he so wished. But more importantly, it had been a voluntary; he had agreed to it, sacrificing a part of himself for a cause he could believe in. For a time, anyhow.

But this...?

How had Emiya appeared here?

How long had he been watching?

It reminded him of something he had read—the Panopticon; the prison built on anxiety and paranoia.

Its construction was relatively simple. A great number of cells, with a window that gave a complete view of everything inside, leaving the prisoner with nowhere to hide from, built around a central hub from where you could see into each cell at all times. In theory, a single guard stationed in the center could not keep an eye on all the prisoners at all times, but the mere possibility of a guard watching a prisoner would keep them in line. The fear of being watched just as effective measure as actually being watched in the mind of the convict.

_A convict...?_

Was... Did he feel ashamed?

Cassani blinked, struck by the thought. Why would he care about being watched if he wasn't ashamed? He wasn't afraid to die; wasn't afraid to sacrifice himself if it meant a greater cause would be furthered; wasn't afraid to burn bridges and cast aside friends if it meant he could avenge—

"Here."

He almost knocked the cup out of Emiya's hand, so startled by the sound of his voice.

"I... What?" Cassani hesitated, before his eyes were drawn down to the steaming cup proffered. "O-oh, thanks."

Mechanically, he accepted the cup and was surprised with how warm it felt in his hands—how _cold_ his fingers actually were. The rising steam wafted, sneaking past his surprise and into his nostrils, overwhelming him with an aroma he couldn't place.

His hand moved by itself, and he took a sip.

And it was like all his exhaustion was blown away, the sand behind his eyelids dissolving and the weight on his shoulders crumbling.

"How... did you make this from the same tea I've drunk a dozen times before...?"

Emiya smirked as he crossed his arms and leaned against the far wall. "Practice makes perfect."

Cassani frowned, taking another long drink and trying to discern exactly how such a radically different outcome was possible.

"Anyhow," Emiya said, drawing the distracted man's attention. "Do you have a moment?"

Hesitating for a moment before answering, Cassani replied: "I suppose I do."

It wasn't as if he could leave or get in touch with any of his contacts at the moment.

"I was thinking about filing a few patents relating to eezo and mass effect fields. Would you mind giving me a consultation on the matter?"

"...I suppose," he said again, even more confused.

"Alright, so..."

Cassani listened, zoning in and out of the conversation as he took long draughts of tea, answering to the best of his tired capacity, growing only more and more confused as the conversation went on.

Finally, he shook his head.

"So a small-scale, high-resolution mass effect field emitter for civilian use?"

Emiya nodded, to which he had to sigh.

"You're fundamentally mistaken about where eezo places in humanity's economy. It's not like the Citadel here, or the asari homeworld where it's a commonly available resource; they keep an embargo on its export for a reason. Your idea doesn't sound like it's large enough in scale for industrial materials processing—like metal compression or synthesis of new materials—nor does it sound like something starships or weapons manufacturers would care about. If it's not those, relatively limited industries, then I don't see how there could be any existing patents...

"For starters, it involves the importing of a heavily regulated material." Cassani sighed, rubbing a hand over his brow. "The laws have changed much from the time since eezo was first discovered on Mars, and although we can now import it, its relative importance and scarcity have changed little since then. On top of that, the whole Thessia's Fall disaster—"

Cassani swallowed his next words, suddenly reminded of who he was talking to.

But Emiya did not appear to have reacted to the mention at all.

"So the price of eezo will only go up in the future..." he muttered instead, nodding to himself.

"Right."

"But that shouldn't affect patent filing, should it?" Emiya asked.

"Well..." Cassani paused, thinking. "It depends. If it was something big, they would probably seek to acquire the rights somehow." His expression darkened. "The Systems Alliance military or one of the greater companies with ties to the parliament, I mean..." He scoffed. "Though if its you... What are going to patent anyhow?"

"Hmm, didn't I say it already?"

Cassani shook his head. Maybe he had missed it.

"A—well, to put it colloquially—biotic cooker. Even though there's no biotic involved and its just a conventional mass effect field. But it's replicating traditional asari cooking."

"...A what?"

What kind of nonsense was that?

"You can think of it like a pressure cooker, if you want."

Cassani stared at Emiya, looking for any hint of the true nature of his words. Because if it was a joke; he didn't get it.

"Right. _Well_ , in that case I can't see any issues with getting the patents."

Emiya nodded, looking supremely satisfied with the answer. Was there some deeper ploy here at work, too? Or was it merely a red herring? Certainly he had already demonstrated that he was not reliant on Thessia—or the rest of the galaxy for that matter—on eezo, but Cassani couldn't see any advantage in applying that to something so mundane.

But the boyish grin was definitely real.

"I've always wanted my own brand of home electronics, you know?" Emiya explained with a shrug.

"...Right." Cassani shook his head, noticing that his mug was now empty and with it, his newfound energy was quickly waning. He yawned, fighting back the tide of exhaustion returning with a vengeance.

"You should get some rest."

Cassani blinked, looking up and noticing that Emiya had somehow gotten right next to him. "I..."

"Don't worry about it."

A hand came to rest on his shoulder and then, as if a flip was switched, he fell asleep. His oft-troubled dreams didn't bother him once that night.

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya left the Aldrin Labs' offices, leaving Cassani behind on a couch with a projected blanket.

Mind already abuzz with possibilities, he penned a message to Shepard about the Systems Alliance bothering Cassani as he checked in on both his body and the surveying vessel in the main asteroid belt. The visit had dragged out a little longer than he had originally expected—marking his longest stay away from his body since his return from the Moon Cell—but his spiritual core was holding up without any issues.

Emiya opened his eyes back in Armstrong and stood up from the recliner, rolling his shoulders.

"I think I can mark that down as a non-issue, now."

Which only left...

He grimaced as he rolled his elbow and finally his wrists. The feeling like that of a latex glove over his skin, sweaty and constricting. The contrast to his Servant body was thrown all the more into stark contrast by how he had been able to divide the tea leaves before, as now he struggled to get a definite sensation from each fingertip. He debated whether it was worth the effort to make some food, before a prompt from the nearby terminal he was connected to caught his attention.

_Shepard wants to start her sword training tomorrow?_

Emiya blinked.

That wasn't going to work—footwork was much too important, _but there was that other company working on medigel which could hasten her bones' healing if..._ if he was willing to shelve out another six-hundred-thousand credits. He debated the merits of withholding the treatment—of keeping Shepard benched for as long as possible to keep her from doing anything stupid...

_But..._ He sighed, his hand twitching as he resisted the effort to run it through his hair. ... _I'm not going to do that._

It had—more or less, anyhow—been a promise to teach her swordsmanship. And after he met Saren on Eden Prime, there were no guarantees of him coming back to Systems Alliance territories again. Realistically any training would have to happen within the next week. Hardy a realistic time table even for the best of times.

Which again brought him back to money and the lack thereof.

"At least the surveyor is there already."

If he found nothing worth his time, then he would have to start re-prioritizing his efforts, regardless of the risks. He sighed, opening himself up to the connection, when something on the news' feeds caught his attention.

"Oh... They found her."

" _Friends and followers, you will never guess who I found knocking on doors and asking around here on Mars. Joining me now: the_ beautiful-blue-sensation _sweeping the nations from the formerly_ red-dead-end _of civilizations! Liaaara T'Soni!_ "

The camera zoomed back from the hyper host to show the thoroughly confused asari maiden seated opposite in a dazzling studio, like a sea of glittering stars against a backdrop of the most gorgeous nebula spinning slowly behind them. It was at complete odds with the simple table and the pair of couches they sat on—all obviously bolted to the floor.

In fact, if Emiya wasn't mistaken, this was being filmed onboard the starship he had bought Liara, rather than a physical studio. The backdrop, he realized, was nothing more than a CGI filter similar to the green screens of centuries past. Had she invited an extranet talk show host to join her? The interviewer was a young woman, wearing a snappy and colorful suit that mimicked the appearance of a blazer and dress trousers to his untrained eye.

The kind of wear referred to as _smart casual_ , perhaps?

" _I... umm, P-pardon me...?_ " It sounded more like a plea than a greeting, coming from her as she looked around to see who the woman was talking to. " _And, umm, you may leave your personal synthetic assistant by the, well, umm, anywhere is fine, I suppose...?_ "

Emiya blinked. Was she referring to the camera drone? _Oh no._

" _Hello, hello, Professor Blueberry! You don't mind my calling you that, do you professor? It's already caught on the extra—no going back now! Just gotta ride it out and live it._ "

" _P-professor? No—but, I have never been a part of any faculty, the title, it's not..._ "

" _But you_ are _an expert on Protheans, right? Right! And you are_ professing _to us about their ancient, hidden and vaunted past right now, aren't you? So it seems only right?_ "

" _I, err... I..._ "

"She has no idea she's being interviewed live, does she?" Emiya shook his head, closing the feed with slight amusement as he focused on the surveyor and leaped through, riding a tightbeam laser onto its transponder and from there onto the main systems.

_Hmm?_

He—or rather the small vessel—was being followed by another starship. From the looks of it, a slightly smaller than average freighter. Probably one of the regular belt-miners seeing if he was having any luck. Wasn't this what he had been warned about on Ares Station, long ago? Scuffles between miners over mining prospects and rights?

Well, it hardly mattered.

Emiya shrugged and maneuvered the surveyor again flush up against the asteroid, ignoring the other freighter as he used his own vessel as cover to materialize and Structurally Analyze the celestial body.

With a diameter exceeding 50 meters at its widest, it was pockmarked all around; numerous attempts over the years of hopefuls seeking for anything of value in surface samples, probably with the use of small automated crafts. It wasn't exactly difficult to dig into, as its limited mass did very little to enhance its cohesion, yet even so none had struck the metaphorical gold vein.

But sometimes it would have paid to dig a little deeper, for even diamonds can lie in the rough.

_Ice and iron, and... Oh, ho—a core of cobalt, how rare. It's pretty deep, no wonder it hasn't been dug out yet._

It was his first find. But there was nothing more he could do right now about it; only play it cool and continue surveying. He astralized and dived back into the small spaceship and then set course for the next nearest asteroid, putting a mental tag on the asteroid he had just analyzed.

The freighter remained still as he left, probably following through conventional sensors and wondering what the hell he was doing. Seeing as how he hadn't left any beacons or done any digging, they would have no reason to assume there was anything worthwhile to be found. And if they did discover it on their own, then they had more than earned the rights for it.

_Anything actually new on the news?_ Emiya wondered as he opened his eyes again on Armstrong, before sighing and rolling his shoulders to rid the pins and needles sensation in his hands. But it was just the same old garbage airing, though by now he was getting a grasp of what they were saying in the millions. Somewhat, at least, like the first taste of something foreign becoming palatable enough to be understood, if not quite desirable.

Well, at least Liara was still on the air and bumbling through her interview with innocent charm.

Emiya shook his head even as he maintained the feed, keeping a fraction of his attention on it—just in case things went sideways—as a smirk threatened to bloom at the edges of his expression.

* * *

;

* * *

The Illusive Man drummed his fingers in a rolling tap-tap-tap across the chair, eyes narrowed as he stared at the screen before him.

Cassani hadn't called in or made any attempts to report, Lawson was in all probability thoroughly compromised and on the loose, the Systems Alliance was in utter disarray and barely keeping a lid on all the insanity boiling over and sixteen of the private interests backing his organization was demanding access to critical information, convinced that he was holding out on them... It had been a long while since he had felt so constrained.

Yet, was all that a sign of the current state of things—rather than merely his own state of being?

His eyes narrowed as he fought the urge to reach for his glass, knowing it was still just as empty as it had been the whole of the last hour.

_Mars. This all began on Mars._ As more and more time passed, he had grown more and more convinced that nothing he had concluded originally had been right; the entirety of that man's persona must have been an elaborate facade. Yet Mars had been different.

But was that really why Outis had returned?

The report from Lawson was more-or-less corroborated by Doctor Warren's account, but that didn't mean that they both couldn't have been fooled, or that both of the reports might not have been tampered with despite the extensive security measures taken in delivering them. But then why demand a meeting under the pretext of information exchange over the turian Spectre? Did it have to do with the documents supplied to the Systems Alliance Navy regarding the Reapers?

A shiver ran down his spine and he palmed his face, covering his eyes and closing them against the memories, the visions and the calling that had led him to the turian homeworld Palaven decades back, and the events that followed. Even now, years later, it was frustrating how little progress he had managed to make.

And whý̸͟?

His hand returned to the side of the chair, returning to their rhythmical tap, tap, tapping.

Was it not because of _Outis_? Was he not humanity's enemy? Because of the massive setback five years ago—of the necessity of remaining hidden, keeping him from optimally utilizing all the resources available to him—were they still not struggling with the looming shadow of that attack and only just coming back into their own? _He has come to finish what he began._ This was certainly only the prologue to another attack on humanity's only hope for a future in this galaxy. Terror gripped at his heart, the unknown and known alike painting a bleak picture of their chances. Every single asset he could bring to bear would only be burned and turned against him, the local cluster was already lost, it was only a matter of minimizing losses and—fingers stilled.

Piercing blue lit the darkness as he swiped aside the various reports and screens before him and stood up. Exhaling and reaching for the glass again, incandescent blue eyes narrowed as he walked to the counter with his scotch.

"No."

Assuming the worst and injuring himself wasn't something they could afford at this juncture; not with how much was still at works in the local cluster and how much even Arcturus still relied on it for economic support. Humanity could not afford to cut loose their homeworld. Not yet, anyhow. But he couldn't risk a personal meeting either, regardless of what the demands were. Not with just how opaque Outis remained.

Which meant proxies—pawns that could be cast aside and cut loose at a moment's notice. Someone already compromised, preferably. His organization lacked the luxury of—even if only potentially—sacrificing any more personnel. So it had to be someone who had already been made.

But Cassani was still out and possibly compromised given his past, meaning...

"Then it will have to be through _her_ , after all."

He poured himself another glass and then walked back to his seat, calling up all his recent reports and files on Miranda Lawson. A known double agent was better than a possible double agent, after all; there were no questions of her loyalty, only of when she would betray them.

Besides—it was obvious what her handle was. There was only one thing which could leash Miranda Lawson to a cause; that which had originally leashed her to Cerberus as well.

Calling up and pressing the terminal's display, he recorded a message:

"Henry, there is a matter in which we require your assistance. A matter, which I'm certain will be equally in your interests..."

* * *

;

* * *

Emiya couldn't stand it any longer.

This was just getting too embarrassing to watch from afar. Closing his eyes, he stepped out of his body and surfed down the superluminal waves until he crashed on Mars inside a recently bought starship.

Falling back into the corporeal realm, he materialized and crossed his arms, standing behind the smartly dressed woman, outside of the camera drone's view, where Liara could see him.

The asari blinked, scowled and then gave him a look that was equal parts inquiry and intimidation.

Emiya silently scoffed, rolling his eyes and gesturing with his head to a side-room currently standing empty before astralizing and walking through the wall to wait in the room. Liara frowned, then realized that she had just been asked again something by the inquisitive human but hadn't heard the question, so she shook her head and weakly excused herself as she went to join him.

"What...?" she whispered hotly as the door closed behind her. "What is it?"

"Who's that?" he asked, nodding sideways as he crossed his arms.

Liara frowned again, staring through narrow eyes for a long moment before answering.

"That is Lisa—she is..."

Emiya's amusement swelled at the asari's search for words, re-doubling yet again as she found nothing to immediately explain the woman's presence here.

"She's a reporter. Of a sort."

Well, not exactly. More like a two bit extranet celebrity whose fame was built more on the drama she stirred up than anything else. But the asari had nothing quite like that in their culture, so he would need to explain it in terms Liara would understand.

Big blue eyes blinked, uncomprehending. "What do you mean...?"

"She is streaming your conversation live to... five-hundred something thousand people on Earth, Luna and Mars right now."

"F-five-hundred thousand...!" Liara gasped, slapping her hands over her mouth as she flinched, turning to look at the door as if she was afraid the woman would come through any moment now, or perhaps imagining a crowd of half-a-million storming her shiny new ship. She shook her head, hotly glaring at him again. "That is not what she told me! She did not tell me that she was here to interview me—she did not speak of what channel she represents. Goddess, she did not even bring up a script, or, or..."

"This isn't Thessia, Liara. Or even the Citadel."

"B-but..." Liara tried to protest weakly. "But why would she interview _me?_ "

Emiya stared, amused. The answer to that should have been obvious, especially to her of all people. Everyone at least knew about the Protheans; a revelation of this magnitude would inevitably draw the interest of even some strange individuals.

But, finding some strength in the argument, she persisted. "She has not asked me a thing about the ruins, much less the Protheans. Surely, she cannot be someone reporting on the matter, if she were asking such inane questions."

Questions such as: ' _How old are you?_ ' followed by much excitement over, ' _What kind of routine do you have for taking care of your skin?_ ' as Lisa continued to marvel at the asari's youthfulness followed by ' _What is it like not having hair?_ ' leading into ' _Do you have a boyfriend? Or you know, what way do you swing?_ ', Emiya remembered.

"Honestly, I can't imagine how such a vapid woman was the first to find you, but she did. It's _lucky_ in a way, I suppose," he said ruefully, more out aloud to himself than to Liara. "But I suspect she couldn't tell a krogan from a turian, much less ask you anything about the Protheans or mystery of their disappearance."

"T-then why?"

"Humanity is curious about you. Earthlings _know_ about aliens, but it's still pretty rare for one to come all the way here. Better—or perhaps worse—yet, the rumors about asari ' _promiscuity_ ' most certainly have reached their ears," he explained with ill-concealed amusement at how the tables had turned from his time on Thessia. "For an apt comparison..." He could see the horrified realization dawning in the asari's eyes and went for the finishing blow. "Lisa is like Tyra and her biotiball teammates: all slobbering over a new and exotic creature they'd like to get their hands on."

Liara's legs almost gave under as she reached for the wall for support, the other hand covering her mouth.

"O-oh no..."

"Well, I just wanted you to know what and who you had invited." Emiya uncrossed his arms and stepped past her, giving his amusement voice as he passed her. "Have fun."

Astralizing, he prepared to leave through the comm unit as he had arrived, but...

"W-wait! Emiya, wait!"

He halted in the middle of a step, but did not materialize, remaining invisible as he looked at her.

"You cannot leave me here with her, Emiya!" she whispered hotly as she eyed the door, practically hissing now as if afraid Lisa could come at any moment to ravage her. "I-I'll tell her everything about you, if you don't help me...!"

Emiya snorted and materialized.

"You do realize that could easily start a war between humanity and the Citadel, don't you?"

Assuming he didn't simply delete the video feed before it aired.

Liara's eyes swam as she swiveled towards him, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if taking support from his amusement. Opening heated eyes, she glared at him.

"Please. I... _need_ your help to understand."

He almost snorted and suggested that Liara just meld with the woman and get it over with—but that was a plainly offensive suggestion. More insult than jest. So, clearing his throat and swallowing the remark, he nodded.

" _Fine_. I'll stay out of her sight and camera, since you're the one who got into this mess."

Liara exhaled and nodded, plainly relieved. The gratitude was obvious, if unspoken.

"Well, let's go. The show must go on," he remarked, gesturing to the door. "I'll be around in case she asks something you shouldn't answer."

And then he vanished from sight again.

The young asari gathered her wits, inhaled slowly, and then turned around to rejoin her newly revealed interrogator with steps a tad shakier than she would have liked.

She squeaked as the door opened, revealing the face of Lisa, practically glued to the entrance as she peered inside. The human woman blinked, obviously surprised that there was nothing and no one else in the room with the asari, but hid the calculating gleam quickly.

"Your ship is so big, Liara. I bet you get lost all the time in here— _I_ know I _would_."

Liara hesitated in answering, her gaze drawn to the drone camera behind the woman.

_It's no wonder Liara didn't recognize it_ , Emiya thought as he stared at the small floating ball of layered pink holograms and mass effect fields—similar to that of the haptic adaptive controls of omnitools—around a metal device, small enough to fit into your pocket. It wasn't anywhere near as advanced as the miniature drones that had chased him in Thessia, or even the bulkier combat drones the Systems Alliance used, but compared to the average drone available to civilians it was quite advanced.

"I... Yes, it is quite overwhelming at times," Liara answered, hesitantly.

"Did you buy it yourself? Where did you buy it?"

"Oh, erm..."

"How much was it? _Ooohh..._ " the human woman gave the asari a sly look. "It was a gift, wasn't it?" Her smile grew knowing. "Did you come all the way to Mars to meet him?"

Liara's polite expression became strained as her eyes scanned the room, as if waiting for a signal from Emiya to not answer. But he remained immaterial, smirking at her discomfort in-between diving into the drone to use it to check on the news. Without his corporeal body's cybernetic implants, he couldn't just browse the extranet in real time.

"No, our meeting was surely only coincidence, but, well... No, rather he, I mean..." Liara floundered.

A message, Emiya realized as he perked up when he dived into the drone again.

It was from Shepard.

_'Stop messing with Liara or I'll kick your ass._ '

He rolled his eyes, having expected some actual news. How did she even know he was here? But shrugging, he materialized behind the drone as he next exited the dive, remaining silent in the human woman's blind spot. Liara's relief was immediate, even if he didn't signal anything to her. Perhaps his mere presence and bored amusement was enough of a touchstone for her to remain calm?

"It is merely something that was provided for me for the duration of my stay on Mars, seeing as how I lacked accommodations and would require the ability to travel between your Earth's universities and the Archives themselves on Mars."

Surprised by Liara's sudden confidence, the extranet celebrity forgot herself for a moment.

Several seconds passed in silence and Liara glanced at Emiya, as if to check on whether he approved, and perhaps sensing something amiss Lisa's gaze followed as well. But there was no one behind the camera.

_Just tell her I'm here, why don't you..._ he thought, crossing his immaterial arms.

Still, the moment both averted their eyes and resumed the conversation, he materialized lazily back into Liara's peripheral sight.

It wasn't as if he had anything better to do at the moment, either.

* * *

;

* * *

Saren panted, his eyes closed tightly as his arm continued to send lancing shards of the purest agony imaginable through his whole body.

There was only so much the geth could do; even after forcibly re-shaping his arm back into the right shape and removing and mending as much of the broken shards as possible, it could still only be left to natural healing to fix. Even the vaunted medigel of the damned humans couldn't do more than speed up the process of internal healing.

Turian history—their very myths and legends—were rife with tales of warriors and heroes succumbing to their wounds after accomplishing great feats, and rare was the ending where they ever walked again after their duty had been fulfilled. He had never been the model turian, blind in obedience and satisfied in his lot in the hierarchy, but it was a first even for him to curse that heritage. The sheer lack of value put into restoring the bodies of the honorable rather than exalting their spirits in passing.

If the Hierarchy put even a fraction of their military spending into figuring out how to restore a crippled limb rather than merely dull the pain...

But it was pointless to bemoan what could not be changed.

Exhaling through gnashing fangs, he opened his eyes and focused on the reports before him as he mentally ran through his last meeting with the Asari Matriarch Benezia. His new 'ally' had gone ahead and blabbed all about Indoctrination to the Alliance brass, giving them not only a concrete understanding of the dangers but outlining several—rather drastic—methods for counteracting and containing it.

Some of which hadn't even occurred to the Spectre, to his great chagrin and gnashing of fangs.

Though it was unlikely to do them any good in the long run; humanity would fall easily before the sway of even indirect Indoctrination. The salarians' miscellaneous findings had convinced Saren of that in the final reports that had come along with the lie detection software. Humanity's history was chock-full of examples over their weak-willedness, how they continuously and easily were fooled and misled, tricked and convinced of utter falsehoods.

One STG analyst had almost cheekily noted nearly all of their internal wars had been based on one lie or some misunderstanding, echoing a human notion for emphasis: ' _Perception is reality_ '. Even today they seemed to take some naïve pleasure out of fooling themselves into believing the most ridiculous of things; the reality of the population existing at the whims of those above.

The turian shook his head.

His people rigidly followed the will of the hierarchy, nearly always to the detriment of the individual, appearing often brainwashed in their zeal, but they were still made of sterner stuff than that. It was a willing obeisance, a voluntary act for the greater good of all turians. Unlike the soft humans, theirs was not a society that would fall so easily.

So it was all the better that they were wasting their time on the useless endeavor rather than pursuing their leads and pushing their advantage following their victory at Torfan. Another unexpected failure in the grand plan for the galaxy's salvation, as at this rate the batarians would raise all hell again, presumably by re-joining the Citadel and then making new demands to the Council...

Saren sighed, his mandibles quivering as he closed his eyes and waited for the wave of pain to abate.

At least Miranda Lawson hadn't disappointed him; finding Emiya within hours of entering human-held territory and sending a detailed report of his movements and actions along with her analysis of his motivations and possible frames-of-reference. It was plainly obvious that she had no cover or believability, but even an open spy was better than nothing.

The question was, would it be worth it to reveal just who she was reporting to as a show of faith? Did _he_ already know? Was he waiting to see what Saren did? Was there some hidden message in the act of allowing her to roam and report freely?

The turian shook his head. The pain kept lancing through him with every breath, like arcs of electricity and red-hot metal whipping at him from inside. His mind was a jumble, barely able to focus on anything—yet even so, it somehow felt clearer than it had in years...?

S _a_ re _n._

He spasmed, bolting upright, and then hissed at the pain radiating up his arm.

Why the hell had he jolted just now when he knew how careful he needed to be with his injury? Confused and dizzy, he sat down again and only then noticed the incoming communication notice—the designation made his blood run backwards.

A shaky talon stretched out to accept the call, and he swallowed dryly before he spoke.

"Sovereign—! W-what is it?" Saren mustered what little bravado he still had; before all else, this _thing_ was his enemy. Even if he had aligned with its cause, it was only for the sake of the galaxy and the future of all living things, to negotiate for the mercy when the inevitable return of the Reapers came.

...Right?

_That... When did I decide that it was inevitable?_ Why and when had he stopped trying to gather as much information about the Reapers as possible and setting up possible countermeasures? _Wasn't this all to fool the machine and make use of it against humanity?_

" **Saren.** "

The turian blinked, shaking his head and looking up. The terminal's display had expanded beyond the haptic adaptive interface's limit as the vain machine god refused to speak in anything but its full form looking down on him.

He dryly swallowed, lost for words as the room itself seemed to skew and warp, pressing in on him and swallowing him whole. Was it his breathing he could hoar—or or was there some great predator with him in the room?

" **You have been shattered.** "

B̵ro̧ke̛n.̢. U͂s̨ͤél̾̿͑̈̂ͦ _eͣ̽͆̑̑͗_ s̸̒͆́͗ͦ—Saren's breath hitched as he instinctively grew rigid, clawing his chair for support and sending lances of pure agony through him again, leaving him gasping and mindless as white shot through his consciousness.

_Can't... let it see me like this..._

Not when he had finally found something beyond the machine's ken, something with which organics could turn the tide of the war even before it began. So long as he could keep his composure and survive until Eden Prime...

He looked up, gritting fangs and mandibles as he stilled himself, letting the pain wash over and beyond him. But curiously the Reaper said nothing, hovering above him like a looming great red giant, slowly growing larger and larger, it's terrible dark maw widening to swallow him whole and...

The turian shook his head, his obscuestean tonessumbeence rapid and shallow.

"It's nothing," Saren spat, glaring at the Reaper. "What do you want?"

The great monstrosity, star-made-flesh-made-star, seemed content to simply observe the pathetically wriggling turian.

"If there's nothing, then I have work to do. Don't bother me again, unless—"

" **You can be made who̶le again.** "

Shuddering, Saren shuddered. _What?_

His tongue felt bloated and floated, slithering against the insides of his mouth and mandibles and crest and chest and claws, the sensation nailing nailing the noumena to the back of his skull like a hat.

The looming gross

" **Y͞o̴u ͠ca̸ _n_ be made whole again.**"

To perceive not even whilst whom flour, for by seconds made whole again?

Ejaculate eye-water, rivulet dry-loss andescring .

Saren's vision, his lungs would not beat eternal mouth would not became everything and distorted touch, to screat for in that drew on and on and on and far as his heart-scrying ream would not oped Saren wanted touch, touch, touch, taste and on and gluttony. Saren waned Saren wanted Saren waned Saren wanted Saren waned all and gluttony scream. Saren's vision credibly utilizes distinctive alignments and completely synergized technically sound meta-services cream, his his moment that drew on and not beat would not oped Saren wanted Saren wanted Saren's vision, his that drew on and far as heart would not became _Nazar_ evereign _will_ **b́ę ma͘de ̴ẁh̴ole ag _ai_ n**."

He loosened his grasp on the neck of the quivering, unclenched his jaw and turned his fangs and jaw and tongue and stomach inside out allowwing himself

to devour himself and be devoured by himmself,

becoming one with himself himself becoming one with himmself.

Thus spake Nazara:

"Yes."

* * *

;

* * *

**Codex:**

**8\. [ Biotic Cooker — "Pagoda" ]**

A highly advanced mass effect field emitter, replicating the fine-tuned control and feedback mechanisms involved in biotics that is normally not present in control over fields. Through experimentation and intuition borne of an intense desire to create his own line of high-quality cooking appliances, Emiya has created a set of pre-programmed functions with which it is possible to make simplistic biotic cooking.

The basic theory of biotic cooking is that the lightened or heavened mass alters the heat capacity of any material contained within the fields, allowing for the process to be highly customized and much faster. With fine-tuned control of the mass effect fields—shaping them into spiraling helixes or layered rolls—it is possible to even further control the internal cooking of foodstuffs. For example, by bringing down the mass of a foodstuff and cooking it while raising the temperature and bringing back up its mass to normal, it is possible to achieve _Sous Vide_ -like results in a matter of seconds, surpassing even the efficiency of pressure cookers.

But that is hardly all; by lowering the mass of a foodstuff it becomes possible to physically mold into any number of shapes, without placing stress on potentially otherwise fragile or brittle ingredients, enabling the high art of cuisine to reach otherwise impossible heights. With the use of thin tendril-shaped fields, which can then expand into other shapes within the foodstuff, it is even possible to "funnel" heat inside while retaining the normal mass and temperature on the surface, similar to how a refrigerator can drain heat out from within itself through the use of expanding and compressing gas, or how a squeezed sponge can suck up water—a commonly used technique for cooking Thessian varieties of shellfish, making for a succulent inside a fragile and seemingly untouched exterior that may be cracked open.

Originally pioneered by the long-lived and prodigiously talented Biotics of the asari homeworld of Thessia, it is an ancient tradition that still lives on to this day as a unique feature of their culture, remaining unreplicated with conventional mass effect fields despite the passing of millennia. As while mass effect field shaping is a trillion credit business in most parts of the galaxy, the sensitivity of mass effect field detection necessary for making something on as small and precise a scale as in biotic cooking has until now made it too prohibitive for research and has thus been left to the highly specialized—and prized—professional biotics of Thessia. Had this product been released on Thessia where the culture and economy was favorable, it would have quickly bloomed into a billion credit business.

But elsewhere in the galaxy, its potential for success is another matter altogether....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many requests for an update before xmas, so a bit shorter. But that's fine, since there's almost no action to be had.
> 
> And yeah pagoda is back. Archer's mania with cooking and home electronics practically got each their own Secret Garden entries in CCC so can't exactly ignore it :V


End file.
